Air France catastrophe: A day in social media

June 1st, 2009 by Apurba Sen

Filed under buzz word, Nielsen BlogPulse, social media, twitter

Possibly this Twitter tag cloud needs no explanation. Ever since the tragic Air France flight 447 carrying 228 people reported missing on Atlantic, Twitter again outperformed media. The flight took off from Rio de Janeiro at 22:03 GMT yesterday bound for Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, where it was due at 09:15GMT today. ATC had their last contact with the aircraft at about 02:00GMT, when the pilot reported severe turbulence. 15 minutes later, 7 hours before it was due in Paris, the aircraft sent an automatic error message reporting a “fault in an electronic circuit”.

From missing to a tentative crash – as the tragedy unfolded, Twitter turned into an ocean of emotions & well wishes for the passengers on board.

Bloggers joined in the coverage soon, but their attention was slightly biased towards bail out of the American icon ‘GM’. And if you are curious about the magnitude of turbulence AF 447 witnessed, here is the NASA satellite imagery around 02:45 GMT (via AV Herald)
nasa-imagery