View Full Version : Air France Jet disappears from radar
Ret10Echo
06-01-2009, 04:42
Air France Rio-Paris flight missing with 228 aboard
15 mins ago
PARIS (Reuters) – An Air France plane on its way from Brazil to Paris has disappeared from radar screens, the Paris airports authority said on Monday.
Flight AF 447 had 228 people on board, Air France said.
It left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. and was expected in Paris on Monday at 11:15 a.m. (0915 GMT), a spokesman for the airports authority said.
Its last known location was unclear.
An Air France-KLM spokeswoman in Amsterdam said there had been no radio contact with the missing plane "for a while".
The people on board are 216 passengers and 12 crew.
The plane was an Airbus 330-200, airport authorities said.
(Reporting by Jean-Baptiste Vey; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Air France says the Airbus jet that disappeared en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris sent an automatic signal indicating electrical problems while going through an area of strong turbulence.
Air France says in a statement the plane that carried 228 on board "crossed through a thunderous zone with strong turbulence" at 10:00 p.m. ET Sunday.
It says "an automatic message was received at 10:14 p.m. ET Sunday signaling electrical circuit malfunction."
It says the 216 passengers included one infant, seven children, 82 women and 126 men.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Utah Bob
06-02-2009, 08:01
BRASILIA, Brazil — An airplane seat, a life jacket, metallic debris and signs of fuel were found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday by Brazilian military pilots searching for a missing Air France airliner.
The debris was spotted from the air about 410 miles (650 kilometers) north of the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, roughly along the path that the jet was taking before it disappeared with 228 people on board, said Air Force spokesman Jorge Amaral.
There were no signs of life in two sightings of separate debris areas about 60 kilometers (35 miles) apart.
"The locations where the objects were found are towards the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted," Amaral said. "That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis."
Amaral said authorities would not be able to confirm that the debris is from the plane until they can retrieve some of it from the ocean for identification. Brazilian military ships are not expected to arrive at the area until Wednesday.
The discovery came more than 24 hours after the jet bound from Rio de Janeiro to Paris went missing, with all feared dead.
Rescuers were still scanning a vast sweep of ocean extending from far off northeastern Brazil to waters off West Africa. The 4-year-old Airbus A330 was last heard from at 0214 GMT Monday (10:14 p.m. EDT Sunday).
Investigators on both sides of the ocean were trying to determine what brought it down. Potential causes included shifting winds and hail from towering thunderheads, lightning or a combination of other factors.
An automatic message sent from the plane just before it disappeared said that the plane was losing pressure and had experienced an electrical failure.
____
Associated Press Writers Bradley Brooks and Alan Clendenning contributed from Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo...
The Reaper
06-02-2009, 09:27
RIP.
TR
Trip_Wire (RIP)
06-02-2009, 13:25
RIP
greenberetTFS
06-02-2009, 16:31
RIP .................. :(
GB TFS
The Drudge report mentions that a bomb threat occurred prior to departure of the aircraft. The link is broken; however, a cached copy exists.
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:rogFhX-NRfYJ:momento24.com/en/2009/05/27/bomb-threat-on-air-france-flight/+Ezeiza+air+france+bomb+threat&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=opera
Interesting development.
http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/
Here is a link that discusses the thunderstorm the plane may have flown through.
Red Flag 1
06-04-2009, 10:31
May all Rest In Peace!
Utah Bob
06-04-2009, 10:39
Air France officials this morning said it either "Broke up in flight or when it hit the water".
Duh!
Basenshukai
06-04-2009, 14:38
Air France officials this morning said it either "Broke up in flight or when it hit the water".
Duh!
From my experience dealing with Brazil, they will resist the notion that it was blown up in the sky until there is absolute proof on that fact. Even if it did explode in the sky, it could have been mechanical failure. But, the idea that a bomb placed in the A/C had anything to do with it will be refuted until there is no other choice. Brazil's stance is that there are no terrorists in their country and if the idea that it came apart in the sky takes hold, it will lead many to make that leap of judgement and assume that terrorism might have been involved. In any case, I believe it desintegrated in mid-air - maybe due to some kind of mechanical malfunction, or just mother nature - because the pilots did not even send a distress signal. What ever happened, must have occured very fast.
greenberetTFS
06-04-2009, 15:55
Air France officials this morning said it either "Broke up in flight or when it hit the water".
Duh!
