Plane crash mystery: Wife of missing Brit losing hope
- 00:01:48
- ITN
Plane crash mystery: Wife of missing Brit losing hope
Brazilian Air Force officials said teams searching for a missing Air France plane have found metal debris in the Atlantic Ocean. They have yet to confirm that the wreckage is linked to the disappearance of flight 447 off the coast of Brazil on Monday. Five Britons were among the 228 people aboard the Airbus A330 that vanished from radar screens over the Atlantic Ocean. One of the British passengers is thought to be 11-year-old Alexander Bjoroy who was a pupil at Clifton College preparatory school in Bristol. Oil worker Arthur Coakley, from Whitby, North Yorkshire, whose wife Patricia spoke to him as he waited for his flight to be called, is also believed to have been on the plane. Another oil worker, 55-year-old Graham Gardner from Gourock, Renfrewshire, was also among the passengers, his employers have announced. Three Irish women, all in their mid 20s, were also on the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. They were named locally as Aisling Butler, of Roscrea, Co Tipperary, Jane Deasy of Dublin and Eithne Walls, originally from Belfast. The three best friends, who were forging out promising careers as doctors, were returning home after a holiday in Brazil with other friends who graduated with them from Trinity College Dublin two years ago. A Welsh woman was also among the group of friends. The passenger list of 216 people included 61 French, 58 Brazilians and 26 Germans, among the 32 nationalities. The 12 crew members were all French. The airline said the list was based on information from the Brazilian authorities, adding: "Air France expresses its deepest sympathy to the relatives and friends of the passengers and crew who were on board this flight. "Air France is doing its utmost to provide support to relatives and friends: counselling with physicians and psychologists as well as specially trained Air France volunteers has been set up at the airports of Paris-Charles de Gaulle 2 and Rio de Janeiro." French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who met some of the families of those on board the plane at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, said: "I told them the truth. The prospects of finding survivors are very small." The aircraft had run into stormy weather with strong turbulence around four hours into the flight. About 15 minutes after the turbulence message, an automatic message was received from flight 447 - indicating a failure in the electrical circuit. 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 plane's route. Brazilian Air Force spokesman Col Jorge Amaral said authorities were investigating the report. He said: "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. "After arriving in Brazil, the pilot found out about the disappearance and said that he thought those points on the ocean were fire."
ITN | June 2, 2009
