Posted on 07/02/2009 5:38:12 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Air France Flight 447 slammed into the Atlantic Ocean, intact and belly first, at such a high speed that the 228 people aboard probably had no time to even inflate their life jackets, French investigators said Thursday in their first report into the June 1 accident.
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Problematic speed sensors on the Airbus A330-200 jet that have been the focus of intense speculation since the crash may have misled the plane's pilots but were not a direct cause, Bouillard said...
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The plane was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it went down in a remote area of the Atlantic, 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) off Brazil's mainland and far from radar coverage.
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The speed sensors, called Pitot tubes, are "a factor but not the only one," Bouillard said. "It is an element but not the cause," Bouillard told a news conference in Le Bourget outside Paris.
Other elements that came under scrutiny in the immediate aftermath of the crash, such as the possibility that heavy storms or lightning may have brought down the jet, were also downplayed in the BEA's presentation.
Meteorological data show the presence of storm clouds in the area the jet would have flown through, but nothing out of the ordinary for the equatorial region in June, Bouillard said, eliminating the theory that the plane could have encountered a storm of unprecedented power. Other flights through the area shortly after Flight 447 disappeared didn't report unusual weather, Bouillard said.
"Between the surface of the water and 35,000 feet, we don't know what happened," Bouillard acknowledged. "In the absence of the flight recorders, it is extremely difficult to draw conclusions."
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Stall, then a largely uncontrollable dive, levelling off to a high speed belly flop ?
Kinda like that Aeroflot plane in Siberia whose pilot let his kid fly it . .
The media's typically stupid remarks!!!
Aren't we always told NOT to inflate life jackets until we are out of the plane, huh???
In the report, the Rudder Limit error comes after a bunch of auto-pilot and navigation stuff. It sounds like the display and instrumentation took a dump before the rudder stuff. And two very odd warnings about two hours before the crash. Keep in mind, they rolled over into the next day on the flight.
“Twenty-six maintenance messages relative to flight AF447 were received. Twenty-four of
them were received on 1st June between 2 h 10 and 2 h 15.”
“The first two messages were received the day before at 22 h 45. These were a class 2 fault message and a related MAINTENANCE STATUS TOILET cockpit effect message. The fault message, “LAV CONFIGURATION” (ATA 383100, source VSC*, HARD) represented a toilet configuration difference between the airplane and that included in one of the associated systems. “
What the heck is all this about? Probably nothing, but still...
Any ideas?
Those pictures have already been sent to me via email purporting to be from this crash - I called BS on them as I am sure they are from a movie!
Mel
Three and a half hours between detonation and the next sign of a problem? No way.
If the rudder has already been identified as a weakness, then a device with a timer, placed by ground crew or assembled in the lav, might be enough to create a weakness that would be troublesome.
The first warnings came, maybe 2 hours into the fight?
See post 22, I found that out almost as soon as I posted it. Mea culpa! Please delete same.
I think it is very possible.
I think there are several scenarios which would 'fit' the 'knowns' of this case.
Takeoff was at 2203 hours GMT, so the lav warning (2245 hours) was only 42 minutes in. The messages that preceded the crash were transmitted about four hours after takeoff, with the last one going out at 0210.
I don’t know what that lav message is, but it could mean any minor thing, from a stopped toilet or malfunctioning fixture to some need for a routine service.
I read on another aviation site that the lav warnings happen on many flights, so it’s probably nothing.
Like these?
Why is the tail in pristine condition? Wouldn't the sudden stop when it hit the ocean have caused it to either break off and crash onto the fuselage or stay attached and go down with the rest of the plane?
Isn't the reason the pitot tube assemblies on the Airbus 310 are/have been replaced is that the heaters aren't working properly?
Maybe the toilet was stopped up. If only they had Joe the plumber on board.
Lesson: Don't fly through the equatorial region in June.
The area I live in we have tornadoes. They don't last long, but they do lots of damage.
Waterspouts are just tornadoes above water.
If the Airbus flew through the clouds that were producing a tornado, might they not suffer 100mph updrafts, heavily laden with water? Would the sudden change in humidity along with speed overwhelm the heaters in the pitot tubes, causing the tubes to ice shut?
Beats me.
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