The French Jewish community has confirmed that Serge Anidjar, a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic movement, was on board Air France flight 447 which went down over the Atlantic on Monday. Anidjar, as well as the other 227 people on board the plane, all perished in the most deadly aviation crash since 2001.
Some unconfirmed reports said a second French Jewish man was on board the plane as well.
Anidjar, who was 40, had a wife and three children, the oldest of whom was 12. He was director of finance and administration at Keryus, a French software company. His Hebrew name is Shlomo ben Levi.
“They are waiting for news, for information from the government confirming any sing and saying something for sure,” Chabad emissary Michael Sojcher told Chabad.org Tuesday. “The kids are praying. They still have hope, but it’s a very hard hope,” he was quoted as saying.
As of Wednesday, authorities determined that the plane went down just over four hours into the flight from Rio de-Janeiro to Paris. Brazilian air force pilots spotted wreckage from the crash on a five kilometer stretch of the Atlantic.
Naval boats raced to the site to try and recover anything that would help investigators understand why the plane crashed. But ships reported heavy winds obstructing recovery efforts and French officials said they were “not optimistic” that rescuers could find the plane’s black boxes that contain vital flight information.
The Airbus 330’s pilots did not send any distress signals to ground control before the plane went off of radar, however the plane did send back several automatic messages signaling electrical failure and a loss of cabin pressure.
Investigators have suggested that fierce turbulence due to thunderstorms or a fatal lightning strike may have led to the crash. On the other hand, experts say that planes regularly fly through storms and are generally unaffected by lightning strikes.
French officials said Tuesday that they have not yet ruled out terrorism in the accident, but two days later no one has claimed responsibility for the deadly crash, making terrorism an unlikely suspect.
On the other hand, Argentinean media reported a week ago that an Air France flight in that South American country received a bomb threat, after which authorities detained the plane for an hour and a half while searching to make sure there was no danger.