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Details of missing Air France plane
Air France passenger plane on its way from Brazil to Paris has gone missing with 228 people on board. Here are the main characteristics of the plane.
Air France passenger plane on its way from Brazil to Paris has gone missing with 228 people on board. The aircraft is a four-year-old Airbus A330-200 wide-body jet, registered as F-GZCP, the airline said. Air France is owned by Franco-Dutch airline group Air France-KLM.
Here are the main characteristics of the plane.
AIRCRAFT DETAILS
Capacity (typical 3-class) 253 passsengers
Range (nautical miles) 6,750
(kilometres) 12,500 Missing plane entered service 2005
Aircraft type first entered service 1998
Engines Two CF6
Manufacturer General Electric
Aircraft cost (list prices, 2008) $181 million
SAFETY RECORD
If the missing passengers and crew are confirmed dead, it would be the worst accident involving an Airbus A330, according to the Flight Safety Foundation.
It would also be the first fatal accident involving the A330-200, the smaller of two variants of the wide-body jet.
Seven people were killed when an A330-300 crashed during a testing flight at the planemaker's Toulouse headquarters in France in June, 1994.
Two A330-300s were destroyed on the tarmac in an attack on Sri Lanka's international airport by Tamil Tiger rebels that left 18 people dead in July 2001.
