Missing Plane!!

[full back]

Wasnt it Payne Stewart that died on a crash when something similar happened i.e all of the passengers were unconscious before it crashed

[ONeill]

A bomb is starting to look plausible now.

[Treasurer]

A bomb is starting to look plausible now.

But they're some reports saying the presence of oil on the water indicates there wasn't an explosion as it would have burned off?  Interesting reading on Pprune.org but I think the traffic has brought the site down.

[mannix]

i was on a ryanair flight last autumn that was hit by lightning, returned to airport and checked over before departing normally. lots of white faces through the flight.i cannot imagine how that plane was damaged enough to go down, they are monsters of planes and to look at them at the airport is breathtaking.
rip.

[ONeill]

A bomb is starting to look plausible now.

But they're some reports saying the presence of oil on the water indicates there wasn't an explosion as it would have burned off?  Interesting reading on Pprune.org but I think the traffic has brought the site down.

Not all explosions involve fire, explosive decompression.

[Treasurer]

A bomb is starting to look plausible now.

But they're some reports saying the presence of oil on the water indicates there wasn't an explosion as it would have burned off?  Interesting reading on Pprune.org but I think the traffic has brought the site down.

Not all explosions involve fire, explosive decompression.

Pilots on PPrune seem to think this is the most likely cause...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6430398.ece

[ONeill]

Air France pilots battled for 15 minutes to save doomed flight AF 447

Air France pilots battled for up to 15 minutes to save the doomed flight that went missing over the Atlantic this week, electronic messages emitted by the aircraft have revealed.

Air France pilots battled for up to 15 minutes to save the doomed flight that went missing over the Atlantic this week, electronic messages emitted by the aircraft have revealed.

Details have emerged of the moments leading up to the disappearance of flight AF 447 with 228 people on-board, with error messages reportedly suggesting the plane was flying too slowly and that two key computers malfunctioned.
Flight data messages provided by an Air France source show the precise chronology of events of flight AF 447 before it plummeted into the sea 400 miles off Brazil on Monday.

These indicate that the pilot reported hitting tropical turbulence at 3am (BST), shortly before reaching Senegalese airspace. It said the plane had passed through tall, dense cumulonimbus thunderclouds.

At this stage, according to a source close to the investigation cited by Le Monde, the Airbus A330-200's speed was "erroneous" - either too fast or too slow. Each plane has an optimal speed when passing through difficult weather conditions, which for unknown reasons, had not been reached by flight AF 447.

Airbus is expected to issue recommendations today to all operators of the A330 model to maintain appropriate thrust levels to steady the plane's flight path in storms.

At 3.10am, the messages show the pilot was presented with a series of major failures over a four-minute period before catastrophe struck, according to automatic data signals cited by the Sao Paulo newspaper, le Jornal da Tarde.

At this time, the automatic pilot was disconnected – either by the pilot or by the plane's inbuilt security system, which flips to manual after detecting a serious error.

It is unclear whether the pilot wanted to manually change course to avoid a dangerous cloud zone – an extremely difficult manoeuvre at such high altitude.

At the same moment, another message indicates that the "fly-by-wire" electronic flight system which controls the wing and tail flaps shifted to "alternative law" – an emergency backup system engaged after multiple electricity failures. This system enables the plane to continue functioning on minimum energy but reduces flight stability. An alarm would have sounded to alert the cabin crew to this.

Two minutes later, another message indicates that two essential computers providing vital information on altitude, speed and flight direction ceased functioning correctly.

Two new messages at 3.13am report electricity breakdowns in the principal and auxiliary flight computers.

At 3.14am, a final message reads "cabin in vertical speed", suggesting a sudden loss of cabin pressure, either the cause or the consequence of the plane breaking up in mid-air.

Despite the precise details, sources close to the investigation contested the chronology and denied that the two computers providing altitude, speed and directional data malfunctioned.

The suggestion that the pilot gradually lost control of the plane appears to counter reports that the plane exploded in mid-air.

These were lent more weight today after a Spanish pilot in the vicinity at the time reported seeing an "intense white flash".

"Suddenly we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, followed by a downward, vertical trajectory which broke up into six segments," the chief pilot of an Air Comet plane from Lima to Madrid told the Spanish newspaper, El Pais. He has reported his observations to investigators.

Some experts have supported the theory that the plane exploded, given the wide area where debris has been found.

However, Brazil's defence minister, Nelson Jobim, said an explosion was "improbable" given the 13-mile trail of kerosine spotted on the sea. "If we have fuel slicks, it's because it didn't burn," he said.

Paul-Louis Arslanian, the head of the French air accident bureau in charge of the investigation, also said there were other possible reasons for wide debris area, such as high winds and choppy seas.

Yesterday he warned against hasty "speculation" and said that the search would take time.

