Ships race to Air France wreckage

Reuters via National Post ^ | 2009-06-03 | Crispian Balmer

[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.

[CodeToad]

“Then you haven’t looked”

A pilot would know there is no such thing.

[Jewbacca]

Nonsense.

[allmost]

For an official to preemptively make such a statement, implies they know something. What they know can only be speculated. I would not consider the logic of questioning this odd response as paranoid. Just my opinion.

[CodeToad]

You really want to stick to your bullshit story that you’ve flown an F-16 through a thunderstorm and that it is rated for such? I don’t know of a single aircraft rated for hailstones, tornadic winds, water concentrations, or the icing experienced in thunderstorms, much less a single-engine, light weight F-16. There are no such ratings given by aircraft manufacturers. Airplanes are rarely flown into thunderstorms but rarely on purpose and never with the idea that the aircraft has somehow been rated for it. Even the hurricane hunters have strict limits and procedures for flying into a hurricane.

[Jewbacca]

You certainly want to avoid thunderstorms, yes, for all the reasons stated.

But yes, the Soufa has the appropriate all weather instruments for avoiding the otherwise unseen hazards (like hail), as does the Airbus. The engine (or engines in the case of the airbus) would not be affected.

Indeed, the primary reason for the second seat was to permit the pilot to fly the plane in bad weather and the weapons officer to shoot.

You are certainly at the mercy of G-d for unintended changes in altitude and direction, but over the ocean, at the altitudes in question here, it’s a calculated risk.

And yes, while not intentional, I have been stuck in some truely distirbing weather in many different aircraft, both military and general aviation (not sure that is what it is called in the USA).

It’s a matter of going slow as you can, maybe pulling in the flaps (depends on the plane), paying attention to your instruments, and leaving.