LiveATC Discussion Forums
Air Traffic Monitoring => Listener Forum => Topic started by: leavinonajetplane on June 01, 2009, 06:09:12 AM
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CNN breaking news reports, "Air France jet bound for Paris from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with 216 aboard, missing over Atlantic, airline confirms."
Very sad. God bless those passengers and their families in what sounds to be a tragic event.
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CNN breaking news reports, "Air France jet bound for Paris from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with 216 aboard, missing over Atlantic, airline confirms."
Very sad. God bless those passengers and their families in what sounds to be a tragic event.
Since my post, CNN has posted more:
A French passenger aircraft carrying 228 people has disappeared from radar off the coast of Brazil, airline officials say. Air France told CNN the jet was traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when it vanished.
The airline said flight AF447 was carrying 216 passengers in addition to a crew of 12.
French state radio reported a crisis center was being set up at Charles de Galle where the plane had been due to land at 11.15 a.m. local time.
Airport officials in Rio declined to comment on the incident.
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TIMES ONLINE
- Air traffic controllers lost contact with the Airbus A330-200 at 0600 GMT, eight hours after it took off from Rio de Janeiro bound for Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.
- The aircraft was due to arrive in Paris at 11.10 am (0910GMT), which means that it would have been approaching the coast of North Africa or Spain when it lost contact.
- The aircraft in question, tail number F-GZCP, came into service in February 2005.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6404837.ece
However, CNN is reporting:
Brazil's air force launched a search near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha in the Atlantic Ocean, 365 km (226 miles) from Brazil's coast, the country's state media said.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/01/air.france.brazil/index.html
REUTERS
"Air France said on Monday a plane that went missing on the way from Brazil to Paris had sent a message at 0214 GMT reporting an electrical short-circuit, after it had flown through a stormy area with strong turbulence."
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSPAB00482020090601 (http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSPAB00482020090601)
Now REUTERS reporting:
"The last radar contact with an Air France jet missing with 228 people on board was at 10:33 p.m. on Sunday/0133 GMT on Monday after it had flown past islands off Brazil's northern coast, Brazil's air force said."
I also find it hard to believe anyone, as a CNN 'expert' suggests, could land an A330 in 8-12 foot ocean swells.
BBC News:
(http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45852000/gif/_45852693_plane_crash2_466.gif)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8077437.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8077437.stm)
You can see a weather radar photo at Aviation Herald:
http://avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1&opt=1 (http://avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1&opt=1)
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Well, that is interesting! We can't exactly search the entire Atlantic for an aircraft. I think someone needs a review of non-radar procedures. There is certainly a big question as to where this aircraft was since CNN and the UK media are reporting two completely different things. From the UK article posted, they are already speculating on how the plane disappeared. It's not exactly what you want to read right now; it'll likely take years before we know anything about this aircraft. It took quite some time to figure out the EgyptAir crash in the late 1990s.
It is a shame though. The "Today" show compared this aircraft to the A320 and then went right into the Hudson River landing. The A320 and A330 are two completely aircraft, with the -330 being MUCH bigger (it is a "heavy") and it's not likely the pilot was able to land this aircraft on the water, especially since there was no distress call.
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This AF 447 should have landed in CDG at 1110 (0910 GMT) with
216 passengers n 12 crew members
!!!
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News reports 'lost radar', but isn't that going to happen anyway? Thus the reports that they the plane didn't arrive.
CBC reported this morning that the plane didn't arrive as expected. So I assumed the incident happened anywhere in the Atlantic.
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Not enough information to make any reasoned guess as to what may have happened other than teh "automated" messages as to turbulence and a possible electrical failure. Hard to beleive that a lightning strike disabled the plane, if it was indeed cruising at 35,000 feet, so it had to be a catastrophic event such as a major turbulance hit which caused immediate catastropic wing failure or an on-board explosion, or, mid-air collision........This one will not be solved unless they are able to locate wreakage of some kind and/or recover the black boxes somehow. I'm sure that authorities will scour the passenger lists and cargo list to determine if the plane was carrying any questionable passengers, or, hazardous/explosive cargo of any kind.
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News reports 'lost radar', but isn't that going to happen anyway? Thus the reports that they the plane didn't arrive.
CBC reported this morning that the plane didn't arrive as expected. So I assumed the incident happened anywhere in the Atlantic.
Or anywhere over Africa for that matter, except for over/around GVAC, which does have radar services. When they left Brazilian airspace, they're doing the position reports like how things are done over Gander/Shanwick Control for crossing the northern Atlantic. Seems to correspond with what has happened. SBRF control loses contact with the flight, scrambles some jets to look for it, they don't find it, when they leave Brazilian airspace, they are left with using position reports and ETA of reaching a given point (just like everywhere else in the world). That gives them not only their exact route, but a much narrower area to search (give/take 3 - 5 nm or however wide the airway is if they are on an airway).
Luckily, point #3 is near GVAC, so that does give them a chance..
BL.
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Im sure I am an idiot for thinking this, but if we have gps in our cars so the police and write us tickets for having unreproted accidents, why arent there gps tracking devices in aircraft, especially trans atlantic flights. I realize that trans atlantic flights dont utilize the same communication techniques as over-land handoffs, etc. but it seems to me its somewhat rediculous that they have NO idea where this plane lost electrical power/contact.
I can put a gps in my car for a few hundred dolars, but trans atlantic flights are still using compass, sextants and a 'see ya on the other side'????
This from the industry that wants to shorten the already dense 2min separation to relieve congestion.... perhaps im answering my own question here....
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Eventually that is the plan and is part of the NextGen ATC improvements. Overseas flights have a much higher separation rate depending on altitude and direction of travel.
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Comments from Miles O'Brien (http://trueslant.com/milesobrien/) (former CNN reporter and avid pilot)
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From my ISP:
http://www4.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090601/NEWS-US-FRANCE-PLANE/
"But about 4:15 a.m. Paris time, Flight 447's automatic system began a four-minute exchange of messages to the company's maintenance computers, indicating that "several pieces of aircraft equipment were at fault or had broken down," he said."
From story below:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/01/air.france.brazil/
Truly sad... :cry:
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We left Sao Paulo Guarulhos bound for Madrid Barajas, about three hours before the 477 left Rio. I did not realize bad weather on this route, probably more west of the Air France Route, I think, our Iberia IB 6824 used the UN866. Seems like the AF477 used the UN857 routing via Fernando de Noronja. Is here anyone that spotted the routings of "our" Iberia-flight?? Any response is appreciated...
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Any response is appreciated...
I understand your question but the only source I know for flight plan data of previous flights is flightaware and they only do flights that originate or end in North America.
I just saw a post on a forum that said these anomalies that get transmitted from the plane to the main computer can then be forwarded to the maintenance manager's blackberry so that by the time the jet arrives at it's destination, there's already a technician ready to take a look.
Of course this plan of action, which is commendable, has less to do with the customer and more to do with expediting maintenance to keep the plane generating revenue.
To contrast, it looks as if there was a lag of at least a few hours between the disappearance of the flight and the activation of the search and rescue and another lag in time between Air France communicating to the Brazilian Military the data information they received via computer. Just another example of how the customer gets the shaft.
Once the client is out of the revenue stream, the wheels stop turning. :evil:
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Does anyone know if was a fault with the ADIRU / ADIRS ?
and was it made by Northrop Grumman ?
Did the crew and passengers lose consciousness ?
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i can only conclude that this plane is definitely in the atlantic ocean somewhere// if this plane had indeed made it to africa, now i dont know the exact geography over there, like if they woulda been flyin over a desert or something like that, but if they did make it to africa, i dont know how someone wouldnt have noticed an airplane goin down or descending at a rapid rate.
i hope im makin sense here.
-NAplaya
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i can only conclude that this plane is definitely in the atlantic ocean somewhere// if this plane had indeed made it to africa, now i dont know the exact geography over there, like if they woulda been flyin over a desert or something like that, but if they did make it to africa, i dont know how someone wouldnt have noticed an airplane goin down or descending at a rapid rate.
i hope im makin sense here.
-NAplaya
I think it's possible they crashed in Africa, but not likely. Much of Africa is empty, it might have been missed. Hell, even if someone in Africa saw, how, and to whom, would they report it? Could've been seen by people with no means of swift communication.
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I am interested in flight reports from other flights that night in the vicinity.
Disabling lightning strike then turbulence is a logical explanation, but I am still a little unsure if lightning could disable a plane this new. And not one May Day.
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i can only conclude that this plane is definitely in the atlantic ocean somewhere// if this plane had indeed made it to africa, now i dont know the exact geography over there, like if they woulda been flyin over a desert or something like that, but if they did make it to africa, i dont know how someone wouldnt have noticed an airplane goin down or descending at a rapid rate.
i hope im makin sense here.
-NAplaya
I think it's possible they crashed in Africa, but not likely. Much of Africa is empty, it might have been missed. Hell, even if someone in Africa saw, how, and to whom, would they report it? Could've been seen by people with no means of swift communication.
There was an article in March's edition of Airways Magazine about a routine flight from the Persian Gulf to Lagos, Nigeria, and on that route, because of the lack of ATC coverage between Lagos and Cairo, they were using position reporting, like SELCAL. Only time they had ATC coverage was when contacting Lagos Tower. So they would definitely be missed over Africa. But this is why I was asking about GVAC, in the Cape Verde islands in relation to the Air Transat incident where the TSC A330 ran out of fuel. They were able to glide all the way down and make it. But from Brazil, it looks to be about a 3 hour flight from SBRF to GVAC. From FL350, wouldn't that be an airport they could make? I'm using Recife as the eastern most airport in mainland Brazil, seeing that it's close to the last point the flight reported.
BL.
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from Wikipedia:
The last verbal contact with the aircraft was at 01:33 UTC, when it was near waypoint INTOL (1°21′39″S 32°49′53″W) located 565 kilometres (351 mi) off Brazil's north-eastern coast. The crew reported that they expected to enter Senegalese-controlled airspace at waypoint TASIL (4°0′18″N 29°59′24″W) within 50 minutes, and that the aircraft was flying normally at an altitude of 35,000 feet (11,000 m) and a speed of 840 kilometres per hour (450 kn). The aircraft left Brazil Atlantic radar surveillance at 01:48 UTC. The last contact with the aircraft was at 02:14 UTC, four hours after take-off, when up to a dozen automatic ACARS messages indicated faults in various electrical systems and also a possible pressurization problem. According to Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon these faults created a "totally unprecedented situation in the plane".At that time, the assumed location of the aircraft was about 100 kilometres (54 nmi) from the waypoint TASIL, assuming that the flight had been proceeding as planned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447)
(http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/af447-0215-zoom.jpg)
from:
Air France Flight 447
A detailed meteorological analysis
by Tim Vasquez
http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/
attached:
South Atlantic Crossing Chart:
from:http://www.planningcharts.de/
http://www.planningchart.de/South-Atlantic.gif (http://www.planningchart.de/South-Atlantic.gif)
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Here is an interesting bit...
"Brazil's largest airline, TAM, released a statement late Monday saying that pilots flying one of its commercial flights from Paris to Rio spotted what they thought was fire in the ocean along the Air France jet's route."
From story below:
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090601/Brazil.Plane/
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Does anyone know if was a fault with the ADIRU / ADIRS ?
and was it made by Northrop Grumman ?
Did the crew and passengers lose consciousness ?
If you ask me, it sounds like someone is trying to speculate on a particular part made by Northrop Grumman. As of right now, nobody knows any of that information and it won't be known for some time. As for the crew and passengers, we don't know that either. While there was a report that an automated message sent from the aircraft said there might be a possible pressurization problem, we do not know to what extent, and whether or not this was actually the case. In the event of a pressurization problem, the overhead air masks would drop out to passengers and the crew would don their masks. It's not likely they lost consciousness if any sort of pressurization problem occurred, whether it was minor or explosive decompression. Usually, the accident investigation does not focus on what happened to the crew/passengers, so we'll likely never know.
Right now, it looks like the big focus is locating this aircraft. There is a large area they are looking at searching and they really need to narrow that down.