Four naval vessels and a tanker are in the area around 400 miles off Brazil's northeastern coast. Some 11 spotter planes are searching for more debris, after finding a seat and a 23-foot metal object thought to be part of the fuselage. A French mini-submarine will arrive in the zone next week.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/5444168/Air-France-pilots-battled-for-15-minutes-to-save-doomed-flight-AF-447.html

[muppet]

Here are two satellite images of the route at the time. They show serious thunderstorm activity on the route and it looks as if the aircraft was in it for at least 150 nm until it disappeared. Aerlik there would be no commercial radar in that part of the world and probably no military either.

The aircraft disappeared at night which is significant because the lightning from that weather, at night, would have been highly visible (out the window literally to the pilots) for hundreds of miles, so in theory they should have seen it coming.

The aircraft radar, if it was working properly, would have shown the green and red bits as seen below. The worst turbulence usually shown as the red bits on the radar (incredibly strong updrafts and downdrafts occurring in quick succession)  associated with an equatorial CB (cumulonimbus cloud) that is as big as that would be well capable of bringing down an aircraft in my opinion. Normally the options are to go around it or over it but at that latitude they can reach 60,000 feet so going around it would have been the only option.

I find it interesting that the line they seem to have followed went between two red returns which could indicate that they chose that route. That would appear sensible looking on a small scale but if you look at the bigger scale a weather system 400 miles wide and 100 deep is not somewhere most crews would want to go.

[muppet]

Some of those articles are just embarassing:

It is unclear whether the pilot wanted to manually change course to avoid a dangerous cloud zone – an extremely difficult manoeuvre at such high altitude.

Bullshit of the highest order.

Airbus is expected to issue recommendations today to all operators of the A330 model to maintain appropriate thrust levels to steady the plane's flight path in storms

That is standard procedure for every commercial aircraft with automatic thrust FFS.

[orangeman]

What's your view on what happened then Muppet ?

[muppet]

There isn't enough info hence why sensationalism seems to have the same circulation as informed opinion. The only facts are the weather was very bad in the area and the Acars reports which can perform like the telemetry of an F1 car. The messages mention an electrical failure, a pressurization failure and instrument failures. A pressurization failure doesn't necessarily mean it is sudden as the media assume. And even a complete electrical failure should leave enough Istruments to fly safely.

A bomb could certainly cause multiple failures like that. I don't believe lightning would but an equatorial CB could.

There have been the odd structural failure due to difficulties spotting weaknesses in the composite materials used by Airbus.  They have happened after a repair procedure didn't pick up further damage.

My gut is with that weather but I hope for the families of the pilots it was a bomb.     

[orangeman]

The isn't enough info hence why sensationalism seems to have the same circulation as informed opinion. The only facts are the weather was very bad in the area and the Acars reports which can perform like the telemetry of an F1 car. The messages mention an electrical failure, a pressurization failure and instrument failures. A pressurization failure doesn't necessarily mean it is sudden as the media assume. And even a complete electrical failure should leave enough Istruments to fly safely.

A bomb could certainly cause multiple failures like that. I don't believe lightning would but an equatorial CB could.

There has been the odd structural failure due to difficulties spotting weaknesses in the composite materials used by Airbus.  They have happened after. A repair procedure didn't pick up further damage.

My gut is with that weather but I hope for the families of the pilots it was a bomb.     

Would the pilots not have known that the weather on the radar was so horrendous that they should hsave changed course or is this too simplistic a view ?


Do you pilot yourself ?

[muppet]

It's not too simplistic a view at all. If the radar was working properly it would have shown the weather but the best tool would have been their eyes looking at a storm over half the size of Ireland. The lightning would have been amazing and visable probably a couple of hundred miles before they got there.

[orangeman]

It's not too simplistic a view at all. If the radar was working properly it would have shown the weather but the best tool would have been their eyes looking at a storm over half the size of Ireland. The lightning would have been amazing and visable probably a couple of hundred miles before they got there.

Ok - so why did they fly into it then ?.


Apparently these planes are tested thouroughly in the worst of weather conditions. I've heard that the wings go right up during testing  till you think they're going to break off.

[Tony Baloney]

The isn't enough info hence why sensationalism seems to have the same circulation as informed opinion. The only facts are the weather was very bad in the area and the Acars reports which can perform like the telemetry of an F1 car. The messages mention an electrical failure, a pressurization failure and instrument failures. A pressurization failure doesn't necessarily mean it is sudden as the media assume. And even a complete electrical failure should leave enough Istruments to fly safely.

A bomb could certainly cause multiple failures like that. I don't believe lightning would but an equatorial CB could.

There has been the odd structural failure due to difficulties spotting weaknesses in the composite materials used by Airbus.  They have happened after. A repair procedure didn't pick up further damage.

My gut is with that weather but I hope for the families of the pilots it was a bomb.     

Would the pilots not have known that the weather on the radar was so horrendous that they should hsave changed course or is this too simplistic a view ?


Do you pilot yourself ?

Do you? You know a lot about the big steel burds for a westie