Fears for 228 as Air France jet vanishes

CNN ^ | June 1, 2009

[rdl6989]

(CNN) -- A French passenger aircraft carrying 228 people has disappeared off the coast of Brazil, airline officials say. A file photo shows an Air France jet on take off. Some 228 passengers are aboard the missing aircraft.

A file photo shows an Air France jet on take off. Some 228 passengers are aboard the missing aircraft.

Air France told CNN the jet was traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when contact was lost.

The airline said flight AF447 was carrying 216 passengers in addition to a crew of 12. The plane is listed as an Airbus A330.

State radio reported a crisis center was being set up at Charles de Gaulle where the plane had been due to land at 11.15 a.m. local time.

Reports said an air force search and rescue operation was underway around the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, 365 kilometers (226 miles) off the mainland.

[buccaneer81]

Do pilots routinely report turbulance while in flight? All the time.

The infamous "light chop."

[2CAVTrooper]

Thousands of feet of water might have something to do with it.

[1066AD]

I wonder what the sea state was around that time, rough seas would speed up the sinking of some of the debris let alone making it harder to spot.

[buccaneer81]

Boeing is the better plane. Composites have a nasty tendency to fail spectacularly.

Let's hope we don't get any nasty surprises from the 787.

[SloopJohnB]

From popular blogsite Flight Level 390 run by a U.S. airline pilot (archives are fascinating about flying conditions, aircraft types, company ops):

I spilled my coffee when I saw a breaking news report on the overhead TV about an A330 lost over the Atlantic. Say again, please...

I have been listening to the media talking heads and the aviation experts for about an hour since waking from my nap. Overall, I think the mainstream coverage is within the proverbial ball park on this one. I cannot believe I am saying this...

But, here are two things being reported with which I will disagree:

1. (Media says,"A bolt of lightning cannot, by itself, bring down a modern airliner.") A bolt of lightning could easily wreck an aircraft and cause a crash by itself. Yes, lightning strikes on aircraft occur everyday. I have been struck many times over my career. Usually, it is a non-event causing only minor damage or none at all. However, if an aircraft is in the vicinity of a very large thunderstorm, it could be struck by a super bolt of lightning reeking total havoc with disastrous results.

2. (Media says,"Turbulence cannot, by itself, bring down a modern airliner.")Turbulence could easily wreck an aircraft and cause a crash by itself. Severe turbulence in the vicinity of a very large thunderstorm, or even a lesser one, has to be experienced to be believed. I have been inside thunderstorms several times in my career. It is unavoidable when you are a professional pilot. Anyone who disagrees with the previous sentence has not flown enough miles or has been very lucky. As a Line pilot, I go to great, even extreme lengths to stay out of thunderstorms for obvious reasons. Passengers pay me to deliver them safely to their loved ones.

A thunderstorm is a violent and scary entity. It has the power, and I mean real power, to easily rip the wings from an A330, or any other make or model of aircraft. No problem whatsoever.

On the automatic radio messages sent to Mother... Yep, Fi-Fi will send a message to the mainframe (think H.A.L.) when certain key malfunctions have occurred. It is a design feature of the Airbus Industries aircraft. Think you can hide a pesky malfunction from Mother so that you can do that last turn of the day and get home to Momma? You better be careful.

I will put forward two scenarios that may have happened to this jet:

First- Struck by a super bolt which fried the electronics causing depressurization, loss of electrical power and finally, a high altitude upset in IFR conditions (dark, turbulent, scary) leading to catastrophe.

Second- Encountered severe turbulence between or in thunderstorms. Airframe damage and/or failure leads to depressurization, loss of electrical power and finally, disaster.

Whatever happened, it was not pretty. The pax were terrified and the pilots were surely fighting until impact.

An A330 has crashed in the Atlantic... That fact is unbelievable.

Life on the Line continues...

[BP2]

Due to your experience, is it possible that the airplane was struck by lightning on the nose and temporarily blinding the crew while in severe turbulence? I have heard this has happened before. Please offer your thoughts.

