Missing Jet: 'Fire' Spotted On Atlantic Ocean

SkyNews ^

[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...

[conservative cat]

Flying often, way back to Braniff days, I found the Airbus in general of lower quality than Boeing, Canadian, etc. The damn things snapped, crackled and popped way more than I could get used to, never felt comfortable on Airbus.

Flying on an A300 and A320 in 2001 (pre-911) swore me off flying for over six years, as they scared the crap out of me. However, I flew to Europe last year on a Lufthansa A330 (after researching the safety record), and the flight there (and back) were wonderful. I am very much supportive of Boeing, but I had to give credit...

[matthew fuller]

"Is this true?"

I heard tonite on Fox News that this particular model Airbus has had a perfect record until now.

[tinamina]

LOL

[americanophile]

They’re crappy planes - noisy and uncomfortable, and their fly-by-wire control systems are notorious.

[Cincinna]

*** FRENCH POLITICS AND CULTURE PING LIST *** FREEPMAIL ME IF YOU WANT TO JOIN ***

Thanks to Sunken Civ and Army Air Corps for the heads up.

Would any of you aviation experts be able to tell us what are the chances of locating and retrieving the black boxes?

Where was the last tracking of the plane on Radar?

[GeronL]

a plane breaks up in midair.... no one in the media will say the T-word

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Jet Planes have a thing called a RAT ....
It's a turbine that pops out when all electric power is lost, but, it is only good at higher altitudes when the pilot can point the nose of the plane down and gain airspeed.... long enough to regain some control of a plane and give them time to find a airport.

[ltc8k6]

Yes, that’s the one. Probably on youtube.

[flaglady47]

“2 are of “unknown” national origin...”

Gee, was Obama on that plane?

[Prophet in the wilderness]

" Half way over the pond in an Airbus and my butt would get numb... " for me , that's any plane, and my back also....
Criticisms aside of Airbus or Boeing... we still don't know what really happen yet...
Any plane would be hard pressed to fly stable in really bad weather or storm.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

" such as a short in the first class entertainment system on an Air Canada? flight over the Atlantic "
Most likely chaffing of the wires or mice in the plane eating the insulation of the wires.....

[americanophile]

"...said he saw a "fire" on the Atlantic Ocean..."

Wild guess here, but that could be it. Either that, or someone's using a mixed Biblical metaphor.

[JRandomFreeper]

Would any of you aviation experts be able to tell us what are the chances of locating and retrieving the black boxes?

I'm not expert, I was just an avionics bitch, that specialized in EW and ECM, but you should have 30 days from when the boxes hit the water until the pingers quit. And you should have a footprint on where to look. The footprint will be large... Hundreds of square miles.

National assets may be able to narrow that, but will take weeks to release the info.

If I was betting. I'd say it's doable. If I had to do it, I'd want the national asset info before I committed to finding it.

/johnny

[Cincinna]

Thanks. Here’s hoping they find it.

[Does so]

"...I know the tails are made of carbon fiber which I do not trust. It is in Formula 1 cars and it is incredibly strong but it can shatter like...porcelain? or Corelle dinner plates..."

I just recycled a Canoe & Kayak magazine describing a new, 100%, carbon-fiber kayak (for whitewater rapids) that had to be redesigned with Kevlar reinforcement so as not to break up.

(Among some paddlers, Canoe & Kayak is known as Kayak & Kayak magazine). :)

[NY.SS-Bar9]

As long as you don’t stress them too far.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The radar horizon for an airliner only extends a couple hundred miles, 250 miles at the most. After that you lose sight of the aircraft below the horizon. (There are military “over the horizon” radar, but that technology is not used for civilian ATC.) Radar coverage over the Atlantic in quite sparse.

I haven’t worked in ATC in a while, but we used to sell passive tracking systems to some countries that allowed the aircraft to continuously send its position about once a minute to ATC, sort of a poor man’s radar. A lot of ships use a similar system, they radio their position via satellite once a minute to an international registry in London, which can help resolve insurance claims. I would surprized if the airline industry doesn’t have a similar system, including satellite emergency beacons.

[texas booster]

http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/

Air France Flight 447
:
A detailed meteorological analysis

by Tim Vasquez

Great read from an Air Force meteorologist.

Flight path of AF jet

[DainBramage]

I thought FedEx lost an Airbus 330 last few years.

[aposiopetic]

Thanks for the link. I found the article quite informative and am interested to hear what you and others here think of its conclusions.