PARIS (Agencies) – An Air France plane with 228 passengers on board has gone missing, and the families of the passengers, in response to this sad news, can only hope that their loved ones find a fate similar to the passengers on the plane of the U.S. TV series “The Lost”, who survived and were stranded on an unknown island, where they struggled to stay alive.

An Air France spokesman declared Monday evening in Paris that the missing Airbus 330 plane with 228 people on board was presumed to have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, and military planes from Brazil and West Africa were searching for the wreckage.
The plane was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members. The passengers were 126 men, 82 women, seven children and one infant. There were nine cabin crew members and three pilots, the airline said.
Four hours after the flight took off at 7 p.m. local time on Sunday, the plane encountered a storm with “very heavy turbulence,” an Air France spokeswoman, Brigitte Barrand, said.
The plane disappeared from radar screens four hours and 10 minutes later, 10 minutes after the turbulence was reported.
The plane automatically sent a message informing air traffic control of electrical-system malfunction, Air France officials said in a press conference in Paris. They said there was no further communication.
The French 24 news site quoted the French Transport Minister, Jean-Louis Borloo saying the plane probably had an accident, and ruled out a hijacking.
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 Airbus 330 jets.
According to a The New York Times report Brazilian Air Force spokesman said the plane disappeared over the Atlantic near the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal.
The Airbus A330 departed from Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport, in Rio De Janeiro at 7 p.m. local time. The duration of flight was 11 hours and 15 minutes and the expected arrival time at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris was 11:10 a.m. local time.
At about 11 a.m., family members and friends of people on board the flight who were at the airport to receive their loved ones were taken to a special room, and a special unit is being set up for any inquiries regarding the flight.
If the plane is confirmed to have crashed, it would be the first time an A330 has been lost during an operational airline flight. Air France said the plane had 18,870 flight hours on the clock and went into service in April 2005. Its last underwent maintenance in a hangar in April this year.
The last major incident involving an Air France plane was in July 2000 when one of its Concorde supersonic airliners crashed just after taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, bound for New York.
All 109 people on board were killed along with at least four on the ground.
Photo: Air France's chief executive Pierre Henri Gourgeon spoke to reporters at the airline's headquarters, at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on Monday. (Bob Edme/AP)-