Three Moroccans among passengers of missing French Airbus, authorized sources

Three Moroccan nationals were on board the Air France Airbus A330 plane, which went missing Monday between Brazil and France with 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board, authorized sources told MAP.

   The three Moroccans are two veterinary surgeons identified as Fouad Haddour and Rajae Tazi Moukha and a veterinary technician, Ahmed Faouzi. 

   The Air France airbus, which was supposed to land on Monday at the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport by 11 a.m., local time, was carrying 73 French nationals (61 passengers and 12 crew members), 58 Brazilians and 26 Germans.

   The plane is feared to have crashed into the Atlantic after suffering an electrical failure while flying through a fierce storm, according to French officials.

   Air France's chief executive, Pierre-Henry Gourgeon said on Monday that the search area where the plane disappeared was narrowed to a zone of a few dozen nautical miles half-way between Brazil and west Africa.

   "A succession of a dozen technical messages" sent by the aircraft around 0215 GMT showed that "several electrical systems had broken down" which caused a "totally unprecedented situation in the plane," Gourgeon said.

   "It is probable that it was shortly after these messages that the impact in the Atlantic came," he told reporters.

    Gourgeon noted that the plane crossed an area of major turbulence, but declined to make a direct link between weather conditions and the messages.

MAP