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Since the publication of the first Interim Report on 2 July 2009, the investigation has continued, still in close association with foreign investigation organisations and the companies involved and in coordination with those responsible for the judicial investigation. The working groups have continued their work of gathering and analyzing information useful to the investigation. Their activity has focused on * the elements of wreckage recovered, * the meteorological situation, * the maintenance messages transmitted by ACARS, * the certification and the continuing airworthiness of the Pitot probes, * events where speed inconsistencies were encountered in cruise. This second interim report...

I have attempted to remain open minded throughout the investigation of Air France Flight 447. I had hoped that the Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA) would come forward and present the facts as known. The evidence shows this is not the case and as a matter of fact, the only reason Thales pitots are still on the Airbus airplanes is for the protection of European companies and their European labor/workers. One would think that Boeing might want to update their complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO)? The European aviation industry is more concerned with their own business interest and...

The BEA press conference has finished in Paris. I watched on TV however I don’t speak French and I’m not sure at this time what they have told us. If anything new? I did not hear any mention of the toilet leak? Sounds like total BS out of Air France and BEA? As first reported on this site on June 21, 2009 from Le Post: Was Air France Flight 447 Disaster Caused By Leaking Toilet! As shown below, we need to be careful on translation from one language to another... The aircraft was not destroyed in flight, “said Alain Bouillard,...

A Northwest Airlines jet traveling from Hong Kong to Tokyo last Tuesday suffered a series of equipment and computer malfunctions strikingly similar to those encountered by Air France Flight 447 just before it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on May 31. The Northwest plane and its passengers, however, emerged unscathed. Details of the harrowing incident – described in a memo by one of the Northwest pilots and confirmed Friday by others familiar with the matter – highlight how cockpit crews can safely cope with something that is almost never supposed to happen: a system breakdown that prevented the crew from...

In the interest of caution, the NTSB advisory appeared earlier yesterday evening in my RSS feed however the advisory was not published on the NTSB website until this morning and I wanted to wait until official confirmation. As Eurocockpit says: “This initiative of the NTSB is more than welcome: almost a month after an accident for which no one can say that the probes did not play a major role, no airworthiness directive (AD) has been issued (yet?) by Europe. If the NTSB was to “discover” an anomaly in the AA type probes, the U.S. Administration of Civil Aviation (FAA)...

Unreliable speed is one of the difficult situations that a pilot has to face. Once the failure has been identified, a procedure, based on pitch angles and thrust settings, will assist the pilot in safely flying the aircraft... ...the main difficulty is to rapidly detect an unreliable speed situation. Reaction time is crucial, since the aircraft may stall and overspeed conditions could cause aircraft damage. ...‘We’ were already aware of what the problem was the morning of the accident (the famous erroneous airspeed). There are passed records that display the exact ACRAS messages sent by the AF477. The same causes...

le cirque “Ringling Bros & Barnum & Bailey” à Paris The U.S. Department of Defense is sending 19 specialists in Natal, Brazil… The American team will consist of professional soldiers and under contract, it has been noted in a press release from the army... On Monday, the U.S. Navy sent equipment from the airport in Dulles, Virginia, to the Brazilian Natal... Airbus Industries said in an internal e-mail leaked to the public, that there is no evidence of any electrical failure as had been initially claimed by Air France, no evidence of loss of flight instrument displays and no evidence...