- guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 June 2009 13.34 BST
Sunday 11.03pm BST: Flight AF447, carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members, leaves Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7.03pm local time bound for Paris on a route scheduled to take 11 hours 15 minutes.
For the first few hours of its flight the plane would have tracked the Brazilian coast heading north-east.
2.33am: Last contact made with missing plane, according to Brazilian air force.
2.48am: Plane leaves Brazilian radar, flying normally at an altitude of 35,000ft and at 453kph, according to the country's air force. At last contact, the plane is about 190 miles north-east of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal, near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha.
Planes routinely fly outside land-based radar coverage while crossing the Atlantic.
3.14am: Plane sends automated message indicating a failure in an electronic circuit.
3.20am: Attempts by Brazilian, Spanish, African and French traffic controllers to contact the plane fail. French military fails to contact the plane.
The air force begins a search this morning near Fernando de Noronha. The region is about 1,500 miles north-east of Rio.
9.52am: Paris airport official announces the plane is missing.
10.10am: Plane fails to arrive at Charles De Gaulle airport.