As for the Air Transat flight someone mentioned, that was a completely different scenario. The crew didn't have to deal with any sort of weather issues. Also, their problem was caused by a mechanic using the wrong part on an engine's fuel line, resulting in the aircraft dumping fuel through the engine and the crew's lack of training on the new glass cockpit. In this situation with the Air France flight, it sounds like this aircraft was disabled in some fashion, whether lightning actually did disable the aircraft or of the aircraft hit severe or even extreme turbulence. If they were in severe/extreme turbulence long enough, the aircraft may have become stressed and it is possible that one of it's surfaces failed. Given the fact that the aircraft was flying through thunderstorms, I would say it's going to be more than one issue that brought this aircraft down, as tends to be the case with these large accidents. With no mayday call, it's likely this aircraft went down quick. Of course, if the crew had to put full attention towards flying the aircraft, the may day call would only come when they had a chance. The big rule is "aviate, navigate, communicate" so communication would have come later as flying the aircraft is, of course, top priority.
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fox news just reported that what could be wreckage was found. lets see... but I have a few questions in regards to transatlantic flights... I heard some reports saying that the plane was exposed to severe turbulence for a long time... is it possible for the pilot to just try to get out of by climbing or getting off course? if they are under no atc can you just go up or go around it?
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is it possible for the pilot to just try to get out of by climbing or getting off course? if they are under no atc can you just go up or go around it?
They would need to get permission to deviate from their flight path. I think there may be some confusion caused by the media or the way some post have been written here. While there there isn't much in the way of radar coverage over the ocean, that doesn't mean that planes aren't under air traffic control. There are rules and procedures for separating aircraft over the ocean. The aircraft make position reports via high frequency radio or satellite communication for controllers to keep track of the different flights and make sure they stay separated from any traffic ahead, behind or even on crossing paths.
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It was stated on FOX News On-line that the Air Search teams spotted 2 separate debris fields 35 miles apart . Can the ocean currents separate debris that effectively in 24 hours ? Or does this indicate a possible partial break-up of the aircraft mid-air due to extreme flight condidtions or a catastrophic malfunction from Lightning ?
From Fox News :
Military pilots spotted two areas of floating debris about 35 miles apart, 410 miles beyond the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, which was located roughly along Flight 447's path from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, air force spokesman Jorge Amaral said.
"The locations where the objects were found are toward the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted," Amaral said. "That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis."
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Brief synopsis from various sources as of 6/2/09, 12:40 CDT:
No voice message was received from AF447 indicating trouble.
PIREPS (PIlot REPorts) and passenger comments from other aircraft ahead of, and behind, AF447 indicated light to moderate turbulence while transitting the area of thunderstorms where AF447 went missing/failed to check in with a postion report. The weather conditions were "normal" for this region.
A Brazil-bound TAM flight observed "orange light(s) on the ocean surface" near where AF447 went missing, but was unaware the flight was missing until after their arrival in Brazil. Although the sighting was reported, it was done so from memory and somewhat vague as to the exact position. The TAM flight observed the "light(s)" about 30 minutes after AF447 went "missing", and along the planned route.
Automated ACARS messages received from AF447 began about 02:10Z; AutoPilot disengaged, Alternate Law flight mode.
02:11Z to 02:13Z, multiple faults regarding ADIRU (Air Data and Inertial Reference Unit) and ISIS (Integrated Standby Intsruments System).
02:13Z PRIM 1 (PRImary) and SEC 1 (SECondary) computer faults.
02:14Z Cabin vertical speed advisory, last message recieved.
Reports from Brazilian Navy indicate two differnet sightings of debris about 30-60nm apart, including a "drum", orange throwable life preserverer/flotation device, "seat(s)", and oil/kerosene on water surface. Due to the multiple different languages and sources involved, the use of quotation marks indicate the "translation" into English. These sightings are in the general area where the TAM flight observed "orange light(s) on the surface".
Due to the location, helicopters are unable to reach the sights. Fixed wing aircraft are coordinating the search with ships, both naval and merchant, to search the areas.
Please excuse any non-standard phraseology contained herein; I'm not a part of the aviation community. I've been following this tragic story over the last day, and have posted only the known "facts" that I've received from various media sources, for those of us "just tuning in" to this developing tragedy.
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While reading around the Net I found this post :
The following text is quote from PPRuNe Forums. (Professional Pilots Rumour Network)
I read somewhere that Air France 447's wing touched an A320 rudder in a taxi incident prior to departure. The A320's rudder was severely damaged, but AF447's A330 wingtip was not. AF447 departed, and is now missing.
First things first: Did the taxi incident occur?
Answers to big problems or issues are often simple. Here is one possibility: AF447's wing was weakened if not visibly damaged; the airplane suffered stresses during flight via flight in turbulence; the damaged, stressed wing broke off; the airplane plummeted into the sea.
What supports this?
1. Alleged taxi incident involving A320 and AF447.
2. Alleged time delay of four minutes from altitude to impact.
3. No calls from the pilots.
4. Sudden spurt of messages sent to base: multiple system failures.
5. Item 3. and 4. indicate an inflight breakup.
6. Airplanes don't fall out of the sky for no reason.
If this is true there seems to be an incident report written-up on this and will be revealed to the media
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First things first: Did the taxi incident occur?
What happened to Flight 447?
By Miles O'Brien
"The airplane that crashed last night - tail number F-GZCP - had no accidents or incidents in its history. It went into service on April 18, 2005 and had logged 18,870 hours. In 2006, its wing collided with the tail of an Airbus A321 on the ground at Charles de Gaulle Airport - the damage was classified as "minor". It was last in the hangar on April 16, 2009 for routine maintenance. No serious squawks reported."
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5505BF20090602
SIDEBAR:
Brazilian media confirms the names of the vessels providing assistance are the:
Lexa Maersk, last reported (UTC), 2009-Jun-02 1200
Jo Cedar, 2009-Jun-02 0000,
UAL Texas, 2009-Jun-02 0000,
Stolt Inspiration ???
with the farthest just 72 kilometers (45 miles) from the crash site.
http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/air-france-flight-447-commercial/ (http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/air-france-flight-447-commercial/)
(http://www.sailwx.info/tmp/4a258891_52e7_0.png)
from: sailwx.info
http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shiplocations.phtml
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"Brazil confirms Air France jet crashed in ocean
FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil — Brazilian military planes found a 3-mile (5-kilometer) path of wreckage in the Atlantic Ocean, confirming that an Air France jet carrying 228 people crashed in the sea, Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said Tuesday."
From story below:
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090601/Brazil.Plane/
Timfish may be on to something here...I am inclined to agree that the incident with the A320 had something to do with it.
The problem is we may never know... :cry:
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Here is a pic of the ill-fated A330-203...God Rest Their Souls...
Airbus A330-203 F-GZCP (cn 660) landing at Paris - Charles de Gaulle (Roissy) (CDG / LFPG)
on May 4, 2008.
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-France/Airbus-A330-203/1371474/L/&sid=1928ad3104946f283a1b90e0469750cc
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As previously mentioned, the previous contact with another aircraft could have definitely weakened the structure of the aircraft. Anything from turbulence (actual motion of the aircraft) to excessive airflows from manuevers/winds (air pressure induced stress) could have caused failure in the wing. It all depends on the actual maintainence/inspection that took place during its last trip to the hangar. Is this just a visual inspection and check of the control services and systems? If so, that won't expose internal/developing stresses or problems.
Once again, this is all speculation and IMHO as a mechanical engineering student. We won't know what happened until the black boxes are (if ever) received.
As a side note, airliners.net won't load for me (page cannot be displayed error). Anybody else having this problem?
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As previously mentioned, the previous contact with another aircraft could have definitely weakened the structure of the aircraft. Anything from turbulence (actual motion of the aircraft) to excessive airflows from manuevers/winds (air pressure induced stress) could have caused failure in the wing. It all depends on the actual maintainence/inspection that took place during its last trip to the hangar. Is this just a visual inspection and check of the control services and systems? If so, that won't expose internal/developing stresses or problems.
Once again, this is all speculation and IMHO as a mechanical engineering student. We won't know what happened until the black boxes are (if ever) received.
As a side note, airliners.net won't load for me (page cannot be displayed error). Anybody else having this problem?
I linked to a pic on the airplane involved in my last post. It loaded fine for me... :|
Does anyone know for sure which wing took the hit from the other airplane? Not that it matters...just wondering...
I'm still thinking about the incident with the A320...
If a crack had developed in the wing spar or a rib from that incident with the A320 in 2006, it may not have even been visible. Remember United 232? Tail engine fan disc failure...the hairline crack had been in the disc since it was manufactured, and was not visible under normal inspection procedures. I linked to the Wiki page below on UA232 if anyone wants to read it...check out the "Causes" section...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
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Full disclosure: I'm not a pilot or even work in this industry (I'm a wedding photographer) but I do have a huge interest in aviation and love reading about flying/aviation. One thing I was thinking about in regards to the collision thing: I know wings structurally are made to take a lot of stress (correct me if I'm wrong) and the mesh structure inside of them can deal with A LOT of flex, but I was also under the impression that even under a massive internal structural collapse the wing was built to function. You'd have to have massive external damage to do anything to the wing? I'm not sure if I sound really stupid here, as I said, this isn't my field, just wondered! But then, I guess under enough force, anything will buckle right! :)
I'm very keen to follow this whole story. And thanks for this awesome forum and a great community of people. :)
The only stupid question is the one you never ask! :wink:
Add in violent thunderstorms, wind shifts, updrafts, downdrafts, lightning, hail...etc...
If the wing was weakend, and if the wind shifted just right, and if it was hailing...anything is possible at this point.
Accidents can never be blamed on one thing...they are a culmination of events.
We may never know what truly happend to this airplane, her crew, and pax... :cry:
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The only stupid question is the one you never ask! :wink:
Add in violent thunderstorms, wind shifts, updrafts, downdrafts, lightning, hail...etc...
If the wing was weakend, and if the wind shifted just right, and if it was hailing...anything is possible at this point.
Accidents can never be blamed on one thing...they are a culmination of events.
We may never know what truly happend to this airplane, her crew, and pax... :cry:
Right, funny how that is almost always the case with everything in life (a culmination of events). Why are planes not fitted with GPS units? From everything I've read almost everything is still radar?
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The only stupid question is the one you never ask! :wink:
Add in violent thunderstorms, wind shifts, updrafts, downdrafts, lightning, hail...etc...
If the wing was weakend, and if the wind shifted just right, and if it was hailing...anything is possible at this point.
Accidents can never be blamed on one thing...they are a culmination of events.
We may never know what truly happend to this airplane, her crew, and pax... :cry:
Right, funny how that is almost always the case with everything in life (a culmination of events). Why are planes not fitted with GPS units? From everything I've read almost everything is still radar?
Aircraft have GPS for navigation. Most modern GPS can display weather and terrain. And the ELT is kind of a GPS...more like a homing beacon. Some aircraft have satellite tv on them! As far as control, I know it's still transponder/radar based...that part of the q would be better answered by one of out ATC members...
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Right, funny how that is almost always the case with everything in life (a culmination of events). Why are planes not fitted with GPS units? From everything I've read almost everything is still radar?
An airliner such as this undoubtedly had GPS, but that doesn't necessarily tell anyone else where you are. Just like if you are lost in the woods with a GPS receiver you're going to be the only one who knows where you are. There is technology out called ADS which sends the position of the plane periodically via satellite. Overall the system works much like the way the Air France received automatic messages about the different system faults with the plane. ADS is fairly new technology and not every plane has it. There are probably even fewer air traffic control facilities that are set up to receive ADS info. I don't know about Air France specifically, but the A330's from the operators I deal with do have ADS. However given the fact that there was so much uncertainty about their location it sound like they weren't logged into anyone that was receiving their ADS position reports.
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I don't think the incident from 2006 is going to play much into this accident. It was almost 3 years ago and being that these planes fly often, at some point it would have come up under an inspection. Since Airbus has had structural failures in the past, they are subject to some more intense structural failures during certain inspections.
Since oceans are large, and we do not have a GPS system in place that works two ways (it just tells you where you are at, not you and another party), oceanic navigation is all non-radar and is based upon pilot position reports. They are required to report over certain points and then tell the controller when it expects to arrive at the next point. They still have radio communication with controllers via HF radio. The aircraft likely had a GPS unit it uses to navigate, but it would work much like the GPS unit in a car. Also, since we're dealing with different countries here, it comes down to what that country uses to track aircraft as well.
