( CNN ) -- Launched in 1995 , the Airbus A330-200 is the newest member of the European aircraft manufacturer 's twinjet family . The incident involves an Air France Airbus A330-200 . With a range of 12,500 km ( 6,750 nautical miles ) and the capacity to carry 253 passengers , the A330-200 is extremely well-regarded as a medium to long-range airliner . There are 600 currently in service with 82 airlines , including Air France , worldwide . Airbus has a further 300 orders for the aircraft . According to aviation expert Kieran Daly , the A330-200 is a `` reliable , ultra-modern , state-of-the-art airplane , '' with an impeccable safety record . He told CNN that there has only been one reported incident when an aircraft of this type has crashed . `` The incident took place in 1994 before the aircraft came into service , '' he said . `` It was being flown in test-mode by pilots who were putting it through some extreme maneuvers before it came down . `` Therefore the crash was not caused by the plane itself . `` It is very well-designed and well-equipped , with equally modern and reliable General Electric CF-6 engines . '' Air France has said that Flight AF 447 sent an automatic signal indicating electrical problems while going through strong turbulence early in its 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris . Why it took so long to report the aircraft missing » . However , Daly said that it would take extremely violent weather conditions to cause the catastrophic failure of an aircraft of this size . `` These planes are extremely robust and widely used on transatlantic routes and across Asia , '' he said . `` They are equipped with an array of sophisticated communication equipment , so it must have been something extremely sudden to cause the loss of contact . '' There has also been speculation that the Paris-bound flight was struck by lightning , but that should not bring down a modern airliner , former Airbus pilot John Wiley told CNN . According to Air France , the captain of Flight AF 447 had a record of 11,000 flight hours and had already flown 1,700 hours on Airbus A330/A340 aircraft . Of the two first officers , one had flown 3,000 flight hours ( 800 of which on the Airbus A330/A340 ) and the other 6,600 ( 2,600 on the Airbus A330/A340 ) . The aircraft had totaled 18,870 flight hours and went into service on 18 April 2005 . Its last maintenance check in the hangar took place on 16 April 2009 . The larger A330-300 aircraft from Airbus entered service in 1993 and has a capacity of up to 335 passengers . It too has an impressive safety record , despite a couple of incidents in the last 10 years . In August 2001 , a Canadian airliner operated by Air Transat experienced double engine failure while traveling to Portugal . Miraculously the captain was able to perform an emergency landing in the Azores by gliding the powerless plane for almost 18 minutes . Last year , an A330-303 was forced to make an emergency landing in Australia after a sudden change in altitude injured 74 passengers . Qantas Flight 72 was flying from Singapore to the western Australian city of Perth when a sudden change of altitude caused abrasions , contusions , fractures and other injuries . The cause of the sudden drop remains under investigation .
The Airbus A330-200 was launched in 1995 . There are 600 currently in service with 82 airlines , including Air France . Expert : A330-200 is reliable , ultra-modern , state-of-the-art airplane . It's the most advanced airliner ever built and it has a range of over 10,000 nautical miles ( 18,000 km ) at an average speed of Mach 2 ( 2,900 mph /