[r9etb]

Posts over on airliners.net seemed to indicate that the three-or-four minute sequence of automated ACARS messages indicated some sort of electrical faults, followed by an autopilot disconnect, then ADIRU (air data inertial reference unit, I think) and standby instrument faults, then faults on the primary and one secondary flight computer, and finally an excessive cabin vertical speed warning that might indicate a depressurization. So whatever happened to AF447 wasn’t one massive failure like a Pan Am 103 or a TWA 800. Things failed over a span of at least four minutes, apparently in a cascade of increasing severity.

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.

[Moose4]

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