Normally, Thunderstorm Penetration Procedures have the crews turn the cockpit lighting in all of the way UP at night to prevent blinding from the flash. I think blindness is a VERY unlikely scenario that would cause a very experienced crew to lose control.

I'm more likely to believe the Lightning Diverter Strips did NOT work properly — corrosion, electrical seepage of some type from the radome, the radome nose was damaged in turbulence, a REALLY powerful lightning bolt, etc.

When working properly, if lightning hits the radome, the electricity "connects the dots" of the strips, creating a conduit for the lightning to flow to the back of the plane along the strips to dissipate harmlessly to into the atmosphere. The striping looks like this:

And works like this: Lightning Diverter Strips (History Channel - Youtube)

[BP2]

Actually the Sioux City crash was because of an uncontained turbine failure of the center engine that severed the hydraulics systems.

Yes, that was the cause. In hearing accounts of the crash from one of the pilots, radio operators, sim operators, etc, the aircrew had the aircraft practically landed and all would have walked away unharmed, except for a gust right before touchdown which caught a wing and made it cartwheel down the runway.

We had to practice that scenario, with the modification that "fix it", yearly in the simulator. Trust me -- it's next to impossible to control it and it is a miracle the crew got it to the runway at all.

[mad_as_he$$]

when I was in the high tech business I flew about everything around - just to get there. I swear I flew on the first 707 in the late 80’s on United. Now I can be picky or just drive.

[1066AD]

Many other comments and links.

Reuters is reporting that an LH 747-400 was on the same path about 30 minutes in front of the AF flight and an LH cargo plan was about two hours behind it on a slightly more southerly route and neither had particular difficulties with the weather.

Also linked to a Bloomberg piece saying ten automatically generated messages were sent.

[Jeliota]

It’s an Airbus. Usually those just break into pieces and fall out of the sky for no apparent reason, which then generally gets blamed by Airbus as irresponsible piloting.

[SloopJohnB]

== Many other comments and links. ==

Of course, I usually do. The HTML verbage has been giving me fits past few days.

Plan B: Just get it out there to add to opinions.

Readers if they choose can google site - reason I sourced it.

[1066AD]

Hey, I wasn’t griping, just adding my .02 to the thread !

[SloopJohnB]

Enjoy FL390.

Somebody put me on to it. Next thing I know started from day one in the archives working to present. Like a good book you can't put down.

At first not many had comments, but after a few years many reply...regualar folks, pilots.

Guy bought a camera and takes stunning shots.

[2111USMC]

I found this link off of one the links you posted earlier.

Talk of possible debris found??

Anyone know Spanish or Portuguese?

http://oglobo.globo.com/

[Frantzie]

Has a Boeing jet ever just disappeared like this?

The one over long island that blew up was a 747 or DC-10 or MD-11? Some people swear it was shot down. Clinton made sure no one ever checked.

Could it be another carbon fiber tail failure? Poor people.

[2111USMC]

Babel Fish translation:

RIVER - the government of Senegal communicated the Brazilian Air Force (BAF) to have located in its sea territorial destroços that could be of the airplane of the Air France that disappeared on board in the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people, in the sunday night. The senegalesas authorities, however, affirm that not yet it is possible to confirm that the material found in the sea is same of the flight that left of the River for Paris and disappeared of the radars.

Definitely does not sound definitive.

[God luvs America]

bump

[2111USMC]

Cross linking threads for info:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2262607/posts?page=32

[BP2]

There are very few controlled “water landings” (aka, "ditch" the aircraft) in the history of airline travel. The chances of survival, ESPECIALLY far out over the ocean, are very, very low.

In fact, ditching (vs unintentional impact with the water) has happen only FOUR times since 1963 using AirSafe.com’s definition:

1) October 1963; Aeroflot Tu124; Leningrad, USSR
2) 2 May 1970; ALM DC9-33CF; near St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
3) 23 November 1996; Ethiopian Airlines 767-200ER; near Moroni, Comoros Islands
4) 15 January 2009; US Airways A320-200, New York, NY

Throw in large ocean swells, at night under thunderstorms ... doing something like this is rarely going to have a happy storybook ending:

[Yaelle]

Looking at the flight nationalities, it is AMAZING just how international our world has become.