I'm not sure on ELT requirements outside of the U.S., but here in the U.S., commercial airliners are not required to be equipped with an ELT since they are scheduled flights and in contact with ATC and usually under radar coverage. If you look at Part 91 of the FARs, you'll find several exceptions to carrying an ELT. There is no standardized requirement that every U.S. registered aircraft carry an ELT. If the place was flying over water, it would need one that would be waterproof, such as an EPIRB (used on boats), that would activate as soon as it entered water. But ELTs and EPIRBs have very limited battery life, usually about 24-48 hours.
I think that they are going to have a near impossible time trying to get a lot of information on this crash.
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There is an interesting story over on Salon about it: http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2009/06/02/askthepilot322/
What's also interesting is that the Sun Newspaper (oxymoron alert) is reporting a bomb was called in for that flight the day before.. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2461858/Alex-11-named-victim-of-lost-Air-France-jet-Bomb-threat-made-to-Air-France.html
I find it totally fascinating that with all the technology in the world, we don't have a system currently in place that transmits gps data of all current trans Atlantic flights to a central system. I realize that is probably A LOT of data, and a very expensive thing to do, but man, if a A380 at capacity went down and had deviated heavily from it's FP.. scary stuff!
Thanks to for the great answers to my questions, really fascinating stuff! :D
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I find it totally fascinating that with all the technology in the world, we don't have a system currently in place that transmits gps data of all current trans Atlantic flights to a central system. I realize that is probably A LOT of data, and a very expensive thing to do, but man, if a A380 at capacity went down and had deviated heavily from it's FP.. scary stuff!
As I mentioned the system is there, it's the implementation that's the issue. Many planes still need to have the equipment installed. That would be quite a cost to the airlines both in money and probably weight. More weight of course equals more fuel which becomes more money. On the other end is the centralized system. Airlines pay for all the messages and they send via satellite, but there's a trade off. They get better air traffic service when flying over the ocean at less workload on the pilots. Also there's security issues to address. With all the fight information being sent to a single system regardless of airline, origin or destination there are going to be a lot of different companies and governments wanting a say in who can have access to all that data.
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First condolences as to the loss of life. Also the acknowledgement that speculation being just that, speculation.
Two questions:
1)Its been reported that a drum was found among the debris field. Without knowing what it contained/contains is it at all common in long haul commercial flights (or ETOPS craft) to carry drums? (pressuming this was some sort of metalic drum that was floating on surface it seems odd, but it could be the description was lost in translation). I'm sure the cargo manifest is being looked over for everything including weight since it plays a big part in structural analysis.
2) Anyone with any experience concerning positive lightening strikes? (just curious)
Comment
There are reports saying that Ocean depths may lead to never recovering the FDR/CVR: Given that Nereus very recently descended to the deepest part of the Ocean known to man and that there are at least several submersibles, including one owned by France, that can operate at or below the depths expected in this incident, hopefully the recovery wont be as 'almost impossible' as is being reported [we've come a long way from the SA 295 around 20 years ago]. This is a fairly interesting article germane to aviation and submersibles: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10057877-52.html
As for my conjecture, for what its worth at this point, weather seems to have been a factor but not an unavoidable causation.
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Well a Southwest Airlines flight was struck by lightning yesterday over California and landed safely. It did cause minor damage near the tail of the aircraft but did not affect performance, and the plane continued to its destination, I believe. Aircraft get struck by lightning from time to time, and they are designed to withstand a strike. With the Air France flight, I don't think lightning brought down this aircraft. Since investigators are leaning towards an in-flight breakup, (which explains the pressurization problem), I think we could be looking at the aircraft hit extreme turbulence and got caught in a series of strong updrafts and downdrafts. And we all know that aircraft and downdrafts do not mix (several accidents from years' past caused by the aircraft flying into a downdraft). If the aircraft did break up in-flight, something would have to be structurally weakened first, and a strong updraft or downdraft would almost certainly allow that to happen.
I believe the "drum" that was reported ended up being one of the aircraft's life rafts. The article that mentioned the "drum" was translated from a foreign language directly. Later, I believe that mentioned that it was one of the life rafts, which are packed very tightly around the CO2 canister that inflates it. They do float when not inflated (makes sense). I don't think they were actually carrying metal drums, it's not something that's carried on commercial flights, not have I ever seen an aircraft carry them. That is excluding cargo aircraft, which can basically carry anything (with several exceptions on contents). While commercial airlines do carry cargo from time to time, it's usually not in large amounts and you're usually dealing with small types of cargo (mail, parcel post, etc.).
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From: Times Online
June 4, 2009
Air France Flight 447 'may have stalled after pilot error'
"Airbus is to send advice on flying in storms to operators of its A330 jets, Le Monde reported today. It would remind crews of the need to maintain adequate thrust from the engines and the correct attitude, or angle of flight, when entering heavy turbulence."
cont'd here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6430398.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6430398.ece)
Detailing the last 4 minutes of crashed Air France flight AF447
Published 1 hour ago by ■ Michael Cosgrove ■ Digital Journal.com
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/273620 (http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/273620)
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Comment
There are reports saying that Ocean depths may lead to never recovering the FDR/CVR: Given that Nereus very recently descended to the deepest part of the Ocean known to man and that there are at least several submersibles, including one owned by France, that can operate at or below the depths expected in this incident, hopefully the recovery wont be as 'almost impossible' as is being reported [we've come a long way from the SA 295 around 20 years ago]. This is a fairly interesting article germane to aviation and submersibles: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10057877-52.html
As for my conjecture, for what its worth at this point, weather seems to have been a factor but not an unavoidable causation.
When the B52 crashed into the ocean out here last year, I didn't think they would be able to recover anything from the bottom. However the AF with the help of the Navy found a debris field and recovered at least some wreckage, but they didn't really go into much detail. That being said I think those depths were "only" about 5000 ft. Though I imagine finding the actual data and voice records of the Air France flight may be like looking for a needle in a haystack
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From: Times Online
June 4, 2009
Air France Flight 447 'may have stalled after pilot error'
"Airbus is to send advice on flying in storms to operators of its A330 jets, Le Monde reported today. It would remind crews of the need to maintain adequate thrust from the engines and the correct attitude, or angle of flight, when entering heavy turbulence."
cont'd here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6430398.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6430398.ece)
Detailing the last 4 minutes of crashed Air France flight AF447
Published 1 hour ago by ■ Michael Cosgrove ■ Digital Journal.com
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/273620 (http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/273620)
Fascinating, I'd like to see the data that got leaked to the media... From what the times said though, I don't think it's fair to say disengaging AP would lead to an air stall? They would need airspeed data wouldn't they?
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They would need airspeed data wouldn't they?
Yeah. Good point.
UPDATE:
French say Air France plane speed not known
1 hour ago
The Accident Investigation Agency says only two findings have been established.
- the series of automatic messages sent from Flight 447 were "incoherent" regarding the plane's speed.
- the plane's route Sunday night was spotted with stormy, unstable weather.
The agency warned against any "hasty interpretation or speculation" about the crash. The French newspaper Le Monde had reported, without naming sources, that the Air France plane was flying at the wrong speed.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5joGheNCY3Cf68i1JUAHWObE2tGGQD98K0EM05 (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5joGheNCY3Cf68i1JUAHWObE2tGGQD98K0EM05)
AF447 mid-air breakup evidence raises new discussions about the last signals sent to Paris
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2009/06/03/af447-mid-air-breakup-evidence-raises-new-discussions-about-the-last-signals-sent-to-paris/
The Urgent Need To Reform The FAA's Air Traffic Control System
by Robert W. Poole Jr. - Mar. 2007
Part 3, Pg 6 - Obstacles to Implementing the Next-Generation System
http://reason.org/files/7e27c68e7675e8a599716bab220978f5.pdf (http://reason.org/files/7e27c68e7675e8a599716bab220978f5.pdf)
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Pure speculation here...
Given Pilot reports on that route of "normal conditions", the fact that there was no Mayday, the fact that this is a very new plane with a very experienced crew makes a bomb less than far-fetched.
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But I will also add that a bomb going off right as the plane entered very stormy conditions is a stretch.
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I love this:
Pilot saw 'white light' where Air France flight lost
The captain of a Spanish airliner claims to have seen "an intense flash of white light" in the area where Air France Flight 447 was lost, the El Mundo newspaper said today. The co-pilot and a passenger on the Air Comet flight from Lima to Lisbon also saw the light, it said, adding that a written report from the captain has been sent on to Air France, Airbus and the Spanish civil aviation authority.
"Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up into six segments," the unidentified captain wrote.
The Air Comet flight's position at the time was at seven degrees north latitude and 49 degrees west longitude, whereas the Air France flight was estimated to be on the equator and 30 degrees west longitude, El Mundo said.
"Given the coincidence of time and place, I bring to your attention these elements so that they may be, possibly, useful in casting a light on the facts," the captain wrote.
Using the coordinates given, the distance between the two planes would have been 2,000 kilometres or the distance between Boston and Nassau, Bahamas. Captain must have darn good eye sight.
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wow... now the Brazilian government is saying that items/wreckage/oil found does not belong to AF447! my heart really goes out to the victims and their families.
* I understand that the black boxes have a "ping" how close you have to get to it to start picking it up?
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Yah, I just saw that on CNN.. this whole incident is really blizzard... That's a pretty big Aribus, you'd think they'd find something fairly easily, I wonder how far off course they deviated. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/04/plane.crash/index.html
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I love this:
Pilot saw 'white light' where Air France flight lost
The captain of a Spanish airliner claims to have seen "an intense flash of white light" in the area where Air France Flight 447 was lost, the El Mundo newspaper said today. The co-pilot and a passenger on the Air Comet flight from Lima to Lisbon also saw the light, it said, adding that a written report from the captain has been sent on to Air France, Airbus and the Spanish civil aviation authority.
"Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up into six segments," the unidentified captain wrote.
The Air Comet flight's position at the time was at seven degrees north latitude and 49 degrees west longitude, whereas the Air France flight was estimated to be on the equator and 30 degrees west longitude, El Mundo said.
"Given the coincidence of time and place, I bring to your attention these elements so that they may be, possibly, useful in casting a light on the facts," the captain wrote.
Using the coordinates given, the distance between the two planes would have been 2,000 kilometres or the distance between Boston and Nassau, Bahamas. Captain must have darn good eye sight.
Air France 447 may not have been anywhere near the debris site then. I think the observations by the pilot and passenger of Air Comet has to be used to try to triangulate a possible location to at least do a cursory search for debris.
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Based on the weather report that was issues and the location of Air Comet flight, wouldn't it make sense he had tried to navigate around / out of the storm path?
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First of all Hi I'm new!
Second, the wife of a man who was on board AF447 reported he hated to have his cell phone on and had it turned off most of the time. Well when she calls it, it rings no one picks up. I know when my cell phone is turned off it sends people to my voicemail, if the cell was underwater I wouldn't expect it to ring... what if they crashed on the ground and not in the sea.
Some of the passengers texted their loved ones and the only way that could be possible is if they were close to a place with cell towers, what are the chances this place crashed on one of the Islands in Fernando de Noronha ? I would hope that's where rescuers would look first.
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I'm going to stretch my neck out here just a wee bit, but based on the information availble at this point, here is my analysis of what happened.
Airxcraft is cruising 522 mph at 35,000 ft altitude.
Line of heavy/severe thunderstorms ahead with tops from from 40,000-50,000 ft..
Aircraft penetrates storm line.
Satellite data shows vertical updrafts of 100mph in that area. (Equates to 8800 ft/min ROC, or vertical gust load of 148 ft/sec).
Per FAR 25.341, wings and tail surfaces are designed to withstand gust loads of 66 ft/sec at sea level, lesser at altitude (due to air density factor), plus a 1.5 safety factor, but no less than 2.5 Gs, and not necessarily more than 3.8 Gs. At 35,000 ft., the gust limit would be about 30-35 ft/sec. (that's one mighty sharp jolt - been there, done that).
Doesn't take a rocket scientist, but doing the math, the aircraft encountered airloads far in excess of it's design limits, by a factor of at least two or more.
