Posted on 06/04/2009 1:26:35 PM PDT by traumer
What the hell is wrong with you guys? This ain’t funny at all — or does mass death just get you your jollies?
I agree. See how many jokes are made when they're the ones at 35,000 feet and heading down.
Here is the quote and the link:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L413345.htm
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"A Spanish newspaper said a transatlantic airline pilot reported seeing a bright flash of white light at the same time the Air France flight disappeared."
"Suddenly we saw in the distance a strong, intense flash of white light that took a downward, vertical trajectory and disappeared in six seconds," the pilot of an Air Comet flight from Lima to Madrid told his company, the El Mundo newspaper reported. "We did not hear any communication on any emergency or air to air frequency either before or after this event." A spokesman for Madrid-based airline Air Comet was not immediately available to confirm the El Mundo article, which cited a report the pilot submitted to his company."
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>>See how many jokes are made when they’re the ones at 35,000 feet and heading down.<<
Thanks — I was watching an episode of “Dead Zone” when a large passenger plane broke apart (SFX very realistic) and my wife and I found both of ourselves crying.
>>And nobody could call mayday?<<
Many mysteries on this one. Some we will learn, some we will not.
If a bomb did take the plane down, it wasn’t designed to look any other way. That’s something the investigators, who are often pressured to rule out the possibility of terrorism before any evidence is examined, do after the fact.
The obvious benefit to terrorists of having a bombing ruled as something else is, there’s no public outcry for action or retaliation against them. It’s basically a free shot. They just move on to planning the next, bigger attack (see the 1990’s).
Besides, there’s no set timetable for claiming responsibility. Al Qaeda didn’t claim responsibility for AA587 (November, 2001) until May, 2004.
No, your statements are only accurate as far as your specific example is concerned.
Your example has nothing to do with an aircraft that is in the storm itself and experiencing St. Elmo’s fire.
If he was in the weather he did have some degree of St. Elmo’s fire.
As I said, you even get that in snow.
I keep seeing comments about someone should have been on the radio.
Every good pilot learns that you fly the aircraft first. One would communicate with ATC if over land and needing a steer to an airport or permission to deviate around weather.
But if they had a strike and if the computers where screwed up, I would bet that every single crew member had a job to do and that job took total concentration.
400 miles out to sea, there is nothing ATC can do for you except mark the spot (ATC could not do that anyway because they were out of radar coverage) and they all knew what the outcome would be if they could not keep it going...... so I expect all of their communications were between themselves.
I hope they find the flight recorder.
No, but why would it be inoperable? I’m not at all sure that the airliner could legally depart with an inoperable radar.
>>400 miles out to sea, there is nothing ATC can do for you except mark the spot (ATC could not do that anyway because they were out of radar coverage) and they all knew what the outcome would be if they could not keep it going...... so I expect all of their communications were between themselves.<<
I think I mentioned the same idea upthread. What in the heck can a guy in a control tower hundreds or thousands of miles away do to help?
>>I hope they find the flight recorder.<<
Me too. I predicted they will get the same types of subs used for investigating the Titanic and from what I hear that is being brought in.
A modern craft — there is a lot to be learned here.
The aircraft itself has radar.
Well yeah, that is why I offered the example. lol...
Your example has nothing to do with an aircraft that is in the storm itself and experiencing St. Elmo’s fire.
I never suggested or implied it did, in fact I even stated my antenna was only 40 feet off the ground.
The other poster I responded to suggested HF could be unreliable during thunderstorm activity, I agreed, but also gave an example where it can work, work well, and work with extreme low power, reaching great distances.
Relax, and read more carefully to the responses.
I never suggested I was flying an aircraft, or my experience with HF communications was exactly like what occurred in this incident.
An incident I might add, where you have no idea what actually occurred.
lol..
That'll leave a mark.....
.....a cloud of them would be like softball+ sized grapeshot tearing the plane to shreds.
Yikes!
Oh good.
Then they can use the radar to mark the spot so they can be found?
I think you missed my point.
The radar could quit due to the inherent frailties of electronics.
A lightning strike can knock it out.
I have seen photos of big iron with the nose cone blown off by radar.
Above is a photo of hail damage to a radar cone. A radome can be destroyed by hail. Also, it is possible to damage the cone enough to reduce the efficiency.
Apparently they had a major electrical failure. That would require all unnecessary equipment to be taken off line. Whereas radar might be considered necessary, it does rate below the flight instruments and the flight controls.
But I would bet that whatever got the electrical system got the radar at the same time and they had no choice.
The 9 flight attendants probably didn’t have access to the radio.
The one spare pilot probably didn’t have access to the radio.
The two pilots with access to the radio were probably following the rule:
1. Aviate
2. Navigate
3. Communicate.
Concentrating on the “Aviate” phase, for the rest of their lives.
Do you you remember Pan Am 103? I thought that one, the bomb was intended to go off over the ocean, but because of some change in the flight plan it ended up going off over Scotland. And the Air India, it went off over the ocean. Either there was a bomb or some kind of altercation on the plane. If this was turbulence, I think Airbus has some design flaws, like being too nuanced with turbulence. Remeber the Airbus that crashed in NY a few days after 9/11? They chalked that up to turbulence and blamed it on the pilot’s response to it; tore the tail section cleannnn off. Just turbulence folks. They wanted to get the planes back in the air and this time Bonehead was in Egypt schmoozing with the muzzies; don’t want to talk about terrorism just now.
Agreed. I think another possibility is that the turbulence dislodged some dangerous goods or that there were undeclared DGs on the flight.
I think a stall is also possible given the shifting winds, but at FL350 there should have been plenty of time to recover.
I wish some high altitude big iron driver would comment, but until one does:
In my case, I had a radar with 160 nautical mile range.
The typical scenario where I got more than I wanted in weather was like so:
I knew there was heavy rain. But no TBZ near the departure airport, so off I go.
As the trip progresses, I see quite a bit of precip, and some fairly large areas of red, but they are not of the shape that indicates a thunderstorm. Just heavy rain. And I can see that the weather goes to yellow and then green beyond the red, so here we go.
As I get into the red area, the radar shows that about 40 Knm ahead, the precip ends. So press on.
After another 20 miles or so, I see that the radar is still indicating the end of the rain 40 miles ahead. Aha! Attenuation. It is raining so hard that 40 miles is all I am going to see.
At 180 knots, that gives me only 13 minutes to identify my best route, communicate with ATC and get a permission to deviate and of course, not seeing any further, there is the worry that there may be a worse area in the selected direction.
Big iron has better radar than I had. But at their speeds it is all relative.
I am only making the point that as wonderful as airborne radar is, it is not infallible.
I read somewhere that the Air Comet flight was way over the visible horizon. Whatever they saw was unrelated to AF447.
Thanks for the info. Perhaps they saw a meteor.
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