They said on our news channel that they thought that the plane may have experienced "100 MPH"winds!!!!!!! :(
GB TFS :munchin
Basenshukai
06-04-2009, 17:12
They said on our news channel that they thought that the plane may have experienced "100 MPH"winds!!!!!!! :(
GB TFS :munchin
Wow! Whatever happened, I can't help but imagine what those people may have gone through. This is so sad.
I wonder if these guys were asleep. Who, cruising at 35,000', looks at a 50,000' wall of Cumulonimbus Ohmygodus and thinks to himself "Piece of cake!"?
Even without WX RDR they'd have a very impressive, towering, light show...to scare the crap out of them!
Pat
Utah Bob
06-04-2009, 20:12
They said on our news channel that they thought that the plane may have experienced "100 MPH"winds!!!!!!! :(
GB TFS :munchin
That's really not much for a plane like that. Hurricane Hunter aircraft fly in worse conditions. They may never know for sure without the black boxes. Debris is so spread out though I'd say a midair breakup is a real possibility.
That's really not much for a plane like that. Hurricane Hunter aircraft fly in worse conditions. They may never know for sure without the black boxes. Debris is so spread out though I'd say a midair breakup is a real possibility.
Hurricane Hunters - the C-130s and P-3s - are over-engineered to the point that they can take structural hits and survive far beyond what most other aircraft can sustain. The 'experts' have been talking a lot about the severe turbulence of the type storm the Airbus was flying into - 100+mph winds - but coming from all directions and stressing the aircraft in ways it may not have been designed to overcome - and the issues involved with the automatic flight systems dangerously over-compensating under such conditions. They've also been talking about the potential impact of such storms - including massive electrical strikes - upon both the control systems and the numerous composite structural materials (unlike the traditional materials of the C-130/P-3 type aircraft) used throughout in the newer commercial aircraft like the A330.
Bottom line - they don't know and may never know exactly what happened to this flight.
As for the terrorist threat - authorities reported a threat being made a few weeks ago against an Air France flight from Argentina - not Brazil - to France and - after investigation - it proved to be unfounded. There were no threats made against this flight.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
That's really not much for a plane like that. Hurricane Hunter aircraft fly in worse conditions. They may never know for sure without the black boxes. Debris is so spread out though I'd say a midair breakup is a real possibility.
The question is what was the trigger for the accident? The plane started falling out of the sky for some reason. If it wasn't a controlled descent from the altitude that they were flying at, at some point it's going to break up in mid air. I'm not a pilot, but that plane isn't made to do acrobatics. At some point the wings are going to rip off, with the rest coming apart shortly thereafter prior to hitting the ocean.
sad.
Something else being considered based upon the on-going data analyses.
Two aviation industry officials told The Associated Press on Thursday that investigators were studying the possibility that an external probe that measures air pressure may have iced over. The probe feeds data used to calculate air speed and altitude to onboard computers. Another possibility is that sensors inside the aircraft reading the data malfunctioned.
If the instruments were not reporting accurate information, the jet could have been traveling too fast or too slow as it hit turbulence from violent thunderstorms, according to the officials.
Jetliners need to be flying at just the right speed when encountering violent weather, experts say — too fast and they run the risk of breaking apart. Too slow, and they could lose control.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Utah Bob
06-05-2009, 07:38
A friend of mine was an FCC investigator for years. He said there's never just one cause for an air crash. It's always a string of related events. That's why it takes them so long to piece together a particular incident. And that's when they have all the pieces! In this case it may remain a question mark forever.
They are talking about a better data system than the antiquated black boxes now.
A friend of mine was an FCC investigator for years. He said there's never just one cause for an air crash. It's always a string of related events. That's why it takes them so long to piece together a particular incident. And that's when they have all the pieces! In this case it may remain a question mark forever.
They are talking about a better data system than the antiquated black boxes now.
Hummmm FCC investigator did he investigate the breaking up of Radio waves?:p
I bet the FAA Investigators do a lot of AC investigations...:rolleyes:
Just bustin on you we all knew which one you were refering to....... Just had to take a jab....
Ret10Echo
06-05-2009, 08:55
French, Brazilians still on hunt for downed Airbus
By EMMA VANDORE, Associated Press Writer Emma Vandore, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 44 mins ago
PARIS – French and Brazilian search teams have found no debris confirmed to have come from the Airbus A330 that vanished over the Atlantic, officials said Friday.
Confusion broke out after Brazilian officials said Thursday that a helicopter had plucked from the sea an airplane cargo pallet from the Air France flight — only to retract the claim hours later.