Result? In-flight structual failure. (Probably of the fuselage somewhere aft of the wing). Just my opinoin.
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Doesn't take a rocket scientist, but doing the math, the aircraft encountered airloads far in excess of it's design limits, by a factor of at least two or more.
Result? In-flight structual failure. (Probably of the fuselage somewhere aft of the wing). Just my opinoin.
I like your analysis but it scares the hell out of me to think a plane can encounter these conditions up there. Do you think an all composite wing could have made a difference here ?
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I'm going to stretch my neck out here just a wee bit, but based on the information availble at this point, here is my analysis of what happened.
Airxcraft is cruising 522 mph at 35,000 ft altitude.
Line of heavy/severe thunderstorms ahead with tops from from 40,000-50,000 ft..
Aircraft penetrates storm line.
Satellite data shows vertical updrafts of 100mph in that area. (Equates to 8800 ft/min ROC, or vertical gust load of 148 ft/sec).
Per FAR 25.341, wings and tail surfaces are designed to withstand gust loads of 66 ft/sec at sea level, lesser at altitude (due to air density factor), plus a 1.5 safety factor, but no less than 2.5 Gs, and not necessarily more than 3.8 Gs. At 35,000 ft., the gust limit would be about 30-35 ft/sec. (that's one mighty sharp jolt - been there, done that).
Doesn't take a rocket scientist, but doing the math, the aircraft encountered airloads far in excess of it's design limits, by a factor of at least two or more.
Result? In-flight structual failure. (Probably of the fuselage somewhere aft of the wing). Just my opinoin.
Based on your experience, are you surprised that the pilots entered the storm line and did not turn back?
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Line of heavy/severe thunderstorms ahead with tops from from 40,000-50,000 ft..
Aircraft penetrates storm line.
Satellite data shows vertical updrafts of 100mph in that area. (Equates to 8800 ft/min ROC, or vertical gust load of 148 ft/sec).
I thought there is a whather radar on board. is that correct? and from what I heard from an actual pilot when there are "severe" storms the radar DOES NOT recognizes the severity of these cells. if this is correct... why would a pilot enter this situation and not deviate from plotted course?
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I am hearing different things on how abnormal the weather pattern was that night for the area.
From the NYtimes:
"At AccuWeather.com, a commercial weather service, forecasters calculated that thunderstorms in the region of the crash could have generated updrafts in the range of 100 miles per hour, although Daniel G. Kottlowski, a senior meteorologist, conceded that this was not unusual weather."
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^^^
Interestingly, The Weather Channel has a very good piece regarding the weather aspect. It was posted on their site under "Today In Weather" section, Friday, June 5, 10:44 EDT. The data is indicating the weather AF447 encountered was rather MILD...
www.weather.com
P.S.: I couldn't link to the specific story, so visit TWC's home page.
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It's quite amazing how conflicting all of the reports are. Bad weather, mild weather, found wreckage, didn't find wreckage, bomb, not bomb, in storm, out of storm, low airsped, unknown airspeed.. amazing.. I think in reality, no one has a clue what is going on... and in my mind, that is more worrying than anything else.
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It's quite amazing how conflicting all of the reports are. Bad weather, mild weather, found wreckage, didn't find wreckage, bomb, not bomb, in storm, out of storm, low airsped, unknown airspeed.. amazing.. I think in reality, no one has a clue what is going on... and in my mind, that is more worrying than anything else.
People are trained by the media that they won't get attention if they say "I don't know", "It's too early to draw conclusions" or "We'll know more once we've analysed the wreckage and black boxes". What really infuriates me are the officials that report information that's later confirmed wrong.
[I like to end my rant on this topic here and turn to more constructive contributions.]
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Very Sad to hear.
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From Accuweather.com today:
Flight 447 encountered two thunderstorms prior to the crash. The first storm was south of the main cluster, and Flight 447 would have been hit by moderate to severe turbulence from that storm. A few minutes later, the aircraft entered the main cluster of explosive thunderstorms and was hit by severe turbulence. At this point, the updrafts and downdrafts would have been hitting the airplane from below and above. The severe turbulence may have started a chain of events that ultimately led to the crash of the plane.
While lightning may have been occurring at the top of the storm cluster, turbulence would have been the greater of the two weather factors that started the events. It is possible that lightning did strike the airplane during the severe turbulence, given the storms were towering to 50,000 feet.
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From Accuweather.com today:
Flight 447 encountered two thunderstorms prior to the crash. The first storm was south of the main cluster, and Flight 447 would have been hit by moderate to severe turbulence from that storm. A few minutes later, the aircraft entered the main cluster of explosive thunderstorms and was hit by severe turbulence. At this point, the updrafts and downdrafts would have been hitting the airplane from below and above. The severe turbulence may have started a chain of events that ultimately led to the crash of the plane.
While lightning may have been occurring at the top of the storm cluster, turbulence would have been the greater of the two weather factors that started the events. It is possible that lightning did strike the airplane during the severe turbulence, given the storms were towering to 50,000 feet.
I understand this to be typical weather patterns for this time of year.
I am not sure weather was the primary factor, especially if they had already encountered two storms.
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"Separately, a Spanish newspaper quotes the crew of an Iberia Airbus A340 that flew seven minutes behind AF447 on the same track. According to the crew, air traffic control failed to contact the Air France jet after 1:33 a.m. zulu in spite of trying several times. The Iberia pilots - who deviated 30 miles east from the track to circumnavigate thick clowds - then tried to get in touch with their French colleagues, too, but did not succeed either. The pilot of a Lufthansa Boeing 747-400 that had passed the region 30 minutes earlier said that he had to fly several detours to avoid heavy weather, but otherwise described the flight as routine."
"At 2:10 a.m. zulu, the autopilot was either switched off by the pilots or automatically. The function is switched off automatically if speed drops by some margin below a previously defined minimum."
Aviation weekly.
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This one's an eye-opener:
"I was reading your excellent page on Flight 447. I'm not a meteorologist but I feel like I have an interest in this case:
In April 2006, I flew on a charter flight from Fortaleza to Budapest. A half an hour or so after departure ? i.e., more or less at the location where Flight 447 went down, we suffered massive turbulence. I've experienced significant turbulence before, but this was something of a different order. I think we may eventually have stalled, because it felt like the plane just stopped, and then we suddenly took a dive ? all the women and children were screaming by this time. Fortunately, the dive ended after a minute or so. (Then the pilots took the plane up and up to a far higher altitude.)"
Andy G----
Budapest
Another good story:
Captain Paul Guidry/UAL
Marvelous analysis put together very quickly. One comment to pass along to the group: Supercooled liquid IS possible at T < -43 C. I have direct experience with this. In the 1990s I was a dropsonde scientist on the NASA DC-8. We were flying in an heavily electrified MCS over the Coral Sea during genesis of TC Oliver. We were at 11.3 km and the corrected OAT = -44 deg C. The flight crew called to our attention the fact that they were observing large liquid drops impacting the windshield. At first I discounted this b/c the windshield is heated. But minutes later having flown through the region, we lost cabin pressure. Not explosive, rather gradual, but enough that the crew was rapidly becoming hypoxic. Our leading theory was heavy rime icing of the cabin outflow valve. An emergency descent was sufficient to melt the ice and restore cabin pressure. Such heavy riming can only be accounted for by abundant supercooled water. This corroborates the windshield observation. We were also operating in a heavily electrified area (as measured by our e-field mills) which further corroborates the presence of intense updrafts lofting large amounts of water, and very likely into a very well-developed mixed phase region.
Thought this might provide some interesting commentary... and the textbooks sometimes get it wrong.
Dr. Jeff H-----
from:
http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/comments.shtml
In response to:
Air France Flight 447:
A detailed meteorological analysis
by Tim Vasquez
Revised June 4, 2009
http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/
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Why haven't military submarines been deployed to locate the pinger on the Flight Data Recorder so that deep submersibles can do their stuff ?
The accident happened 1st June, 2009
Who are they trying to fool ?
It seems they want us to believe it was a safe Aircraft A330-200.
So much hi-tech but still can't find it ?
I bet if it had a tonne of gold on it they would have found it by now...
the ADIRU was made by Honeywell according to two sources I found and not the Northrop Grumman version which caused problems on Qantas Flight 72 on October 7th, 2008 near Western Australia.
Joseph Mangan claimed he knew of a defect on the AIRBUS which could cause a catastrophic depressurization.
see here
http://markcole.wordpress.com/2007/02/05/joe-mangan-in-jail-in-austria-for-whistle-blowing/
and this one
http://web.archive.org/web/20061101075640/http://www.joe-mangan.com/
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Here is another idea...
The lines below are from the article from FOX News at the bottom.
"One theory of the crash is that the tubes feeding speed sensors may have iced over, confusing plane computers and causing the plane to fly too fast or slow in rough weather."
"The memo sent Friday says Air France has been replacing instruments known as pitot tubes and will finish in "coming weeks." It does not say when it started."
"The plane's creator, Airbus, is warning airline crews to follow standard procedures if they suspect speed indicators on their crafts are faulty, suggesting that technical malfunction may have played a role in this week's Air France crash, Reuters reported."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525181,00.html
I saw something similar to this the other day while looking at the news on my phone. This is the closest I could find to what I read on my phone...here it is in a nutshell:
The pitot tube heaters failed.
They were flying is an obviously moist environment.
The pitot tube iced over, causing erroneous readings in the cockpit.
This caused the aircraft to eventually slow, and stall.
Not my idea...just found it interesting. One of those ideas that make you scratch your chin, and say "Hmmm...". Just wanted to toss it up for debate.
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Why haven't military submarines been deployed to locate the pinger on the Flight Data Recorder so that deep submersibles can do their stuff ?
They have. The French have one en-route to the area already.
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from all the talking and speculating going around.... I get this:
under certain wheather conditions an aircraft will pretty much break apart. It sounds that these conditions occur quite frequently in certain regions.
Please someone tell me I'm wrong
because I fly couple of times per year to south America and I will be extremely concern when we get some turbulence!
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I think this topic went from "I wonder what caused it to crash" to "who can we blame and for what?" pretty quick. "It seems they want us to believe it was a safe Aircraft A330-200?" What is that supposed to mean? It's not like those aircraft drop out of the sky weekly? Actually, it's the first major Airbus A330 crash I can recall. And it is a safe aircraft. The fact that it crashed in the middle and one of the deepest parts of the Atlantic makes it pretty difficult to find an airplane. Yeah it's a big plane but the ocean is much bigger and finding a FDR/CVR on the ocean floor over 3 miles down is probably harder than finding a needle in a haystack. There is a submersible on the way to the crash site. Unfortunately boats don't travel fast so it takes time.
I've kept up with the news on this accident and read many articles since it has occurred and watched posts on here. And finally, we're getting into the time period where all the crazy ideas start blossoming. Of all of them posted here, I think the Accuweather.com article makes the most sense. Which is rare, I usually don't agree with Accuweather, however, the article makes sense given the thunderstorms that typically occur along the Equator. Those storms are rather intense, and are unlike "normal" storms that we experience here in the U.S. That is why pilots are supposed to avoid severe and extreme turbulence. It can and will cause structural damage to an aircraft. It doesn't matter if it hit a storm once or three times with strong turbulence. Yeah, maybe the aircraft hit two prior storms with strong turbulence however, once it hit the next round of turbulence, it was either stronger than the turbulence prior or just as strong and with a weakened airframe, was enough to cause structural failure. Also, given the take from another post from a dropsonde scientist with a similar experience, it actually gives the Accuweather article a better argument. We could even be looking at a severe turbulence and icing event (we'll never know if the aircraft received any icing, however, unless the FDR/CVR gets recovered and the pilots discuss icing). With such intense updrafts, massive amounts of moisture and very cold temperatures, icing could form very quickly.
While they don't know what speed the aircraft was traveling at (again, we won't know until the FDR is recovered), I think Air France's panic reaction to replacing pitot tubes on its fleet is rather premature. It costs lots of money to replace such a system and it's not just replacing a probe either. You're also replacing several aircraft instruments that depend on ram air from the pitot tubes to operate. And there's nothing new to pitot tube icing. That's why pitot tubes are heated. Yes, it's possible that the heaters failed and iced over, in which case, yes, the aircraft computers would give false readings. Even the old analog gauges would give false readings, so the computers in this case didn't cause the error.
