France seeks US spy satellite data for clues to crashed plane's fate

02 June 2009

Even as search efforts have intensified in the hunt for an Air France jet that disappeared over the Atlantic with 228 people on board, relatives have apparently been told that the chances of finding survivors are "very slim." 

Authorities are still trying to determine what caused the accident.

French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, told waiting relatives at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris that "the prospects of finding any survivors are very slim".

"It's a catastrophe the likes of which Air France has never seen," he added.

If confirmed, then the loss of 228 people would be civil aviation's worst accident for more than a decade. Air France said the 216 passengers hailed from 32 countries and comprised 126 men, 82 women, seven children and a baby. There were also 12 French crew members on board.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Brazil's air force has been quoted by the official Agencia Brasil news agency as saying that a commercial aircraft pilot had spotted what appeared to be fireballs in the Atlantic along the route of the missing Airbus A330-200 jet. The location apparently matches the area where the missing Flight AF447, flying from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to Paris, France, disappeared from radar screens.