Search intensifies for vanished Air France aircraft

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A man, looking for information on the Air France flight 447 that was reported missing on its way between Rio de Janeiro and Paris, is escorted by airport employees to a private room at Tom Jobim airport in Rio de Janeiro. — AP

PARIS, June 2 (AFP): Search teams hunting an Air France plane that vanished with 228 people on board were scouring remote Atlantic waters Tuesday with scant hope of finding survivors and few clues to explain the crash.
As investigators puzzled over a series of error messages sent by the jet after it hit a fierce storm, Brazilian and French spotter planes battled foul weather to sweep a patch of ocean halfway between South America and Africa.
Officials have identified a zone some 1,100 kilometres off Brazil's northeastern coast based on the last signal from Air France flight AF 447, an automatic warning of multiple electric and pressurisation failures.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and others warned there was very little hope of survivors from what appears to be the worst loss of life in Air France's history.
"The search will continue as long as necessary. All means are deployed in the area and we'll put as many assets at their disposal as necessary," French Defence Minister Herve Morin said in an interview with Europe 1 radio.
A civilian Brazilian pilot flying for TAM airlines reported seeing orange glimmers on the surface of the ocean under Senegalese airspace, but the French military's spokesman could not immediately confirm the sighting.
"We received this information at around 4.30am (0230 GMT) from a Brazilian pilot who said he'd seen faint glows on the surface, in an area consistent with the A330's last reported position," said Captain Christophe Prazuck.
Prazuck said that a French surveillance plane had flown from Cap Verde back along the missing jet's expected flightpath to its last known position.
"We didn't find anything, but the weather was terrible, with what we call a tropical convergence front," he said, describing a phenomenon in which weather fronts from the northern and southern hemispheres clash violently.
Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, whose brief includes the transport portfolio, said that if they wished the relatives of the missing passengers could be flown to the zone of the tragedy to watch the search.
US President Barack Obama pledged his country's help in the search.
A daytime search by eight Brazilian air force aircraft doing visual sweeps did not turn up anything.