Again, as most are saying, I think we're going to find that a series of small events occurred before the one catastrophic event occurred. I also think that, given the news we've had more recently, those small events happened rather quickly.
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Actman,
If the Spanish newspaper account is correct, an A340 (very similar plane) flew on the same track a few miles behind and a 747-400 flew 30 minutes prior. They were avoiding the darkest clouds. This appears to be standard procedure this time of year.
Questions I have:
1) Why would AF447 not communicate with the Iberia plane and air traffic control?
2) Why no Mayday or other communication?
3) Why would they fly right into a storm when other traffic that night was flying around the storms?
I believe weather was the ultimate factor, but what lead to the lack of communication and the decision (if intentional) to fly into the terrible storms? It is like a car that crashes into a tree. Yes the tree did the damage, bu what lead to the trajectory toward the tree?
I realize this is pure, and probably misinformed, speculation at this point.
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from all the talking and speculating going around.... I get this:
under certain wheather conditions an aircraft will pretty much break apart. It sounds that these conditions occur quite frequently in certain regions.
Please someone tell me I'm wrong
because I fly couple of times per year to south America and I will be extremely concern when we get some turbulence!
I would fly to Miami then take a connecting flight to Europe.
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"At least 12 airplanes shared the trans-Atlantic sky with doomed Air France Flight 447, but none reported any problems, deepening the mystery surrounding the cause of the plane's disappearance.
Airlines confirmed that at least a dozen aircraft departed roughly at the same time and traversed approximately the same route, but did not report problematic weather conditions. This has led some aviation experts to suggest that technical problems on the airplane might be the main cause of the crash, though they may have combined with weather conditions to create serious problems."
"In addition to Flight 447, Air France had four other Paris-bound flights that left in the same broad time frame from that part of the world, according to an airline spokesman. One flight left Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at 1620 hrs local time.
At that same moment, another Air France flight left nearby Sao Paulo. A third Air France flight left Buenos Aires, Argentina, at 1750 hrs, also heading for Paris. A final Air France flight left Sao Paulo at 1910 hrs., almost exactly when the doomed flight took off from Rio.
All of these flights took a similar route toward Paris, heading first toward Recife on the east coast of Brazil and then continuing northeast over the Atlantic. None of the other flights experienced anything unusual, the spokesman said. All arrived in Paris the next day, with no significant delays of any kind.
That same evening two Air Iberia flights bound for Madrid, Spain, left Brazil at about the same time as Flight 447; one departed from Rio de Janeiro and another from Sao Paulo, according to officials at Iberia. Those flights also reported no problems.
It was the same story for one British Air flight and three Air TAM Brazil flights, all of which flew routes similar to the missing plane.
Although none of the other flights are known to have reported weather problems en route, aviation experts said weather can change suddenly and vary over short distances, so one plane might experience conditions far worse than another."
Either very localized, unexpected conditions, or a serious technical malfunction. If the heater for the Pitot tube failed, the pilots may have inadverdently slowed the plane due to an incorrect plane speed reading down to the point where the auto-pilot disengaged, and it was too late to avoid the clouds or save the plane.
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Can someone tell me why GPS can't be used to get an approximate speed, or at the very least provide a backup indicator so that the pilots can sense if something is wrong with the pitot tubes?
*Edit: I googled my question and I'm a little embarrassed for asking it... didn't realize the difference between ground speed and air speed (I'm a Noob).
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Why haven't military submarines been deployed to locate the pinger on the Flight Data Recorder so that deep submersibles can do their stuff ?
I bet if it had a tonne of gold on it they would have found it by now...
As a former US submariner, I would guess that there are either some already there, or on the way. But you will never hear about it. Military submarine operations are never discussed, at least not until after the fact.
There is n better passive sonar system in the world then the one contained on a US fast attack submarine. But it is still a huge task.
The area where the plane is surmised to be contains underwater mountain ranges that make the Rockies look like the great plains. All that rock can block the sound from the pingers in the black boxes. The military submarines will be of no help other then to "hear" the pingers. There sonar is not made to bottom scan looking for objects, its made to find floating objects.
Look how long it took to find the Titanic. We probably had better information about its general location then we do about the location of the Air France flight.
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Actman,
If the Spanish newspaper account is correct, an A340 (very similar plane) flew on the same track a few miles behind and a 747-400 flew 30 minutes prior. They were avoiding the darkest clouds. This appears to be standard procedure this time of year.
Questions I have:
1) Why would AF447 not communicate with the Iberia plane and air traffic control?
2) Why no Mayday or other communication?
3) Why would they fly right into a storm when other traffic that night was flying around the storms?
I believe weather was the ultimate factor, but what lead to the lack of communication and the decision (if intentional) to fly into the terrible storms? It is like a car that crashes into a tree. Yes the tree did the damage, bu what lead to the trajectory toward the tree?
I realize this is pure, and probably misinformed, speculation at this point.
Both aircraft (A340 and B744) are much larger airplanes. While the A340 is similar to the A330, it is much larger and has two more engines. Larger airplanes can withstand more turbulence. Neither aircraft reported any major weather conditions to ATC and the Air France crew may have thought that the weather ahead wasn't too bad. It is possible that the onboard weather radar did not depict weather that was bad enough to warrant a deviation. And if that was the case, it is possible that the weather conditions diminished rapidly.
The Air France crew may not have been able to communicate with the Iberia flight. That flight may have been on a different frequency. Also, since it is controlled airspace, aircraft do not typically talk to each other. On the oceanic flights, it is a bit more common than a typical domestic flight, but not something that is commonplace.
There was no mayday because it is not the crew's first responsibility to talk to ATC. ATC does not fly the plane. If they got caught in bad weather in a hurry, their first priority is to control the airplane, not contact ATC. The common rule is "aviate, navigate, communicate." That means, fly the plane, then figure out where you are or if you know, where you need to go, then talk. From the sounds of it, and as I had mentioned in my prior post, things happened in a hurry and they may not have been able to communicate because their hands were already full. Also, if the electrical systems failed early on, then they may not have been able to communicate at all. We just don't know that information right now.
And for your last question, again we don't know. Those other aircraft did not report bad weather conditions that are beyond "normal" for that region. While they did deviate to go around some storms, perhaps their on board weather radar saw something different (maybe one end of the storm was more severe than the other). They weren't going around the "darkest clouds" they were going around a storm that didn't look so great from their perspective. Cloud color has nothing to do with severity. And again, the Air France flight may not have been aware of the other two aircraft in the area, and they may have been on a different frequency. The crew isn't concerned with the other aircraft flying in the same path as they as long as they're not going to hit each other. We just don't know if those two craft were on the same frequency or not. And the Iberia flight may have passed through that storm before it got intense. Those tropical storms can get intense in a real big hurry and with no weather radar coverage in the middle of the ocean, we don't know how intense those storms really were.
Again, I think we're looking at a combination of bad weather conditions, which led up to some technical malfunctions, then a catastrophic event occurred.
And to answer another question by another poster, given certain conditions, yes an aircraft could break apart. Those conditions are usually very very extreme and aircraft do not fly into those conditions intentionally. A few bumps or even moderate turbulence isn't going to affect a commercial airliner in a fashion where the aircraft is just going to fall apart. They are built to withstand extreme loads before they fail. And if you did find yourself in extreme turbulence, you would probably be knocked unconscious before you knew what happened. Around the Equator is a region known as the ITCZ (Inter-tropical convergence zone). This is where airmasses from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres collide and showers and thunderstorms develop. This is common, but extreme turbulence conditions don't usually occur frequently and again, aircraft avoid severe and extreme turbulence as much as possible. So I wouldn't freak out on your next flight to South America when you feel a bump or two. If aircraft flew through nasty turbulence frequently, we would be hearing about aircraft accidents weekly.
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Any UFO theories? (not intending to be sarcastic, but serious)
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Any UFO theories? (not intending to be sarcastic, but serious)
Are you actually serious?? And, no, nobody has mentioned any but it's only a matter of time now.
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Thanks Actman.
I think the possibilities are:
1). The plane suffered an electrical failure, lost control.
2). The pilots decided to go into a storm that others avoided and Pitot tubes iced or lightning strikes led to bad instrument readings and disaster.
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Look how long it took to find the Titanic. We probably had better information about its general location then we do about the location of the Air France flight.
Pardon me mhawke but I don't think Titanic was pinging like AF 447 is pinging !
Get real.
What about classified systems pinging using multiple subs to triangulate like we do with mobile phones.
Forgive me if you seem to be saying less than more.
If a military sub can't find something trying to be found then something is amiss.
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Here is a vid link from my isp...it mentions bodies and other items found. It also references the speed sensors and the autopilot...
http://www.comcast.net/video/brazil-bodies-bag-from-doomed-air-france-jet/1144360489/Comcast/1143522048/
From Vid:
"Devices on the airplanes exterior that measure airspeed had not been replaced as recommended by Airbus." (ref 46 sec mark)
This would be the pitot tubes. So as far as the A330 being "safe"...you decide...if Airbus says "Hey, change this...I don't think they work right."...wouldn't that promp changing of the item? I think the A330 is plenty safe. I wouldn't avoid flying on one.
My Captain friend (type rated on A330-300 and B747-400) had this to say about the A330-300. And I quote: "That airplane scared the shit out of me in bad weather." He said it didn't handle severe turbulence well. Take it for what it's worth...just passing it on...
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From Telegraph article:
"the automated messages have revealed that all three external air speed sensors were giving different readings for the plane's velocity, diverging by up to 35 miles per hour – leaving pilots and on-board computer confused over what information to follow. "
I have read that standard operating procedure is to engage auto-pilot during stormy weather at altitude as the margin of safety to fly the plane is too difficult for manual control. Still, the divergence is smaller than I would have thought. I am not a pilot.
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What about classified systems pinging using multiple subs to triangulate like we do with mobile phones.
Forgive me if you seem to be saying less than more.
If a military sub can't find something trying to be found then something is amiss.
Submarines are not designed nor equipped to scan the ocean floor. They are meant to scan the surface. So, no, a submarine (nor three) wouldn't help find it plus you have to take into account that this aircraft crashed into a very treacherous part of the Atlantic where extremely high underwater mountains are present. Sending in a military submarine would be another disaster waiting to happen.
Plus, mobile phones are an entirely different technology.
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I've been listening to the archives for SBRF (JUN 01, 09) at @1400Z-1430Z to try and find any ATC references to AF 447. So far the only interesting transmission I found was AA 980 traveling from SBRF to KMIA. Just after takeoff ATC instructed AA 980 to climb to FL 340, direct LICOR. AA 980 a few moments later called back and stated, "We'll have to stay a little left of course for the moment, some weather out on our right side. We'll proceed direct LICOR in about ah 20 miles"
Much of the transmissions you'll hear is in Portuguese with the exception of the AA 980 transmissions and a few others. So if you understand Portuguese this archive might be interesting to you.
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/sbrf/SBRF2-Jun-01-2009-1430Z.mp3
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From Telegraph article:
"the automated messages have revealed that all three external air speed sensors were giving different readings for the plane's velocity, diverging by up to 35 miles per hour – leaving pilots and on-board computer confused over what information to follow. "
I have read that standard operating procedure is to engage auto-pilot during stormy weather at altitude as the margin of safety to fly the plane is too difficult for manual control. Still, the divergence is smaller than I would have thought. I am not a pilot.
Per the video I linked to the autopilot was off...why?? Who knows...
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Now that we've had a chance to go through the error messages one that hasnt gotten as much attention and has struck me as odd given its nature and timing in the chain of events was the TCAS antenna fault. Hopefully someone here can shed a little light on it. I have some thoughts but as they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I've enclosed the following document that may helpful: http://www.a330jam.com/documents/systems.pdf
It does look like that previous 'drum' that was identified wasnt in fact part of the AF cargo so my previous question as to the logical explanation of it being found as part of the flight debris has been resolved. thx.
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Per the video I linked to the autopilot was off...why?? Who knows...
