Posted on 06/03/2009 7:34:01 AM PDT by Clive
PARIS -- Brazilian and French navy vessels rushed on Wednesday to reach wreckage of an Air France flight that plunged into the Atlantic, but investigators warned the truth behind France's worst air disaster may never fully emerge.
The doomed Airbus was carrying 228 passengers and crew en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it crashed into the ocean early on Monday after the pilot reported heavy turbulence.
Debris was sighted by a spotter plane more than 24 hours later about 745 miles (1,200 km) northeast of the Brazilian coastal city of Recife, and the Brazil navy has dispatched four navy ships with recovery equipment to the area.
France prepared to send a boat with an unmanned submarine aboard that can explore as deeply as 6,000 metres (19,680 ft) and will try to locate the Airbus's black boxes, which could shed light on the mysterious disaster.
Paul Louis Arslanian, the head of France's air accident investigation agency, said he was not totally optimistic that the black boxes would ever be recovered and said the probe might not reveal all the reasons behind the crash.
"I cannot rule out the possibility that we might end up with a finding that is relatively unsatisfactory in terms of certainty," Mr. Arslanian told reporters.
"But we will do our best to limit the uncertainty," he said.
A first report will be ready by the end of the month, with the investigation led by Alain Bouillard, who took charge of the probe into the crash of an Air France Concorde in 2000.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
No message sent from flight 911. We know what happened due to witness on ground and a 8mm film of the event as it happened from inside the aircraft.
The number one rule for pilots is Fly the Airplane First. Comms are a distant third .
The airbus has a fly-by-wire system. They were having electrical problems. Logically, lighting could be a cause -— but so could a software bug.
I could see a critical failure caused by lighting, where they lost control.
I could also see a minor failure, and the pilots putz around trying to figure out what was going on, fail no notice altitude and slam into the ocean, akin to the TWA (?) flight that put itself into the Florida everglades.
I am curious as to the perported loss of cabin pressure — which also could be a false alert due to electronic bugs.
Not an expert here, but the progression (reports of turbulence, a cascade of failures, etc.) sounds to me like there may have been some sort of progressive structural problem, perhaps brought on by the initial turbulence.
There’s a problem with that—they were too far out to sea to be in radar or VHF radio contact with anybody. Their only voice contact would be via HF, and anybody who’s listened to shortwave or gotten a ham radio license can tell you that HF is somewhere between unreliable and useless around thunderstorms. Even if they had had the time to try and call for help on HF, there’s a chance that they wouldn’t have been heard. Aircraft on ocean crossings call ATC on HF, and apparently it’s not unusual for those calls to be missed and for aircraft to be out of contact for an hour or two.
}:-)4
I'm sure it's a "legitimate gif," as in "has gif format."
Whether it's a truthful gif is, of course, a separate question....
Yep. Or a fire—I keep thinking about that Swissair flight because their fire was in the wiring, and gradually disabled all the electronic systems and instruments on the MD-11, in addition to spewing toxic smoke into the cockpit.
The investigation on that flight took four years and $40 million, and that wreckage was near to shore in 180 feet of water. I expect that will be dwarfed by the investigation on AF447 just by the sheer logistics of where and how deep it is. Sadly, there’s a very good chance we’ll never know what happened, and almost no chance that bodies will ever be retrieved.
}:-)4
Modern planes cannot communicate in storms?
That is hard to believe.
“Planes fall out of the sky from cruising altitude on a regular basis “
When they fly through thunderstorms they do. Happens several times a year to various types of aircraft. Airliners are usually far more cautious so they rarely find themselves in such situations, but it can and does happen.
“I am curious as to the perported loss of cabin pr”
The storms they flew into could rip apart a jet.
This leaves three possible scenarios:
Why would the aircraft not have satellite coms?
Maybe, but I don’t think so.
Typically, that only happens when the jet was previously damaged and not repaired properly.
It’s a range issue. Aircraft use AM VHF radio communications on the band between 118 and 136 MHz to talk to air traffic control. Those are basically “line of sight”. Now with the plane being up at 35,000 feet, it’s got a heck of a line of sight and that extends the range considerably. You can use a hand-held airband scanner and hear aircraft 75-100 miles away from you clear as day when you can’t hear the tower at an airport just down the road.
But this thing was 400+ miles north of the nearest point of land, and that’s just going to be out-of-range for two-way voice comms on VHF. So for over-ocean flights, they use HF frequencies down in the 5-7 MHz range, shortwave. They can travel thousands of miles, but they’re just like an AM radio around a thunderstorm, and they’re subject to ionospheric interference as well. Typically, as I understand it, the aircraft only calls air traffic control when they cross certain points of their flightplan, and they give their location, speed, altitude, and estimated time of arrival to the next reporting point. Other than that, they’re pretty much on their own; there’s no radar coverage, so ATC can’t see them.
The automated messages that got sent back to Air France maintenance were, I’d imagine, sent via satellite. But satellite transmissions aren’t used to talk to air traffic control. That’s all simple radio communications where the technology really hasn’t changed a whole lot in 50+ years.
}:-)4
I recognize the picture. It is the famous "Gimli Glider".
Perhaps the only known occurrence on record of a pilot side slipping a wide body to kill off excess altitude.
It was fortunate that the nose gear did not lock, otherwise the aircraft would have hit two kids on bicycles followed by a camp full of drag racers and their families.
Also, the drag racers' fire extinguishers came in handy.
See #34—it must’ve had satellite comms for those maintenance messages to get back to Air France, I guess. But satellite isn’t used for normal ATC communications. Those are just good old-fashioned VHF or HF radio.
}:-)4
Many thanks.....did not know that.
True. And if there were a fire that affected the signals being sent to control actuators, that would perhaps show up as "turbulence."
Yes, but look at the differences between this flight and those two bombings. Both of the undoubted bombings were apparently intended to be somewhat "public," so that there would be no doubt that a terrorist attack had occurred. (Air India 182 was apparently timed to explode at Heathrow, but there was a 1:40 delay on that flight.)
This crash was completely out of range of anybody -- and nobody has claimed responsibility. Unless there are further detailes, and/or a spate of similar events, I'd tend to rule out terrorism in this case.
Occam’s razor.
The area of the crash was shown to have a massive line of thunderstorms at the time of the crash.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.