Posted on 12/17/2009 12:27:19 PM PST by luckybogey
Since the publication of the first Interim Report on 2 July 2009, the investigation has continued, still in close association with foreign investigation organisations and the companies involved and in coordination with those responsible for the judicial investigation. The working groups have continued their work of gathering and analyzing information useful to the investigation. Their activity has focused on
* the elements of wreckage recovered,
* the meteorological situation,
* the maintenance messages transmitted by ACARS,
* the certification and the continuing airworthiness of the Pitot probes,
* events where speed inconsistencies were encountered in cruise.
This second interim report presents the first safety recommendations. At this stage, in the absence of any data from the flight recorders, the main parts of the airplane and any witness testimony on the flight, the precise circumstances of the accident, and therefore its causes, have still not been determined.
Report Summary
The cabin crew’s seatbelts that were found (three out of eleven) were not in use at the moment of impact.
The containers recovered closed showed that the passenger oxygen masks had not been released. There had been no cabin depressurisation.
Note: Depressurisation means pressure inside the cabin corresponding to an altitude of more than 14,000 ft.
The flaps were retracted at the time of impact with water.
The vertical stabiliser’s side panels did not show signs of compression damage.
The breaks seen at the level of the lateral load pick-up rods were the result of the backwards movement of the attachments and centre and aft frames. The observations made on the vertical stabiliser are not consistent with a failure due to lateral loads in flight.
The observations made on the debris (toilet doors, partitions, galleys, cabin crew rest module, spoiler, aileron, vertical stabiliser) evidenced high rates of compression resulting from a high rate of descent at the time of impact with the water.
This high rate of compression can be seen all over the aircraft and symmetrically on the right- and left-hand sides.
High levels of loading would be required to cause the damage observed forward of the vertical stabiliser (compression failure of the forward attachment).
These observations are not compatible with a separation of the aft part of the fuselage in flight.
The damage found at the root of the vertical stabiliser was more or less symmetrical, as were the deformations due to the high rate of compression observed on the various parts of the aircraft. This left-right symmetry means that the aircraft had low bank and little sideslip on impact.
The deformations of the fuselage frames at the root of the vertical stabiliser were not consistent with an aircraft nose-down attitude at the moment of impact.
From these observations it can be deduced that:
* The aircraft was probably intact on impact.
* The aircraft struck the surface of the water with a positive attitude, a low bank and a high rate of descent.
* There was no depressurisation.
BEA Interim Report n°2 (English)(PDF)(78 PAGES)
BEA Interim Report (French) (PDF)(106 PAGES)(Appendices Starts On Page 75)
It wasn’t turbulence. Turbulence does not bring down modern airplanes. Modern airplanes are built to fly straight through thunderstorms.
Could someone translate this in terms of yaw-pitch-roll?
Thanks.
Sounds like it hit the water like a pancake at high speed. This would be consistent with a high altitude stall.
bttt
if it stalled, it would slam almost straight down with no time for anyone in the cabin to react?
Nose up.
Nose up and wings more or less level.
Which leads me to believe the altimeter may have been failing as the pilots did not know high they were.
What a mystery. :(
The two scenarios in which it could hit the water this way would be, as previously stated, a stall, or a rapid descent followed by an almost-successful attempt to pull out of the dive.
I would expect stall-related damage to look very different from damage incurred if the aircraft hit the water at speed.
I would guess it took a couple of minutes to go from 35,000 feet to impact. Other than a feeling of weightlessness, there was probably no other indication of trouble in the cabin. The pilots had to know they were rapidly losing altitude, but had no idea why.
Looks like an altimeter malfunction rather than bomb. Unless, of course, the French pilot and copilots were Muslim jihadists. Sure would like to get the black boxes.
Bull.
Stress are estimated. Not all conditions, are known. New, Supertankers rounding the Horn have had their bows ripped off by one single wave.
Fly, float, drive or dive enough and you are going to meet conditions that are beyond the design specs.
I recall that wind shear training now encourages maintaining throttle as reducing power had been determined a contributing factor in wind shear related crashes. So could this be wind shear on a scale never encountered and therefore confusing?
As for the Jihad scenario, I’m not buying it. Attitude would have been nose in and plane disintegrating pre-impact.
A few days before AF447, an Air France flight originating out of Buenos Aires or Santiago, forget which, and bound for Paris received a bomb threat. Could have been a dry run.
I would say the cause was bad pitot tubes used to sense airspeed as was first suspected.
A flat spin, since they found the verticle tail miles away.
Did you read the report above?
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