France's Transportation Minister, Dominique Bussereau, suggested Friday that searchers were back to square one in the hunt for Flight 447 bound from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, which went down off Brazil late Sunday.
"French authorities have been saying for several days that we have to be extremely prudent," Bussereau told France's RTL radio. "Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing."
A French Defense Ministry official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said French teams "cannot precisely confirm the zone where the plane went down."
Also Friday, Brazil's Air Force was flying designated relatives of victims Friday from Rio de Janeiro to the military's search command post in the northeastern city of Recife so they could tour the operation and ask questions. Recife has a large air force base where debris and any human remains will be brought after being picked up at sea.
The pallet Brazilian officials initially said came from the plane pallet was made of wood, and the plane was not carrying wooden pallets, Brazilian Air Force Gen. Ramon Cardoso told reporters. He did not say where the pallet might have come from.
"So far, nothing from the plane has been recovered," Cardoso said.
Cardoso said a large oil slick spotted by search plane pilots was not from the Airbus, but that another slick of kerosene found may have been from the downed passenger jet.
"The oil was not from the plane because there wasn't oil of that quantity (on the plane) to cause that slick," he said.
Bussereau called the false finding of debris by the Brazilian teams "bad news ... We would have preferred that it had come from the plane and that we had some information," he said.
Bussereau said the search must continue and stressed that the priority was finding the flight recorders. The plane went down with 228 people on board in the world's worst aviation disaster since 2001.
French officials stopped short of criticizing their Brazilian counterparts.
"Brazilian authorities first indeed hoped to have found parts of the plane, then unfortunately, arriving in the area, realized it wasn't the case," said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier. "Unfortunately that can happen."
French Defense Minister Herve Morin and the Pentagon have said there no signs that terrorism was involved, but Morin declined to rule out the possibility.
From the start of the investigation, "I've said we can't exclude terrorism," Morin told reporters Friday. "We have no element which allows us to corroborate that."
"The inquiry that is taking place has never excluded this thesis," he said.
Brazil's defense minister said the possibility was never considered.
Investigators are looking into whether malfunctions in instruments used to determine airspeed may have led the plane to be traveling at the wrong speed when it encountered turbulence from towering thunderstorms over the Atlantic.
Two aviation industry officials told The Associated Press on Thursday that investigators were studying the possibility that an external probe that measures air pressure may have iced over. The probe feeds data used to calculate air speed and altitude to onboard computers. Another possibility is that sensors inside the aircraft reading the data malfunctioned.
If the instruments were not reporting accurate information, the jet could have been traveling too fast or too slow as it hit turbulence from violent thunderstorms, according to the officials.
Jetliners need to be flying at just the right speed when encountering violent weather, experts say — too fast and they run the risk of breaking apart. Too slow, and they can lose control.
European planemaker Airbus has sent an advisory to all operators of the A330 reminding them of how to handle the plane in conditions similar to those experienced by Flight 447, which was an Airbus A330-200 version.
Airbus spokesman Justin Dubon said the planemaker sent a reminder of A330 operating procedures to airlines late Thursday after the French agency investigating the crash said the doomed flight had faced turbulent weather and inconsistency in the speed readings by different instruments. That meant "the air speed of the aircraft was unclear," Dubon said.
In such circumstances, flight crews should maintain thrust and pitch and — if necessary — level off the plane and start troubleshooting procedures as detailed in operating manuals, Dubon said.
Meteorologists said the Air France jet entered an unusual storm with 100 mph (160 kph) updrafts that acted as a vacuum, sucking water up from the ocean. The moist air rushed up to the plane's high altitude, where it quickly froze in minus-40 degree temperatures. The updrafts also would have created dangerous turbulence.
The jetliner's computer systems ultimately failed, and the plane broke apart likely in midair as it crashed into the Atlantic on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris Sunday night.
But investigators will have little to go on until they recover the plane's "black box" flight data and voice recorders, now likely on the ocean floor miles beneath the surface.
___
Utah Bob
06-05-2009, 11:05
Hummmm FCC investigator did he investigate the breaking up of Radio waves?:p
I bet the FAA Investigators do a lot of AC investigations...:rolleyes:
Just bustin on you we all knew which one you were refering to....... Just had to take a jab....
Uhh....maybe it was the Federal Crash Commission.... Yeah, that's the ticket.
