Oops is now an airline term

The New York Times has an article by Caroline Brothers about a missing Air France jet:

Air France said Monday that it had lost contact with a passenger plane travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. “We have received no news from flight AF 447,” said an Air France spokeswoman in Paris, Brigitte Barrand. The plane was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members, she said. Other reports said three technical personnel were also aboard.
A Brazilian Air Force spokesman, quoted by The Associated Press, said that the plane disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean and a search was under way near the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha. The plane disappeared about 186 miles northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal and near Fernando de Noronha, the spokesman said.
Initial indications were that the plane, an Airbus A330, encountered severe turbulence off the coast of Brazil, people who were briefed on the situation said Monday. They said they did not know whether this contributed to the plane’s disappearance. All jets are built to withstand severe turbulence, especially at upper flying levels.
The plane was scheduled to arrive in Paris at 9:10 a.m. local time. It disappeared off radar at 2:10 a.m. local time. The plane was operated by Air France and apparently did not share a flight code with Delta Air Lines, the American carrier that shares flights and routes with Air France. The plane had been scheduled to land at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport at 11:15 a.m. Paris time after a nonstop flight that left Rio 7 p.m. local time on Sunday.
“We are very worried,” said an aviation official in Paris interviewed by Agence France-Presse. “The plane disappeared from the screens several hours ago. It could be a transponder problem, but this kind of fault is very rare and the plane did not land when expected.”
Ms. Barrand could give no further details on when air traffic controllers had last been in contact with the cockpit during the 14-1/2 hour flight.
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, expressed his grave concern about the missing airliner and sent his transport and environment ministers to monitor the situation at the airport.