'Air France Airbus A330 MISSING with 228 people on board Flight AF 447'

 An Air France plane carrying 228 people from Brazil to France has vanished over the Atlantic after a possible lightning strike, airline officials say.

Debris spotted by planes in the Atlantic is from the vanished French airliner, Brazil confirms.

The Airbus sent an automatic message at 0214 GMT, four hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro, reporting a short circuit as it flew through strong turbulence.

Flight AF 447 left Rio at 1900 local time (2200 GMT) on Sunday. It had 216 passengers and 12 crew on board, including three pilots. The passengers included 126 men, 82 women, seven children and one infant.

All details of the passengers' nationalities were not being released immediately, but it is believed that a number of Germans(26), Italians(9) and Chinese(9) are among the French people(72) and Brazilians(58) aboard.

"The plane might have been struck by lightning - it's a possibility," Francois Brousse, head of communications at Air France, told reporters in Paris.

Douglas Ferreira Machado, head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil's Civil Aeronautics Agency, said the search would take "a long time".

"It could be a long, sad story," he told Brazil's Globo news. "The black box will be at the bottom of the sea."