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From : chanceisnowhere
Added: Jun 2, 2009
One of the British victims of the Air France plane disaster was a champion performer who starred in Riverdance. Eithne Walls, from Ballygowan, Northern Ireland, was returning home from a holiday in Brazil with two friends when the A330 Airbus disappeared from radar screens. It was also revealed that an 11-year-old schoolboy Alexander Bjoroy, a pupil at from Clifton College preparatory school, was travelling back to Bristol following a half-term break in Brazil. Pilots flying a commercial jet from Paris to Rio de Janeiro for Brazil's largest airline, TAM, said they saw what they thought was fire in the ocean along the route taken by the missing plane yesterday. Brazilian Air Force spokesman Col Jorge Amaral said authorities were investigating reports. 'There is information that the pilot of a TAM aircraft saw several orange points on the ocean while flying over the region ... where the Air France plane disappeared,' Col Amaral said. 'After arriving in Brazil, the pilot found out about the disappearance (of the Air France plane) and said that he thought those points on the ocean were fire.' Mr Coakley, a design engineer, had been working in Brazil and was originally meant to fly home on May 19th, and then 27th. He was only put on this flight at the last minute. His business partner Ken Pearce said the previous flight which he had hoped to board was full. Mrs Coakley said she still thought of her husband as missing. 'He's not dead, he's missing. We have to hope that he will walk through the front door. I've been trying his phone and it's still ringing, so I have hope.' She added: 'I keep leaving messages for him, if his mobile was under the water it wouldn't keep taking the messages.' As well as the Britons and three Irish citizens there were 61 French people and 58 Brazilians on board, with at least 20 Germans and several Italians. A baby and seven children were among the passengers The spot where the jet crashed has since been pinpointed within a few dozen square nautical miles paving the way for a multi-million pound salvage operation. A massive search operation involving planes, ships and U.S. spy satellites had found no trace of the Airbus A330-200. Flight AF 447 was four hours into its journey when it left the limits of Brazilian radar coverage, 350 miles out into the Atlantic. It was flying normally at 35,000 feet and 522 mph. About half an hour later, it flew into what meteorologists called 'a thunderous zone with strong turbulence'. Fourteen minutes later, it sent an automatic message reporting the failure of an electrical circuit and a loss of cabin pressure. When the Airbus, still out of range of any land-based radar, failed to make its next scheduled position report, the search operation was launched. Planes took off from Fernando de Noronha, a string of more than 20 islands about 220 miles off the coast of Brazil. It came as French intelligence agents from the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure) prepared to travel to Brazil to investigate a possible terrorist attack Air France said today that the captain of the missing plane was 58 years-old and had worked for the airline since 1988. One of the co-pilots was 37 and had been with Air France since 1999. The other was 32 and had been with the airline since 2004. Nobody has yet explained why pilots on the flight failed to make a Mayday Call something which would have taken a couple of seconds. Announcing the latest breakthrough in the enquiry, Air France director general Pierre-Henry Gourgeon said: The catastrophe which devastated us all happened half way between the Brazilian and African coasts and the area concerned has been circled. The flight from Brazil to Paris is thought to have been hit by lightning from a tropical storm and suffered a catastrophic electrical failure. 'A succession of a dozen technical messages' showed that 'several electrical systems had broken down' which caused a 'totally unprecedented situation in the plane', said Pierre-Henry Gourgeon, chief executive of Air France . If no survivors are found it will be the worst crash since 2001 and the biggest loss of life in Air France's 75-year history. The plane had a 12-strong French crew, including three pilots led by a captain who had 11,000 hours flying experience, including 1,700 hours on the Airbus. One of the Brazilians on board was Pedro Luis de Orleans e Braganca, a direct descendant of Dom Pedro II, the last emperor of Brazil, a spokesman for the royal family told Reuters.
Category : Travel

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