An airplane pilot who was traveling through that zone had to change his route.

He also informed that there were electric storms:

"Suddenly we saw in the distance a bright intense flash of white light that fell straight down and disappeared in six seconds". This is the message from the fight 974 captain of Air Comet, which was covering the Lima-Madrid route at the same time that the Airbus of Air France went missing, he wrote in his report.

According to the pilot report, "around 01.15 UTC [solar time used by the airplanes] on June 1st, flying in a cloudless sky at FL350 [35.000 feet] we observed storms with electric activity to the east of our position". The flight in question, took off from Lima at 22:25 (Spanish time).

"Arriving in the vicinity of Cayenne [French Guayana], we encountered very active and developed cloud cover, which forced us to veer off around 30 miles to the east of the route" said the commander of the airline.

However, before this operation, the commander asked authorization to the Cayenne air traffic control station, who gave endorsement, according to the pilot report, giving clearance so that the aircraft could direct to another point located between the Cayenne and Piarco control bases.

Seven degrees north from the equator

At the time of the sighting, (the copilot and a passenger who was in the front kitchen area of the airplane also saw it), the Air Comet aircraft was located seven degrees north of the equator and at the 49th meridian West. The estimated location for the A-330-203 until the moment of its disappearance is at the equator and around the 30th meridian West

"Given the coincidence of time and place, I bring to your attention these elements so that they may be, possibly, useful in casting some light on the facts," the pilot added in his report.

Furthermore, the commander drew attention to the lack of mayday call by the wrecked airplane. "There wasn´t any communication in the emergency or air to air frequencies, neither before or after the event".

(side quote) One hypothesis is that the pilot lost control because of navigation equipment failure.

The airplanes that cover transoceanic flights have an emergency locator, which allows them to listen to any 'mayday' from another airplane since they use the same frequency. In addition, all the emergency radios usually remain open during flight. Again it seem that that an unexpected situation overcame the Airbus and prevented the crew from sending a distress call.

This newspaper got in contact with Air Comet to confirm the reported information from one of the commanders. The airline ratified the information and explained that it was sent to the Spanish Directorate General of Civil Aviation, as well as to the airplane manufacturer (Airbus) and Air France.

The last 6 alarm messages emitted from the Airbus to the maintenance center of Air France, in Paris, in scarcely 4 minutes, also have similarities with one of the phenomena that have motivated the last airplane accidents in route known as 'upset' situations, qualified as very dangerous for the pilots.

In this particular cases, the pilot lost control of the aircraft because of failures in the aircraft navigation equipment, known as inertial - utilized to navigate - because of severe turbulence. The device adopts a non-desired position (irregular), which makes it uncontrollable, to the point of coiling, turning in on itself and plumetting.

Translation by Sott.net