"At 2:10 a.m. zulu, the autopilot was either switched off by the pilots or automatically. The function is switched off automatically if speed drops by some margin below a previously defined minimum."
I would guess that the auto-pilot either reached dangerously low airspeed and automatically disengaged or was so erratic the pilots turned it off.
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From Telegraph article:
"the automated messages have revealed that all three external air speed sensors were giving different readings for the plane's velocity, diverging by up to 35 miles per hour – leaving pilots and on-board computer confused over what information to follow. "
I have read that standard operating procedure is to engage auto-pilot during stormy weather at altitude as the margin of safety to fly the plane is too difficult for manual control. Still, the divergence is smaller than I would have thought. I am not a pilot.
Per the video I linked to the autopilot was off...why?? Who knows...
It may be pressumptive but if the airspeed indicators/ADIRUs are giving differing readings might that also trigger the system to switch off autopilot regardless of manual interaction (or 'real' airspeed)?
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Nice summary article:
Air France 447: The computer crash -- The Times London
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6446268.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6446268.ece)
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Some notes I found on how the military did find a submerged plane...
The technique has paid off in the past. In 2007, the USNS Mary Sears used a towed underwater sonar to to locate the black boxes that were on board an Indonesian airliner that crashed on a domestic flight on January 1, 2007. The boxes for Adam Air Flight 574 - a Boeing 737 - were found at depths greater than 6,000 feet (1,800 meters).
http://trueslant.com/milesobrien/tag/cockpit-voice-recorder/
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Here is another article:
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090607/Brazil.Plane/
From article:
"Airbus recommended that all its airline customers replace instruments that help measure speed and altitude, known as Pitot tubes, on the A330, the model used for Flight 447, said Paul-Louis Arslanian, the head of the agency.
"They hadn't yet been replaced" on the plane that crashed, said Alain Bouillard, head of the French investigation."
And I find this odd...are there random airplane parts floating in the ocean??? :|
"A blue plane seat with a serial number on it has been recovered, but officials were still trying to confirm that it was a seat belonging to Flight 447, which disappeared in turbulent weather a week ago during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people aboard."
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Three more bodies found...that makes five so far...
http://www.comcast.net/video/brazil-finds-3-more-bodies-near-jet-crash-site/1144644206/Comcast/1143522048/
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This whole thing reminds me of CVR 603. Every time I read a report or something on here, CVR 603 goes off in my head.
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This whole thing reminds me of CVR 603. Every time I read a report or something on here, CVR 603 goes off in my head.
I agree, it's also similar to Air India 182 and somewhat of the immediate aftermath of South African Airways 295, but the airspeed discrepancy is much more reminiscent of Birgenair Flight 301, which was very similar to CVR603.
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This whole thing reminds me of CVR 603. Every time I read a report or something on here, CVR 603 goes off in my head.
I agree, it's also similar to Air India 182 and somewhat of the immediate aftermath of South African Airways 295, but the airspeed discrepancy is much more reminiscent of Birgenair Flight 301, which was very similar to CVR603.
Agreed. Very similar to Birgenair 301.
Here is the latest: A total of 15 bodies were found today, with 2 found yesterday, that's 17 so far.
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090607/Brazil.Plane/
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Has anyone considered the possibility of this aircraft flying through a supercell at approx 35,000 ft, 20,000ft below the storm top hitting baseball size hail at 700 mph. Could this smash the cabin, decompress the aircraft a systematically disintegrate it?
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No, the cabin windows can withstand much greater force than that. Plus, these storms aren't the typical Midwest storms you see in the U.S. Tropical systems rarely contain hail. And it is likely that these storms did not have hail. Of course, we don't know that, but normal tropical thunderstorms do not produce much hail. Also, supercell type thunderstorms don't usually form along the Equator. There are only a few spots in the world where supercell thunderstorms form.
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Air France Union Demands A330 Upgrades Before Flights
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a8dY0m8FTZkI
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Air France tail found; US helps hunt black boxes
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090607/Brazil.Plane/
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Air France tail found; US helps hunt black boxes
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090607/Brazil.Plane/
Very nice! You beat me to it! I was just going to link to this very story! :wink:
Disheartening to see the tail panel in the water... :cry:
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No, the cabin windows can withstand much greater force than that. Plus, these storms aren't the typical Midwest storms you see in the U.S. Tropical systems rarely contain hail. And it is likely that these storms did not have hail. Of course, we don't know that, but normal tropical thunderstorms do not produce much hail. Also, supercell type thunderstorms don't usually form along the Equator. There are only a few spots in the world where supercell thunderstorms form.
I lived in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, the other side of Africa, but not far from the equator. The summer rain season that is caused by the intercontinental convergence regularly sends marble sized hail to the ground at ground level. You have to find shelter.
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they are talking about 21/22 days till the batteries on the black boxes run out of juice. is that just for the "pinging" or after the 30 days all data is lost? lets say they don't find them in that time frame but they keep looking and are found at a later time... is the data still safe? and I know about a bunch of other variables but will loosing battery power make you loose data? sorry if I'm being redundant
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they are talking about 21/22 days till the batteries on the black boxes run out of juice. is that just for the "pinging" or after the 30 days all data is lost? lets say they don't find them in that time frame but they keep looking and are found at a later time... is the data still safe? and I know about a bunch of other variables but will loosing battery power make you loose data? sorry if I'm being redundant
The 30 days is the minimum time the box should ping to pass certification... It makes sense to listen out for pings a few days past the month.
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24 bodies found now...
"But some Air France pilots aren't waiting for a definitive answer. With investigators looking at the possibility that external speed monitors iced over and gave dangerously false readings to cockpit computers in a thunderstorm, a union is urging pilots to refuse to fly Airbus A330 and A340 planes unless the monitors — known as Pitot tubes — are replaced."
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-world/20090607/Brazil.Plane/
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FROm ACTMAN
Submarines are not designed nor equipped to scan the ocean floor. They are meant to scan the surface. So, no, a submarine (nor three) wouldn't help find it plus you have to take into account that this aircraft crashed into a very treacherous part of the Atlantic where extremely high underwater mountains are present. Sending in a military submarine would be another disaster waiting to happen.
So why is the media saying that a French Nuclear Submarine is going to look for the Black Box on Wednesday ?
Somebody has got to get their story straight.
Was the plane brought down in some JFK style plot to get rid of these HIGH PROFILE CRIME FIGHTERS look here...
Pablo Dreyfus
Ronald Dreyer
Key figures in global battle against illegal arms trade lost in Air France crash
ARGENTINA: Argentine campaigner Pablo Dreyfus and Swiss colleague Ronald Dreyer battled South American arms and drug trafficking
From Andrew McLeod
AMID THE media frenzy and speculation over the disappearance of Air France's ill-fated Flight 447, the loss of two of the world's most prominent figures in the war on the illegal arms trade and international drug trafficking has been virtually overlooked.
Pablo Dreyfus, a 39-year-old Argentine who was travelling with his wife Ana Carolina Rodrigues aboard the doomed flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, had worked tirelessly with the Brazilian authorities to stem the flow of arms and ammunition that for years has fuelled the bloody turf wars waged by drug gangs in Rio's sprawling favelas.
Also travelling with Dreyfus on the doomed flight was his friend and colleague Ronald Dreyer, a Swiss diplomat and co-ordinator of the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence who had worked with UN missions in El Salvador, Mozambique, Azerbaijan, Kosovo and Angola. Both men were consultants at the Small Arms Survey, an independent think tank based at Geneva's Graduate Institute of International Studies. The Survey said on its website that Dryer had helped mobilise the support of more than 100 countries to the cause of disarmament and development.
Buenos Aires-born Dreyfus had been living in Rio since 2002, where he and his sociologist wife worked with the Brazilian NGO Viva Rio.
"Pablo will be remembered as a gentle and sensitive man with an upbeat sense of humour," said the Small Arms Survey. "He displayed an intellectual curiosity and a determined work ethic that excited and enthused all who worked with him."
According to the International Action Network on Small Arms Control (IANSA), Dreyfus's work was instrumental in the introduction of landmark small arms legislation in Brazil in 2003. Under this legislation, an online link was created between army and police databases listing production, imports and exports of arms and ammunition in Brazil.
Dreyfus was an advocate of the stringent labelling of ammunition by weapons firms, arguing that by clearly identifying ammunition not only by its producer but also its purchaser, the likelihood of weapons being sourced by criminals from corrupt police or armed forces personnel is greatly reduced.
Though a Brazilian referendum on the right to bear arms was rejected in 2005, Viva Rio says the campaign should be considered a success because half a million weapons were voluntarily handed in to the authorities. Anti-gun activists put the referendum defeat down to fears criminals would circumvent the law and continue to gain access to small arms the usual way - through Paraguay and other bordering countries. This was not an irrational fear: until 2004, when Paraguay bowed to Brazilian pressure, even foreign tourists were allowed to purchase small arms simply by presenting a photocopy of their identity card. Dreyfus knew that many of the weapons from the so-called tri-border area between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina were reaching Rio drug gangs.
When unidentified gunmen made off with a stash of hand grenades from an Argentine military garrison in 2006, Dreyfus deplored what he said was lax security at military depots across the world. "If a supermarket can keep control of the amount of peas it has in stock, surely a military organisation could and should be able to do the same with equal if not greater efficiency with its weapons," he said. "The key words are logisitics, control, security."
When Rio agents smashed a cell of drug traffickers who had sourced their weapons from the tri-border area, Dreyfus noted its leaders were prominent businessmen living in apartments in the plush Rio suburbs of Ipanema and São Corrado, "not in the favelas".
In a recent report posted on the Brazilian website Comunidade Segura (Safe Community), Dreyfus noted that the Brazilian arms firm CBC (Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos) had become one of the world's biggest ammunition producers by purchasing Germany's Metallwerk Elisenhutte Nassau (MEN) in 2007, and Sellier & Bellot (S&B) of the Czech Republic in March. This would not be particularly noteworthy but for the fact that CBC's exports had tapered off in recent years due to legislation restricting exports to Paraguay, arms that often found their way back into Brazil and on to the Rio drug gangs - the "boomerang effect", as Dreyfus called it. "The commercial export of weapons and ammunition from Brazil to the bordering countries stopped in 2001," wrote Dreyfus. "CBC lost commercial markets in Latin America, but Brazil won in public security."
However, manufacturers from other countries had moved in to fill the void, and before its purchase by CBC, S&B was already "one of the marks most currently apprehended" by Brazilian police. Dreyfus said that, in view of the fact the Czech Republic was bound by the EU Code of Conduct on weapons exports - which states that EU countries must "evaluate the existence of the risk that the armament can be diverted to undesirable final destinations", CBC should "consider the risk that some of these exports end up, via diversions, feeding violence in Brazil".
Though his focus was on Latin America, Dreyfus also advised the government of Mozambique and at the time of his death was preparing to do the same for the government of Angola, where stockpiles of weapons left over from the civil war continue to pose a security problem.
Dreyfus and Dreyer were on their way to Geneva to present the latest edition of the Small Arms Survey handbook, of which Dreyfus was a joint editor. It was to have been their latest step in their relentless fight against evil.
from
http://www.sundayherald.com/international/shinternational/display.var.2512885.0.0.php
and here
http://www.911oz.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=4731
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It's official... the rumor mill is all fired up.
Why are the French sending in a nuclear submarine... I have no clue. But, it's not like it's going to be able to go to extreme depths with the mountainous terrain in the area.
Plus, it's too early to get a story. But people love rumors. I highly doubt this plane was sabotaged or if terrorism was involved. As of right now, there is absolutely no evidence that would lead to that.
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It may be pressumptive but if the airspeed indicators/ADIRUs are giving differing readings might that also trigger the system to switch off autopilot regardless of manual interaction (or 'real' airspeed)?
I think you have a point. Again, per the excellent Times London article:
"The danger was illustrated only weeks later when a different model, an Airbus A319, suddenly found its instruments giving different airspeeds as it flew into Heathrow. At 6,000ft the autopilot disengaged without warning and the captain had to take manual control.
Though suspicions fell on the Adiru, no faults were found. Instead a pitot was discovered to have blockages, causing false speed readings. "
I wonder if the pilots were still hoping the auto-pilot would get them through a much worse than expected storm, when the auto-pilot suddenly dis-engaged due to pitot icing induced airspeed discrepancies, and manual control proved too turbulent. I have read the plane wreckage is a bit South of the flight path which may indicate a turn around attempt.