Dammit. Never post in the morning before coffee.:eek::D
112thSOLCA
06-05-2009, 13:14
FWIW..... FCC, FAA … NTSB
My experience has been the National Transportation Safety Board is the lead agency responsible for investigating fatal aircraft crashes. In every case I have been involved with the “team” includes representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board, the Aircraft Manufacturer, the Engine Manufacture, the Insurance Company, the FAA and Local Law Enforcement.
However, the final report has always been issued by the NTSB Investigator.
I do agree aviation accidents are almost always a string of events that lead to the cause.
Ret10Echo
06-05-2009, 18:06
Airbus has warned airline crews to follow standard procedures if they suspect speed indicators are faulty, suggesting that technical malfunction may have played a role in this week's Air France crash. Skip related content
Investigators know from the aircraft's final batch of automated messages, which were sent over a three minute period, that there was an inconsistency between the different measured airspeeds shortly after the plane entered a storm zone.
The Airbus telex was sent to customers of its A330s late on Thursday. An industry official said such warnings are only sent if accident investigators have established facts that they consider important enough to pass on immediately to airlines.
The recommendation was authorised by the French air accident investigation agency (BEA) looking into the disaster. It has said the speed levels registered by the slew of messages from the plane showed "incoherence."
Airbus said its message to clients did not imply that the doomed pilots did anything wrong or that a design fault was in any way responsible for the crash.
"This Aircraft Information Telex is an information document that in no way implicates any blame," Justin Dubon, a spokesman for Airbus, said Friday.
The Air France A330-200 was en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it suffered a rapid succession of technical problems after hitting turbulence early Monday and almost certainly plunged into the Atlantic. All 228 people on board died.
Brazilian authorities hunting for the plane said Thursday that flotsam scooped from the sea about 1,100 km (680 miles) northeast of Brazil's coast, was not from the Airbus A330, as previously reported.
Searchers have found several debris sites spread out over a 90 km (56 miles) zone and boats in the area are trying to pick it up to ascertain if the plane really did come down there.
BLOCKED SENSORS?
More than 300 aircraft similar to the missing Air France jet -- an Airbus A330-200 -- are in service worldwide.
Investigators do not know if Flight AF 447 was travelling at an incorrect speed as it crossed a storm cluster.
An aviation expert, who declined to be named, said the plane's airspeed sensors, called pitot tubes, work on air pressure and might provide incorrect readings if they get obstructed by objects such as ice.
The tubes are heated to prevent icing at high altitude and there was no immediate information on what went wrong.
If pilots believe the flawed readings are right, they might mistakenly alter their speed, jeopardising their plane.
Airbus said the correct procedure when confronted by unreliable speed indications was to maintain thrust and pitch and start trouble shooting.
The Airbus telex has revived a long-standing debate among pilots over whether the Airbus planes are overly complex.
"This is a plane that is conceived by engineers for engineers and not always for pilots," Jean-Pierre Albran, a veteran pilot of Boeing 747s, told Le Parisien newspaper.
"For example on a 747, the throttle is pushed by hand. You feel it move in turbulence. On recent Airbuses, this throttle is fixed. You look at the dials. You don't feel anything."
Aviation experts have speculated that the Air France plane was brought down by a chain of problems, with strong turbulence and stormy weather almost certainly a factor. Officials have played down any suggestion of terrorism.
What am I missing here? I've been retired as a dispatcher a few years, so I guess now it's OK to fly into a Cb now?
* Thunderstorm tops.. Based on the soundings above, my conclusion is that the maximum thunderstorm tops were 56,000 ft with an equilibrium level of 47,000 ft, representing the tops of most parts of the MCS except near the edges. In the worst-case scenario tops reached just short of 60,000 ft.
The Captain killed himself and 227 others! He could have, perhaps, skirted West a bit to bypass the wall. He didn't. He could have diverted. He didn't.
Even if the A/C can handle it, the passengers can't. I was jump-seating on a B727 flight into KPDX when we flew through a small thunderstorm with moderate to severe turbulence. In a three minute period we got hit by lightning twice. The look on the 1st Class Pax faces when we opened the cockpit door after landing was shocking.
Pat
AngelsSix
06-06-2009, 04:02
I wonder if these guys were asleep. Who, cruising at 35,000', looks at a 50,000' wall of Cumulonimbus Ohmygodus and thinks to himself "Piece of cake!"?
Even without WX RDR they'd have a very impressive, towering, light show...to scare the crap out of them!
