An Air France plane with 228 people on board disappeared over the Atlantic on Monday after suffering multiple breakdowns in a fierce electrical storm on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Spotter planes were despatched in a bid to locate the jet in a vast area of ocean between Brazil and Africa but officials said there was little hope of survivors from what appears to be the worst air accident in over a decade. “The prospects of finding any survivors are very slim,” a grim-faced French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after talking to stunned relatives of missing passengers. “It's a catastrophe the likes of which Air France has never seen.” Although the exact cause of the crash remained a mystery, Air France's chief executive said the Airbus A330 had sent a series of error messages shortly after crossing an area of major turbulence. “A succession of a dozen technical messages” sent by the aircraft around 0215 GMT showed that “several electrical systems had broken down” which caused a “totally unprecedented situation in the plane,” said Pierre-Henry Gourgeon. “It is probable that it was shortly after these messages that the impact in the Atlantic came,” he told reporters at Charles de Gaulle airport where the flight was meant to have landed on Monday morning. Airline officials had earlier said the plane was probably hit by lightning, but Gourgeon declined to make a direct link between weather conditions and the error messages. If it is confirmed that all 228 people on Flight AF 447 are dead, it would mark the worst loss of life in Air France's history and civil aviation's worst accident for more than a decade. The Brazilian, Spanish and French air forces sent out search planes to scour a vast area of ocean between Brazil and Africa. Paris also asked Washington to use its spy satellites and listening posts to help.
