Thaindian News

While Air France is yet to release a passenger name list of those onboard its ill-fated flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris that disappeared over the Atlantic ocean, some details passenger is emerging.

The 216 passengers and 12-person crew comprised citizens of 32 countries throughout Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, the United States and Canada.

The majority of those onboard the ill-fated flight AF447, which departed Brazil’s Airport do Galeao in Rio de Janeiro for the 11-hour flight to Paris, comprised Brazilians, French and Germans and including dancers, doctors, engineers, students and royalty.

Amongst those now believed dead is Prince Pedro Luis de Orleans e Braganca, 26, a member of Brazil’s now-defunct royal family and a descendant of Dom Pedro II, the nation’s last emperor,

Also onboard the flight AF447 was Irish doctor Eithne Walls, 29, who was traveling with Dr. Aisling Butler, 26, and Dr. Jane Deasy, 27, to a reunion with other friends in Rio de Janeiro.

One British victim, Alexander Bjoroy, an 11-year-old pupil at Clifton College preparatory school in Bristol, in southwest England, was returning to school after spending a half-term with his family in Brazil.

Another Briton, Arthur Coakley, had been working on an oil rig in Brazil for four weeks and was only on flight AF447 because previous departures had been changed.

The only two Americans on board were identified as Michael Harris, 60, a geologist living in Brazil and originally from Greenville, S.C., and his wife, Anne Harris, 54, originally from Lafayette, La.

Nine salesmen and one executive from CGED, an electrical materials distributor from Limoges, France, were also on the plane, along with their spouses, after winning a four-day vacation to Brazil.

French tire maker Michelin lost three executives, including two senior Brazilian managers and Christine Pieraerts, a young French engineer, the company announced.

One of the Italians on board, a former mayor in the Trentino region, was one of three officials in a humanitarian delegation to Brazil that was inaugurating a swimming pool for children with disabilities.

A large air and sea search continues in an attempt to locate the crash site, with aircraft debris including pieces of metal and an aircraft seat, having been spotted from the air by a Brazilian air force plane 650 km (400 miles) north of the islands of Fernando de Noronha off Brazil’s northern coast.