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From Telegraph article:
"the automated messages have revealed that all three external air speed sensors were giving different readings for the plane's velocity, diverging by up to 35 miles per hour – leaving pilots and on-board computer confused over what information to follow. "
I have read that standard operating procedure is to engage auto-pilot during stormy weather at altitude as the margin of safety to fly the plane is too difficult for manual control. Still, the divergence is smaller than I would have thought. I am not a pilot.
Looks like Miles O'Bien shed light on the margin for speed at altitude.
"At the other end of the safe speed spectrum is the sound barrier. The wings on an airliner like the A-330are not designed to break the speed of sound. Venture toward Chuck Yeager country and an airliner will begin buffeting. And as altitude increases, the sound barrier decreases -- once again the dearth of air molecules is to blame.
So you see the squeeze play as a plane flies toward the Coffin Corner: the margin between the between the high and low speed limits gets thinner and thinner along with the air.
Given its estimated weight, altitude and the outside air temperature, which also affects air density, AF 447 was flying through the eye of a speed needle only about 25 knots (28 mph) wide.
"
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Does anyone know if this flight was picked up on the Atlantic HF feeds?
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We've been flying with pitot tubes for many, many, years. Likely greater than 70 years, now. And now we're all complaining that they are "unsafe." I don't get it. The Air France pilots now won't fly aircraft equipped with pitot tubes. Well, there's not much else out there besides pitot tubes. And, what happens if the airframe ices over those sensors? Are we going to complain about that too? And what if the aircraft did encounter icing? What if it was a static port block?
I think some of these "theories" are quite ridiculous and Air France and Airbus are going insane over pitot tubes thinking that is what caused the crash and we haven't even found the aircraft yet. I'm not saying that pitot tubes don't ice over... they do. And there are ways to prevent it (pitot heat). If it happened to fail, then it's a system malfunction nobody had control over. It's not very likely that it did fail, but it's certainly possible. In the end, we don't know if it was the pitot tubes that gave false readings and then the crew reacted to the problem in the wrong way. This stuff we will not know in any certainity whatsoever until the FDR/CVR are recovered.
Of course, the media is not helping with the pitot tube stuff either. It's going to make the flying public feel unsafe because a aircraft has a pitot tube (or 5 of them) equipped on the aircraft. And again, there isn't much out there to replace them and you're not looking at just replacing the pitot tubes, you also need to replace every instrument that depeneds on ram air from the pitot. That process is long and costly. And I'm sure the crew would need specialized training on those aircraft equipped with that equipment as it is different from what they are used to flying with and troubleshooting problems would be different.
And I'm not sure what the sound barrier has to deal with here. That aircraft was probably only cruising at around .75 to .80 Mach According to the Airbus website, the A330's "typical" cruise speed is Mach 0.82 and has a max operating speed of Mach 0.86. So if someone is suggesting that the aircraft was flying too fast, I don't think that's going to be possible unless the aircraft was in a steep dive. In which case, yes it's possible the aircraft could exceed the sound barrier and since it's not designed to exceed the sound barrier, it would break apart. More realistically, the aircraft would likely break up before it reached the sound barrier.
Lastly, I don't think a airline crew is going to sit there and ponder why the auto pilot disengaged without any real reason. Their first reaction is going to be to take control of the aircraft. I don't think pilots sit there "hoping" the auto pilot will do everything for them and work flawlessly. Auto pilot is not perfect, it does fail without reason, and is not meant to take over the crew's job. While the auto pilot is engaged, the crew is busy making sure the auto pilot is doing its job by monitoring all the aircraft's instruments and systems.
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So why is the media saying that a French Nuclear Submarine is going to look for the Black Box on Wednesday ?
Somebody has got to get their story straight.
Was the plane brought down in some JFK style plot to get rid of these HIGH PROFILE CRIME FIGHTERS look here...
Pablo Dreyfus
Ronald Dreyer
You might want to flog your conspiracy theories on godlikeproductions.com
Personally, I don't see the benefit of going through every conspiracy theory that comes down the pike but I have no doubts you can find an audience.
A passenger on board of a TAM Linhas Aereas Airbus A330-200 registration PT-MVH performing flight JJ-8098 from Sao Paulo Guarulhos (Brazil) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) bound to land in Paris about 40 minutes past AF-447 , reported that they were about 4 hours into their flight, when the airplane experienced severe turbulence and began to violently shake. The pilots performed an emergency descent to get into calmer air. Only after about 30 minutes the turbulence ended. Subsequently the airplane reached Paris without further incident.
from:
Aviaton Herald
http://avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1/0022&opt=4096
Specifics on Airbus pitot tube issue:
Two incidents of note preceding AF-447:
(1) An Air France Airbus A340-300, registration F-GLZL performing flight AF-279 from Tokyo Narita (Japan) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (France), was enroute at FL310, when the airplane went through a line of thunderstorms. The captain's air speed indication suddenly dropped to 140 knots, the systems issued an alert regarding disagreeing speeds (NAV IAS DISCREPANCY), the navigation display showed a tail wind component of 250 knots. The captain released control of the airplane to the first officer and tried to switch his display from ADIRU1 to ADIRU3. 2 minutes later autopilot and autothrust disconnected and the fly by wire changed into alternate law. The crew noticed icing conditions (static air temperature [SAT] -29 degrees Centigrade) and switched anti ice including pitot heating systems from automatic to on. The speed indications became normal again and agreed again, the autoflight systems were reengaged and ATC informed of severe icing. ATC reported, that two flights had just passed the location without problems. When the crew attempted to reset and reengage ADIRU 1 two times, the system again brought the message "NAV IAS DISCREPANCY" on both attempts, although the speed data appeared consistent. The crew suspected polluted pitot tubes.
Maintenance found, that the drainage holes of all three pitot tubes had been clogged, rendering it very likely that weather combined with the clogged drainage holes caused the incident. Maintenance had reported more clogged drainage holes on A330 and A340 aircraft in the past to Airbus Industries. Airbus Industries was aware of the problems, changes had already been introduced to the pitot tubes on the A320 family, where similiar problems had occured. A modification of the A330/A340 pitot tubes was already planned by AI.
(2) An Air France Airbus A340-300, registration F-GLZN performing a flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) to New York JFK,NY (USA), encountered brief turbulence while enroute. The autoflight systems dropped offline, "NAV IAS DISCREPANCY", "NAV PRED W/S DET FAULT" and stall alerts were repeatedly issued during the following two minutes. The airplane continued to JFK without further incident. A review of the policy of retrofitting pitot tubes was recommended and authorities informed.
Air France said, that Airbus Industries had issued a recommendation to retrofit the pitot tubes in September 2007, giving the operators full freedom to decide about the implementation of the recommendation. Air France had implemented the recommendation to their A320 fleet, but did not retrofit the long range A330s and A340s due to the absence of incidents. Starting May 2008 Air France however observed the loss of air data on their A330 and A340 fleet. These incidents were discussed with Airbus Industries, who identified the problems as icing related and suggested that the modification implemented on the A320 would not resolve the icing issue. In the first quarter of 2009 laboratory tests however proved, that the new pitot tube design establishes a significant improvement over the previous design. Following a test flight Air France began to implement the retrofit of the new design pitot tubes onto their A330 and A340 fleet on April 27th 2009. Without prejudice Air France has now decided to accelerate that program to retrofit the pitot tubes on the A330/A340 fleet.
from Aviation Herald:
http://avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1&opt=4097
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We've been flying with pitot tubes for many, many, years. Likely greater than 70 years, now. And now we're all complaining that they are "unsafe." I don't get it. The Air France pilots now won't fly aircraft equipped with pitot tubes. Well, there's not much else out there besides pitot tubes. And, what happens if the airframe ices over those sensors? Are we going to complain about that too? And what if the aircraft did encounter icing? What if it was a static port block?
I understand your point. The underlying issue here is Airbus recommended they be changed for one reason or another, and they were not on this particular airframe. Now the airframe in question is in pieces on the bottom of the ocean. The "faulty" pitot tubes may have had nothing to do with the crash...they may have had everything to do with it. That remains to be seen. At this point, it's all speculation anyway.
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I actually have an ATC related question:
Quite early on there were reports that the crew reported flying through 'heavy turbulence'. This hasn't been confirmed (I'm not speaking about whether they flew through the turbulence but rather that they reported it). Presumably this would be done either via a conversation with ATC or other radio comm. I dont know of a system on the AB that allows a manual entry of such information (nor does it show on ACARs, which makes sense given its nature). Has anyone been able to confirm if in fact this message was relayed from the AC?
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Latest from Miles O'Brien:
http://trueslant.com/milesobrien/2009/06/08/the-coffin-corner-and-a-mesoscale-maw/
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Listening to BBC this morning, the spokesman for the Air France pilots union explained that the pilots would not fly any Airbus that does not have 2 of the 3 pitot tubes upgraded to the new tubes.
The reason he gave for the 2 minimum he explained was because only two of the pitot tubes had t agree for the auto-pilot to remain engaged. He assured the program that no Air France jet flew today that does not have this in place because the pilot would not fly it. He explained that the airline achieved this by using upgraded Airbuses, using B747s and B777s. Due to the challenging economic environment, they have a lot of spare capacity available.
So he implies that the pilots do not want to manually fly these planes at altitude. Miles O'Brien and other articlesnhave talked about the challenge of flying the plan at that height and even worse in bad weather.
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From ATCMAN23
Why are the French sending in a nuclear submarine... I have no clue. But, it's not like it's going to be able to go to extreme depths with the mountainous terrain in the area.
Well maybe if you listen and read you will learn!
Submarine begins search for Air France jet's black boxes
Last Updated: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 | 8:30 AM ET
CBC News
Brazilian air force officials work in the search-and-rescue operation centre at CINDACTA III Air Force base in Recife in northeastern Brazil on Tuesday. (Roberto Candia/Associated Press)
A French nuclear submarine arrived at the debris field of crashed Air France Flight 447 on Wednesday to begin searching the depths of the Atlantic Ocean for the plane's two black boxes, which should hold clues to the disaster.
The Emeraude sub will be able to trawl patches of about 35 square kilometres per day, said French armed forces spokesman Christophe Prazuck.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/06/10/air-france-sub-black-box-search375.html
We should be asking questions....
Did the recovered bodies show signs of collision trauma ?
Did the recovered bodies have ear-drum damage ? showing signs of rapid
depressurisation.
Did the bodies have broken bones or no broken bones ?
Did the bodies have bruising (which would be suggestive of collision trauma).
Are they going to be very careful and store the bodies in icy cold water
to allow a more detailed forensic analysis of the cause of death.
More information will be derived from a frozen body than from a warm body because a warm body will undergo rapid decomposition.
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Sounds like you want an answer at the end of today. All of those questions you are asking will take lots of time to find out. Also, since I noticed you are new here.. you'll want to be careful about your comments otherwise the admins will lock out the topic.
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Latest from Miles O'Brien:
http://trueslant.com/milesobrien/2009/06/08/the-coffin-corner-and-a-mesoscale-maw/
I think he is not so subtly hinting at this being a repeat of sorts of Southern Airways Flight 242.
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Terror Names Linked To Doomed Flight AF 447
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Terror-Names-Linked-To-Doomed-Flight-AF-447-Two-Passengers-Shared-Names-Of-Radical-Muslims/Article/200906215300405?lpos=World_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15300405_Terror_Names_Linked_To_Doomed_Flight_AF_447%3A_Two_Passengers_Shared_Names_Of_Radical_Muslims
Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it has emerged.
Air France debris on board a Brazilian Navy vessel
Debris from Air France flight AF 447 has been recovered from the Atlantic
French secret servicemen established the connection while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31.
Flight AF 447 crashed in the mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm.
While it is certain there were computer malfunctions, terrorism has not been ruled out.
Air France Crash
Soon after news of the fatal crash broke, agents working for the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure), the French equivalent of MI6, were dispatched to Brazil.
It was there that they established that two names on the passenger list are also on highly-classified documents listing the names of radical Muslims considered a threat to the French Republic.
