Possible debris from lost Air France flight found at sea

Ships and planes converged on the Brazilian coast Tuesday to search for wreckage of an Air France jetliner that disappeared in turbulence over the Atlantic Ocean, and officials said debris spotted floating in the water confirmed that the plane had crashed.

Brazilian government spokesmen said one of the many military aircraft involved in a search-and-rescue mission spotted the debris.

“There’s not a doubt that the debris is from the Air France plane,” said Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim.

The chance of finding survivors “is very, very small, even nonexistent,” Jean-Louis Borloo, France’s environment minister, told a radio reporter Tuesday.

Air France said it would publish a list of the 216 passengers and 12 crew today. A partial list compiled by Brazilian media using information from relatives, friends and employers matched early reports stating that those on board were predominantly Brazilian and French.

At least two Americans were also reported to be on board: Michael Harris, a geologist who worked in Rio de Janeiro for Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp., and his wife, Ann.

Harris, 60, and his wife were headed to Europe for work and vacation, a Devon spokesman said. Harris had planned to attend seminars in Barcelona, Spain, and to take time off in Paris, said the spokesman, Chip Minty.

According to unofficial lists, passengers also included Erich Heine, head of ThyssenKrupp Steel in Brazil, which is building a $3-billion factory near Rio de Janeiro; Luiz Roberto Anastacio, head of Michelin in Latin America; and Marco Mendonca, a top executive at the major iron ore producer Vale.

Pedro Luiz de Orleans e Braganca, heir to the former Brazilian royal family that has been out of power since 1889, also was thought to be on board.

A Brazilian aircraft’s radar detected the debris just after midnight Tuesday. On Monday night, a French merchant ship went to the area where a Brazilian commercial airliner’s crew had reported seeing what looked like small fires on the ocean surface, but found nothing.

Five Brazilian navy ships were scheduled to arrive in the area by Tuesday night.

The Pentagon sent a P-3 surveillance aircraft and 21-member rescue crew to assist in the search, responding to a request from the French government.

The American plane and crew arrived in Brazil from the Comalapa air base in El Salvador, where they were involved in an anti-drug mission. The French have also requested U.S. satellite imagery to assist in the search.

The Brazilian government has deployed five aircraft, including the low-flying, propeller-driven Hercules, to look for traces of the missing airliner. The coastal city of Natal, Brazil, has become the base for much of the search-and-rescue operations.

Authorities have few clues to go on. One theory is that the jet was struck by lightning. Accuweather.com reported that weather information from Fernando de Noronha island suggested that the updrafts from the thunderstorms through which the jetliner passed might have reached 100 mph, which “would lead to severe turbulence for any aircraft.”

A terrorist attack has not been ruled out, though officials seem to discount the possibility. French Defense Minister Herve Morin said “we have no signs so far” of terrorism.

The airliner’s crew had logged thousands of flying hours, and the Airbus A330 model has a good safety record.

The plane was cruising at about 30,000 feet at 500 mph when it lost contact.

France’s transportation secretary, Dominique Bussereau, said the plane sent “a kind of outburst” of automated messages just before it disappeared, “which means something serious happened, as eventually the circuits switched off.”

If the plane did crash leaving no survivors, as is feared, it would be the worst air disaster since 2003, when an Iranian airliner went down, killing 302 people.