Pat
Nice!:D
And so it goes...:( RIP all.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Brazilian Military Finds Two Bodies From Crash
Liz Robbins and Nicola Clark, NYT, 6 Jun 2009
Search crews recovered two male bodies in the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday morning about 40 miles from where Air France Flight 447 last gave its position before disappearing Sunday night.
Two people speaking for the Brazilian military confirmed the findings, which appeared to be the first physical evidence of the crash that killed all 228 people on board the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
The Brazilian air force said it had also recovered a blue airplane seat with a serial number, a briefcase and a letter folder containing an Air France boarding pass. The military said it sent the serial number to Air France officials to verify that it had come from the plane.
“When we started out we concentrated on finding survivors, but that was not possible,” Jorge Amaral, the assistant head of the Air Force’s Press Office told reporters in the northeastern city of Recife, according to the Brazilian Web site, ig.com. “Then we started looking for debris, survivors and bodies. But it is only today that we have had a positive, albeit sad, result. But that has brought us the certainty that our work was done properly.”
Earlier on Saturday, the head of French air investigators said at a news conference north of Paris that the jet was due to have part of its airspeed sensor system replaced after the plane’s manufacturer, Airbus, had advised operators of some of its A330 aircraft to do so.
Investigators are looking into whether inconsistent speed measurements could have played a role in the crash. The sensing system includes a part called a Pitot tube, which was what Airbus recommended replacing. The tubes are vulnerable to icing in cold weather, which the plane, flying through severe thunderstorms, could have experienced.
“The sensors on this aircraft had not yet been replaced,” said Paul-Louis Arslanian, director of France’s Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses, known as the B.E.A.
But he emphasized that it was “far too early to conclude” that a malfunction of the sensors was to blame for the accident, saying that it could still have been possible for the crew to continue flying the aircraft with “degraded systems.”
A spokeswoman for Airbus in the United States said in an e-mail message on Saturday that the recommendation for the replacement of the Pitot tubes was “not a safety issue.”
The two bodies were found not long after the Brazilian military, together with ships from France and the United States, made their way to a 50-mile long strip just north of the equator, about 600 miles off Brazil’s coast, where the plane was believed to have plunged into the water. After recovering floating debris on Thursday and mistakenly concluding that it had belonged to Air France Flight 447, the Brazilian military backtracked to find other debris that surveillance aircraft had sighted earlier in the week.
The jet, which had only been in service four years, disappeared on June 1 with 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board.
The key to determining the cause of the crash probably rests at the bottom of the ocean — where the black boxes that are the data and voice recorders could be submerged in 3,000 feet to 13,000 feet of water and in rocky and muddy terrain. The boxes emit signals from a “pinger,” but those will start to fade after 30 days. The French navy is sending a nuclear-powered submarine to the area in an effort to detect the signals.
“This is what we are looking for in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,” Mr. Arslanian said. He held up a small canister roughly about the size of a cardboard toilet paper roll.
Before the bodies and other items were found Saturday, the investigation had been focused on the 24 automated messages the plane sent out in a four-minute burst just after midnight Brazil time before it disappeared indicating wide systems failures. One message indicated that there were incoherent speed readings.
Mr. Arslanian said that in addition to the inconsistent speed readings, the messages also indicated that the plane’s auto pilot system was not engaged. But he said it was not possible to know from the transmissions whether the autopilot shut down automatically, or whether the pilots did so manually as part of a troubleshooting effort.
“We also haven’t yet made a connection between these system breakdowns and the inconsistency of the speed measurements,” Mr. Arslanian said.
After the crash, Airbus sent out a reminder to all its customers to follow established procedures when pilots suspect airspeed sensors are not functioning properly. The message, approved by the French investigators, said that the reminder had been sent “without prejudging the final outcome of the investigation.”
Air France had already begun installing improved sensors across its entire fleet of medium- and long-haul aircraft as part of regularly scheduled maintenance checks, Mr. Arslanian said. The overhaul was due to be completed over the course of the next several weeks.
A malfunction of a plane’s airspeed sensors can be crucial to the pilots’ ability to control their aircraft. A plane that flies too slow can lose lift and crash, while one that is moving too fast can break up in the air.
Airspeed on jets is measured by the combination of the Pitot tube, which faces forward, and an opening on the side of the plane known as a static port. The plane’s speed is determined by comparing the pressure in the Pitot tube that is created by the oncoming wind with the pressure from the static port.
In 2007, Airbus advised operators of the Airbus A330 that were equipped with Pitot tubes manufactured by the French company Thales to replace them.