A source working for the French security services told Paris weekly L'Express that the link was "highly significant".
Agents are now trying to establish dates of birth for the two dead passengers, and family connections.
There is a possibility the name similarities are simply a "macabre coincidence", the source added, but the revelation is still being "taken very seriously".
France has received numerous threats from Islamic terrorist groups in recent months, especially since French troops were sent to fight in Afghanistan.
Security chiefs have been particularly worried about airborne suicide attacks similar to the ones on the US on September 11, 2001.
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Terror Connection Unlikely In Crash
Despite recent unsourced reports, investigators downplay possibility of terrorism in the crash of Air France Flight 447.
"Two U.S. officials familiar with the investigation into the flight's disappearance say that French authorities had shared the suspicious names from the airliner's passenger list with U.S. authorities, but that initial inquiries did not substantiate indications of any terror connection to the crash. One of the officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, says that the two passenger names the French focused on were
...common Middle Eastern names, equivalent in the English language world to names like John Smith."
cont'd here: Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/id/201547
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Terrorists don't secretly blow up airplanes. The whole point of terrorism is to leave no doubt that it WAS terrorism.
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Check this out:
"Replacement monitors for jet models of the same type as the crashed plane arrived three days before the fatal accident, airline chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told journalists on Thursday."
From this article:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/06/11/2009-06-11_air_france_received_replacement_sensors_for_airbus_330_three_days_before_tragic_.html
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June 12 (Bloomberg)
O Estado de S. Paulo reported, citing investigators it didn’t identify:
The Air France plane that crashed June 1 may have partly broken up in the air before hitting the Atlantic Ocean:
- Most of the 16 bodies examined in preliminary stages of the probe into the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris were found naked or with minimal clothing, suggesting the wind may have removed the garments.
- The possibility of an explosion or fire in the jet is also unlikely because the bodies showed no sign of burns.
- Almost all of the bodies had multiple fractures, the paper reported.
- Investigators haven’t found water in the victims’ lungs, which would indicate drowning.
- Bodies were found 85 kilometers (53 miles) apart, which may also indicate the Airbus A330-200 broke up before reaching the ocean/
from Bloomberg News:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=as_IAXADNn1c (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=as_IAXADNn1c)
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Plane Talking blog by Ben Sandilands:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/ (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/)
"Some details of a US carrier running one of the crash cause scenarios through its Airbus A330 flight simulators are being circulated on several private airline forums and on the public Pprune or Professional Pilots Rumour network.
It has been a long standing habit of airlines with a serious interest in flight standards to do flight simulations based on probable causes or using factual data as it comes to hand.
This is what happening in what is believed to have been a US flight simulator.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
The scenario was conducted several times and the results at the end of each scenario produced consistent findings.
In an A330 simulator at FL 350 [35,000 feet] with a gross weight of 210 tonnes in ISA+10, with icing selected, the aircraft approaches a thunderstorm with a high intensity of turbulence. Due to the extreme turbulence, the autopilot disengages. Shortly thereafter a malfunction is selected to block both captain and first officer’s pitot tubes to replicate extreme ice formation.
The airplane reverts to alternate law with protection lost. There is a speed flag on both the captain and fo’s PFD [Primary Flight Display]. The severe turbulence activates repeated stall warnings. Manual thrust is being used at this time. The speed on the standby altimeter is reading 240kts or thereabouts with MACH 0.72. (From the GPS the ground speed is 350 kts or thereabouts. It is very difficult to read the instruments and ECAM warnings [fault and operational warnings].)
Updrafts take the aircraft up to FL 370 and produces a negative G of 0.2. The aircraft then enters severe downdrafts and the rate of descent averages more than 19,000 fpm [feet per minute]. The instinctive reaction is to pull on the stick to arrest the rate of descent. The aircraft shakes and buffets violently. The G force on the [pilot display] reads +5 but the instructor’s panel shows +8. The aircraft breaks up in flight around 20,000 ft.
After several attempts at this with all results being equal one could not see AF447 sending out any distress signals if this is what happened to them.
The email ends with a reference to any attempt to access the aircraft’s electronic manuals to trouble shoot the problems.
Applying an unreliable airspeed memory item would have proven to be very difficult because of the violent shaking and opening a QRH for an ADR check procedure even less likely.
This scenario is now being given considerably credibility in so far as it goes because the ACARS automated messages received by the Air France operations base in Paris indicate the pitots that measure airspeed failed at 0210 GMT on 1 June four minutes before the last message, an alert concerning vertical cabin speed, which derived from the air pressure value inside the jet.
It does not however explain why the jet was flown into such a violent storm cell when flights all around it were navigating through them without issues.
Air France also confirmed three days after the crash that the externally mounted pitots and static points manufactured by Thales had been found faulty in a serious of inflight incidents, leading the airline late in April to decide to replace all of them by the end of June.
However Air France has not explained why it initially blamed lightning as a possible factor in the disaster or claimed, incorrectly, that the ACARS messages recorded unprecedented electrical faults and short circuits.
The messages show no such thing, and give no support to what Air France said at the outset, while the lightning claim was nonsense. It is difficult to imagine that Air France did not know well before it conceded the flight was missing and officially feared lost that ACARS had identified autopilot disconnection and pitot or air speed data failures at the outset."
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"It does not however explain why the jet was flown into such a violent storm cell when flights all around it were navigating through them without issues."
1. 'Flights all around it were navigating through them without any issue': FALSE
Read my post on page 8 regarding TAM Linhas Aereas Airbus A330-200 registration PT-MVH performing flight JJ-
8098 from Sao Paulo Guarulhos (Brazil) to Paris.
2. On international routes, flights are typically spaced a minimum 10 minutes apart.
Anything can develop within 10 minutes.
3. Read the following incident: Pinnacle CRJ near Memphis June 11th, Severe Turbulence
and take a look at how easy it is to get stuck in a cell
http://www.liveatc.net/forums/listener-forum/incident-pinnacle-crj2-near-memphis-on-jun-11th-2009-severe-turbulence/
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I have done some modelling of "free convective flows" and from a physical perspective there is nothing that makes the convective flow in an old thunderstorm stronger than the flow in a "just developed" cell. The condensation heat of the water vapour drives the flow and that fresh cell can draw just as much (or maybe more) vapour from the ocean as an old storm.
How fast do cells develop? How clearly does a fresh cell (with only a minimal amount of water/ice) show up on the radar? OK, there's no rain or hail (could be supercooled water) in a fresh cell; but there will be turbulence, up- and down-drafts. Yes, the cell might develop in the air where "you happen to fly", not seeking you out but near-impossible to avoid anyway.
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While we have to try to come up for an explanation for the AF447 crash,
I would guess that statistical probabilities for this accident are extremely low. If severe turbulence and unexpected storm cells were common on this route, then why would so many airlines attempt it daily?
From a statistical point of view, It's hard to believe that the airplane just hit a bad storm cell.
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While we have to try to come up for an explanation for the AF447 crash,
I would guess that statistical probabilities for this accident are extremely low. If severe turbulence and unexpected storm cells were common on this route, then why would so many airlines attempt it daily?
From a statistical point of view, It's hard to believe that the airplane just hit a bad storm cell.
Again I cite the similarity to the crash of Southern Airways Flight 242, and the possibility of a weather radar malfunction. If you put Southern Airways Flight 242 and Birgenair Flight 301 together you have Air France Flight 447.
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From Times London:
"The sensors, called pitot tubes, are prone to getting clogged with ice and insects. One theory is that the “inconsistent” speed readings caused the automatic pilot to disengage...
It has emerged that the same sequence of events occurred in six cockpit emergencies reported by Airbus pilots over a year beginning in February 2008.....
In one incident, an Air France pilot issued a mayday call between Paris and Tokyo in turbulent weather after the loss of speed indication resulted in the disengagement of the automatic pilot and set off other alarms. In all six incidents, however, the pilots regained control of the aircraft.
Air France advised pilots on November 6 last year about the “significant number of incidents” in which false speed readings had confused the automated flight system.......
Among the sophisticated electronics on an Airbus A330 is a system that automatically pumps fuel aft when the plane climbs above 25,000ft. This alters the trim of the aircraft to improve fuel economy. It also alters the aircraft’s centre of gravity, making it harder to fly when in manual mode rather than autopilot.
Without the ability to read their speed, the crew of Flight 447 may have mistakenly believed there was a danger of stalling. If they applied extra thrust it could have tipped the plane out of control, tearing it apart in the turbulence.
"
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In this article:
George Jonas: Flying through a mystery the author recounts a similar occurrence, Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 2553
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/06/13/george-jonas-flying-through-a-mystery.aspx
Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 2553
"the pitot tube—the primary instrument for measuring the aircraft's airspeed—froze when the aircraft passed through a cloud, blocking the instrument and causing it to give a false reading."
"Thinking that the aircraft was flying at dangerously low speeds, the pilots increased power to the engines. Far from flying at the low speed reported by the instruments however, the aircraft was actually exceeding its safe cruising speed, and far above a safe speed for deploying slats. During the deployment of the slats, one was torn off by the force of the high speed airflow traveling over the wing, which caused the plane to become unflyable and enter a steep descent."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austral_L%C3%ADneas_A%C3%A9reas_Flight_2553
A couple of interesting photos on Aviation Herald,
http://www.avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1/0022&opt=4096
1) picked up by merchant ship "Gammagas", one poster states it looks like "a complete speed brake
spoiler. It has damages suggesting that this piece could be acting when it was torn. See in the mid
space were its hidraulic actuator was fixed."
2) Two flight attendant seats, folded.
Pitot tube contamination incidents:
Incident: SAS B737 near Oslo on May 30th 2009, bumble-bee strike
A SAS Norway Boeing 737-700, flight BU-4683/SK-4683 from Oslo Gardermoen (Norway) to Malaga,SP (Spain) with 134 passengers, had to return to Gardermoen Airport after the airspeed indicators started to disagree shortly after takeoff.
Mechanics found a bumble-bee had struck and embedded itsself into one of the pitot tubes of the airplane after takeoff, effectively blocking that dynamic port of the pitot system.
http://avherald.com/h?article=41a75abb
Birgenair Flight 301
Investigators suspected that some kind of insect could have created a nest inside the pitot tube.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgenair_Flight_301
Aeroperú Flight 603
masking tape accidentally left over the static ports
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroper%C3%BA_Flight_603
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Interesting pictures in the Aviation Herald article. Certainly looks like this aircraft broke up in flight or in a dive. I like how they added the American Airlines crash in New York in 2001 where the vertical stabilizer sheared off. A completely different incident and different aircraft. I hope they don't try and compare it to that flight.
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I hope they don't try and compare it to that flight.
I don't disagree but I think it might become the 'flavour-of-the-week'.
Usually a story comes out of AP, Reuters, or UPI on the weekend and then you'll
have the basic kernel of an idea explode into a bunch of erroneous articles
that misrepresent the facts gleaned from the original one.
Air France jet sent message on rudder problem
Associated Press
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iOegnahAFcEgwJZ4WKGkVz9Dgq5wD98QDHM80
Boeing Vs. Airbus :-D
How Airbus nearly killed 155 people according to an idiot
February 15, 2009 – 5:50 pm, by Ben Sandilands
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2009/02/15/how-airbus-nearly-killed-155-people-according-to-an-idiot/
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I like that last article you posted... written by a die-hard Boeing fanatic. But he does make a few valid points in it.
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Some autopsies are in
http://www.airfrance447.com/06/17/autopsies-suggest-flight-447-broke-up-in-air/
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Some findings released. They now say it did _not_ break up in the air.
http://news.aol.com/article/air-france-flight-447/553502
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...here is more...
"French: Air France plane hit the sea belly first"
"Analysis of the 600-odd pieces of the jet that have been recovered indicate the plane "was not destroyed in flight" and appeared to have hit the water intact and "belly first," gathering speed as it dropped thousands of feet, he said."
From this article:
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-world/20090702/France.Crash.Investigation/
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For those interested in the official accident investigation reports:
English translation: http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601e1.en/pdf/f-cp090601e1.en.pdf
Original French: http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601e1/pdf/f-cp090601e1.pdf
[Note: the English version lacks the appendices, so it is a considerably smaller download.]