[UPDATES BELOW] 6:07AM EST: A French passenger aircraft carrying 228 people has disappeared off the coast of Brazil, airline officials say.

Air France told CNN the jet was traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when contact was lost.

An Air France spokeswoman told the AP, “Air France regrets to announce that it is without news from Air France flight 447 flying from Rio to Paris.”

The airline said flight AF447 was carrying 216 passengers in addition to a crew of 12. The plane is listed as an Airbus A330.

A crisis center is being set up at Charles de Gaulle where the plane had been due to land at 11.15 a.m. local time (5:15 a.m. EDT).

Reports said an air force search and rescue operation was underway around the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, 365 kilometers (226 miles) off the mainland.

UPDATE 8:05AM EST: Air France said relatives of people traveling on board flight AF 447 were being taken care of in a special area of Charles de Gaulle airport.

Air France said in a statement the plane sent an automatic message reporting an electrical short-circuit at 0214 GMT, roughly 15 minutes after flying into the turbulence.

Senior French minister Jean-Louis Borloo ruled out the possibility of a hijacking of the flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

A government source in Brazil said the plane disappeared from Brazilian radars at around 0130 GMT, about three to 3 1/2 hours into its flight. That would mean controllers lost track of the plane while it was closer to Brazil than to France.

Pilots stay in contact with traffic control across the Atlantic by radioing in their position every 20 to 30 minutes. There is no radar cover because radar can only ‘see’ along a direct line of sight.

“Anything that’s the other side of the horizon cannot be seen by radar, so once you’ve gone 200 or 300 miles off the coast, radar cannot see you any longer,” David Learmount of Flight International told Reuters. 

UPDATE 9:22AM EST: The missing Air France jet was probably struck by lightning and suffered an electrics failure as it flew through a fierce Atlantic storm, the firm said Monday.

UPDATE 9:45AM EST: “It’s going to take a long time to carry out this search,” Douglas Ferreira Machado, head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil’s Civil Aeronautics Agency, or ANAC, told Globo news. “It could be a long, sad story. The black box will be at the bottom of the sea.”

Air France-KLM CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, at a news conference in Paris, said the pilot had 11,000 hours of flying experience, including 1,700 hours flying this aircraft. No name was released.

Aviation experts said it was clear the plane was not in the air any longer, due to the amount of fuel it would have been carrying.

“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 told The Associated Press.

“I would suggest that potentially it went down very quickly and so quickly that the pilot on board didn’t have a chance to make that emergency call,” Yates said, adding that the possibilities ranged from mechanical failure to terrorism.

Airbus declined to comment until more details emerge.

UPDATE 12:40PM EST: France has asked the US military to use its network of spy satellites and listening stations to help find an Air France jet that disappeared over the Atlantic, the AFP reports.

DEVELOPING STORY…..

(Source: CNN / Fox News / Reuters / AFP / YWN-112)