LATEST: ‘228 killed’ as jet plunges into sea

A passenger jet with 228 people on board crashed into the Atlantic 200 miles from land today after a suspected lightning strike at 35,000 feet.

Air France Flight 447 was four hours into its journey from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it disappeared off Brazil's north-east coast. A major air-sea search is under way but there was "little hope" of anyone being found alive, said Air France.

The airline's chief operating officer, Pierre-Henry Gourgeon, said they were facing "a catastrophe". The Airbus A330-200 had sent an automatic message reporting an electrical short-circuit at 3.14am British time after it had flown through a stormy area with strong turbulence. That signal is the last contact from the jet. It is feared the plane suffered a catastrophic loss of power.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy was meeting the families of the passengers at Charles de Gaulle airport today. There were scenes of anguish as relatives arrived with one woman pleading: "We need news." Gordon Brown said he feared Britons were among those on board. Flight 447 took off at 11pm British time from Rio last night, and was due to arrive in Paris at 10.15 this morning — a bank holiday in France.

The Airbus A330-200 had 12 crew on board and 216 passengers — including one infant, seven children, 82 women and 126 men. The jet was last seen on radar screens over the island of Fernando de Noronha.

Airline officials said this afternoon they had "lost hope" while French government officials said "they fear the worst".

By midday, the flight was still being displayed on the arrivals board, with the word "delayed" beside it. But by 1pm the flight had been removed completely. France's minister in charge of transport, Jean-Louis Borloo, said: "We can fear the worst. There was very, very strong turbulence. For now we can't understand what happened.

"The possibility of a hijacking has been excluded. It's an awful tragedy. It's dreadful ... Until 10.45am we could still have some hope, but at this stage the kerosene reserves have been more than used up."

A police official on Fernando de Noronha said the weather was clear last night into this morning.

"It's going to take a long time to carry out this search," said Douglas Ferreira Machado, head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil's Civil Aeronautics Agency.

He added: "It could be a long, sad story. The black box will be at the bottom of the sea." Air France issued an emergency number for people concerned their relatives may have been on board — 0033 1 57 02 10 55. Gordon Brown said: "I fear there may be some British citizens on board. We are doing all the checking that is necessary."

Francois Brousse, head of communications at Air France, said: "The plane might have been struck by lightning. It's a possibility." There were at least 60 French passengers on board as well as five Italians, three Moroccans and two Libyans. "There has been no receipt of a mayday call. The conclusion to be drawn is that something catastrophic happened on board that has caused this airplane to ditch in a controlled or an uncontrolled fashion," Jane's Aviation analyst Chris Yates said. "I would suggest that potentially it went down very quickly and so quickly that the pilots on board didn't have a chance to make that emergency call," he added. Mr Gourgeon of Air France said there was "no information" of any difficulty during the last routine maintenance.

The Airbus A330-200 is a twin-engine, long-haul, medium-capacity passenger jet, and is 190 feet long. It is a shortened version of the standard A330 and can hold up to 253 passengers. Air France said the plane entered service in 2005 and last underwent maintenance on 16 April.

There have been 12 major accidents involving Air France during the company's history. One of the worst was in July 2000 when all 109 people aboard an Air France Concorde crashed on take-off at Charles de Gaulle airport, also killing four people on the ground.