Red-eyed with tears, relatives of passengers on an Air France jet, which vanished over the Atlantic, gathered in Paris’s main airport to await news of their loved ones.

Many in a state of shock, they were ushered into a cordoned-off area of the main terminal, expecting the worse after officials said flight AF447 appeared to have had an electrical failure during a lightning storm.

Many who had intended to greet the passengers off the flight from Rio at Charles de Gaulle airport in mid-morning were instead informed that the plane had vanished off the radar screen several hours earlier.

The arrivals boards in the terminal building said AF447 had been “delayed” while messages on the public address system in French, Portuguese and English told anyone waiting for the flight to head to the arrivals desk in Terminal 2E.

Uniformed teams from Air France and the airport manning the desk refused to say how they had broken news to the relatives.

At a refreshment stand in the arrivals hall, waitresses said they had served a couple in tears. Shortly afterwards, two young women, their eyes swollen with weeping, brushed away questions by reporters, one of them saying: “Now is not the time.”

On his arrival at the airport, Transport Secretary Dominique Bussereau said he would not be sucked into “false speculation”, urging caution until the facts about the incident became clear.

“Let’s just take our time,” he said before going to meet some of the families. Air France said that it appeared that it was most likely that the plane had been hit by lightning.

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