Search Continues for Missing Air France

Brazilian and French rescue teams continued to search Tuesday for the passengers of an Air France jet that disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean as details of Flight 447 began to emerge.

The Airbus A330 encountered heavy turbulence about 02:15 a.m. local time Monday (10:15 p.m. ET Sunday), some three hours after the jet carrying 228 people left Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for Paris, France, on an 11-hour flight, according to Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon.

At that point, the plane's automatic system initiated a four-minute exchange of messages to the company's maintenance computers, indicating "several pieces of aircraft equipment were at fault or had broken down," he told reporters.

During that time, there was no contact with the crew, Gourgeon said.

"It was probable that it was a little bit after those messages that the impact of the plane took place in the Atlantic," he added.

Reference : CNN.com