By Calvin Palmer
The pilot and crew of the Air France jet that disappeared in fierce thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday night have been named.
The pilot of Flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris was 58-year-old Marc Dubois who had been flying jets for Air France for more than 20 years.
He had more than 11,000 hours of flying time with Air France became qualified to fly the Airbus A330-200 in February 2007, since when he had flown some 1,700 hours in the aircraft.
His father, Jean-Paul Dubois, had also been an Air France pilot, and died last March at age 89.
The co-pilots aboard Flight AF 477 were David Robert, 37, and Pierre-Cedric Bonin, 32.
Bonin’s wife Isabelle, 38, a high school teacher in Bordeaux was also on board.
Air France said Flight 447 had a cabin crew of nine people, including eight French citizens and one Brazilian.
The head of the cabin crew was Anne Grimout, 49, of Ermenonville in France, She had worked for the airline for nearly 25 years.
There was no immediate information on the other cabin crew members.
All 228 people aboard the aircraft were killed when it crashed into the ocean 400 miles northeast of the Brazilian island of Fernando do Noronha.
[Based on a report by the Associated Press.]
