Posted on 06/01/2009 7:11:10 PM PDT by traumer
A commercial pilot has said he saw a "fire" on the Atlantic Ocean close to the route of a missing Air France plane.
The pilot, for TAMAirlines, said he spotted what appeared to be orange marks in the ocean near to where the jet went missing.
More follows...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
Good post. Carbon fiber reinforced with kevlar would be a lot stronger. Kayak’s take a huge pounding but I cannot imagine the forces on a huge airliner in a huge storm at 35,000 feet where it is probably -40 deg F.
F1 cars have incredible forces and stress but in an accitident they shatter. I am not sure if they reinforce the cockpit with kevlar.
“Remember the airbus that hit the mountains in Germany? They could have pulled out if the computer had let them overstress the airplane. Better to crack the wing spars and miss the mountain I say, but that’s just me.....”
I agree with you, there should be an “emergency short” that gives the pilot full control of the plane. I also saw that the data transmitted, which included lose of cabin pressure, wasn’t discovered until the plane was reported missing. Seems the system should be smart enough to issue an alarm when critical data is received.
No, it is not true.
Nope. In addition to being a very reliably built aircraft, the 330-340 series is a gorgeous design. There is nothing wrong with fly by wire technology. There are several manual reversion capabilities in case of electrical failure, and the amount of redundancies built is is usually over four. I would fly on an Airbus anyday. Especially the -340, that is one pretty airplane..
I cannot imagine NOT going ‘fly by wire’ these days.
The weight of hydraulics throughout the plane to the flight controls would be incredible.
Thank you for your insightful and informed response.
If I had an alternative, I would NOT fly a 2 engine plane on a 9000 mile route 90% over open water..
All but 1 anyway...
“I seem the recall that the Airbus is significantly less safe than Boeing jets, even more if you exclude the 9/11/01 four jets lost to islamists.
Is this true?”
This is false. Contrary to what the resident Boeing cheerleaders on here say, Airbus has had fewer fatal crashes than Boeing.
Roughly a year ago, I pointed this out during the tanker debate.
Go here and look for yourself:
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/view_manu.cgi?manu=Boeing
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/view_manu.cgi?manu=Airbus
Here is a breakdown of the number of fatal crashes by model number (including sub-variants) since 1983 (1983 was first recorded fatal crash of an Airbus)
Boeing
707: 14 fatal crashes
727: 20 fatal crashes
737: 65 fatal crashes
747: 18 fatal crashes
757: 7 fatal crashes
767: 6 fatal crashes
777: 0 fatal crashes
Airbus
A300: 6 fatal crashes
A310: 6 fatal crashes
A320: 7 fatal crashes
A330: 2 fatal crashes (includes Air France flt 447)
A340: 0 fatal crashes
These include accidental shootdowns (KAL 007, Iran Air 655), acts of terrorism (Pan Am 103, etc) weather, equipment failures, etc.
The A330 BTW is the direct competition to the Boeing 767 and 777
What is the crash RATE, i.e. fatalities per passenger mile?
Maybe the link has been hit too many times, but it looks like it’s down. Any chance you have any other cut & pastes, or screen shots?
“Until something goes drastically wrong...”
Yeah like the rear pressure bulkhead rupturing or an uncommanded thrust reverser activation causing inflight breakup..... Oh wait, those were Boeing jets.
“6 weeks ago, I was on a flight from Atlanta to Paris. (Air France) We taxied out to the runway, and sat awhile, and were then notified that the RADAR on the PLANE wasn’t working & they needed to fix it since we’d be flying over the Atlantic at night!! 2 hours later, they said it was fixed, and off we went. Knowing what I do today, I’d probably have clawed my way off that plane if I had to.”
So, I was on a DC-10 and several years later a 747 that had avionics failures. One was rolling down the runway for takeoff when they were forced to abort, the other was at cruising altitude forcing a divert.
Both times was 4 to 6 hours of waiting for new equipment to be installed and they were both trans-Atlantic flights.
In other words such “issues” are not exclusive to Airbus.
330, 320, they all look alike... :-)
Well, that was only for the flight over - I then got stranded in their lovely CDG airport on the way home - had a 12 hour layover, ALL NIGHT. On the way through there we had checked out the hotel attached to the airport (Sheraton) & found that they wanted $400 for one night. Never imagining that they SHUT THE WHOLE PLACE DOWN ALL NIGHT, I decided, “Oh, I’ll be fine - I can buy some magazines & pass the time, etc. till morning.” I couldn’t justify $400 just for a layover. Well, when the airport personnel informed me that everything closes at 11 PM and won’t open till 6:00 the next morning and there is no machine to even buy a bottle of water or anything to eat, that REALLY sucked. Chairs with steel arms on them - can’t lay across them. Gotta pile the carry-on luggage on the seat next to ya & fold yourself in half sideways till you can’t take it anymore & then shift to the other side. If you get thirsty, you have to go into the bathroom & scoop water out of the faucet. Would have been good to know. I have flown all over the world & had layovers in London, Holland, Germany, Rome, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, and Karachi,plus all over the US, and never experienced such trouble. You’d think a vending machine wouldn’t be too much to ask for, but there, it apparently is. One cop stopped & saw me sitting there, and said, “You don’t have any access to food or drink - are you okay with that??” And I said, “I’m female, alone, don’t speak French, it’s midnight, and I’m not leaving the airport to go get lost or worse, so I guess I have no choice.” He at least let me know what door to go knock on if I needed police. Which was nice of him. But I have pretty much made up my mind where I won’t travel through or with which airline prior to this happening, regardless of which plane. They can have that airport & that airline - I’ll be going elsewhere in the future.
Yes, I’m no stranger to adversity in-flight. Had one take off from JFK many years ago (TWA) on the way to London. Immediately after take-off, they announced that something was wrong with the landing gear & they needed to burn off fuel for awhile & then land & try to fix it. I remember wondering how they would land if something was wrong with the landing gear. I got my answer. BOOOOMMM!!!!!! All the luggage flew out the bottom of the plane on impact (and of course it was a rainy night so all that luggage was soaked once it was all found). They served us dinner on the plane as we sat for 4 hours while they “tried to fix the problem.” They couldn’t. So we all got put on a bus (it was after mignight at this point) where a guy started hauling our luggage on the bus. We all thought he worked for the airline. Turns out he was just a bad dude from the side of the road who got on the bus & was demanding money from all of us, and a few of the men on board were standing up to deal with the guy when the busdriver finally showed up & chased him off. We were then taken to the Grand Hyatt to stay overnight & our new arrangements for wherever we were meant to go were up to us to figure out. Ended up taking Pan Am instead & going through Germany instead of London. You just never know where you may end up or how. :o)
Agreed. There are something like three times as many Boeings in service as Airbuses. And a significant number of those were manufactured before the first Airbus took flight.
Is there some special, personal reason you love to bash on Boeing?
Back up after some light editing.
An airbus pilot was on Rush’s show this morning and he said the plane was wired so the engines would run even without electrical power...gravity feed fuel etc.
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