Stefan Schaffrath, an Airbus spokesman, confirmed that this recommendation, known as a service bulletin was made, but said it was for reasons of improved performance rather than safety concerns.
“The advice was issued because there was a new generation of device out there with improved performance regarding its measurement capability,” Mr. Schaffrath said. “This is nothing unusual as there are constant updates ongoing throughout the life of an aircraft.”
Airbus said it had informed air safety regulators in Europe and North America about the recommendation at the time. But on Friday a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration was not able to confirm this, and said there were no plans to turn this recommendation into a requirement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/world/europe/07plane.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Latest on the recovery and investigation.
Richard
More Bodies Recovered Near Site of Plane Crash
Marco Sibaja and Alan Clendenning, AP, 7 Jun 2009
Three more bodies were found Sunday in the ocean near the spot where an Air France jet is believed to have crashed a week ago, bringing the total number of bodies plucked from the water to five, Brazil's military said.
Authorities said pilots searching the mid-Atlantic also spotted an undetermined number of additional bodies from the air and are sending ships to recover them, Navy Capt. Giucemar Tabosa Cardoso said.
Flight 447 disappeared in turbulent weather May 31 during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people aboard -- all now presumed dead.
The investigation is increasingly focused on whether external instruments may have iced over, confusing speed sensors and leading computers to set the plane's speed too fast or slow -- a potentially deadly mistake.
The French agency investigating the disaster said airspeed instruments on the plane had not been replaced as the maker had recommended, but cautioned that it was too early to draw conclusions about what role that may have played in the crash.
The agency, BEA, said the plane received inconsistent airspeed readings from different instruments as it struggled in a massive thunderstorm.
In Brazil, Air Force Col. Henry Munhoz said he could not immediately provide information on how many more bodies were spotted from the air. Cardoso said late Sunday morning that ships should be able to recover some of them within hours despite rainy weather and poor visibility.
None of the bodies recovered Sunday had documents with them to indicate their identities, and authorities did not specify their gender. The first two bodies, found Saturday, were men.
The three bodies were found about 70 kilometers (45 miles) from the site where the jet sent out a burst of messages indicating it was experiencing a series of electric failures and losing cabin pressure. All the bodies that have been recovered were found in the same general area.
They declined comment on the condition of the recovered bodies, saying the release of that information would be too emotionally painful for relatives.
Authorities also announced that searchers spotted two airplane seats and other debris with Air France's logo, and they have recovered jet wing fragments and other plane debris. Munhoz said there is ''no more doubt'' that the wreckage is from Flight 447.
Hundreds of personal items belonging to the passengers have been recovered, but Munhoz said authorities would not immediately identify them because relatives of the victims panicked after authorities on Saturday announced the discovery of a laptop computer and a briefcase with a plane ticket inside it.
''We're don't want to cause them more suffering,'' Munhoz said.
The bodies and plane wreckage will be transported Monday to the Brazilian islands of Fernando de Noronha, where the military has set up a staging post for the search operation. From there, remains and debris will be taken to the northeastern coastal city Recife for identification.
Air France Flight 447 emitted its last signals roughly 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands.
The Pentagon has said there are no signs of terrorism. Brazil's defense minister said the possibility was never considered. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner agreed that there is no evidence supporting a ''terrorism theory,'' but said that ''we cannot discard that for now.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/07/world/AP-Brazil-Plane.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
IIRC, it was an Airbus which crashed upon takeoff from NYC because its tail came off due to turbulence from following too closely behind another departing aircraft. It'll be interesting to see what the data recorders eventually show.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Tail of Air France plane found; hunt on for black boxes
USA Today, 7 Jun 2009
Brazilian searchers found a large tail section from an Air France jet Monday, one of the biggest pieces yet recovered from wreckage that could help narrow the search for Flight 447's black boxes. A U.S. Navy team is bringing in high-tech underwater listening devices to detect pings from the data and voice recorders.
Brazilian and French military ships that have so far recovered 16 bodies and large amounts of plane wreckage searched amid a sea of floating debris, finding the tail section with Air France's trademark red and blue stripes. All the wreckage has been found bobbing in the Atlantic Ocean; the Brazilians don't have the means of locating underwater debris.
(cont'd)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-06-08-pentagon-navy-air-france_N.htm?csp=YahooModule_News
Red Flag 1
06-08-2009, 15:23
What am I missing here? I've been retired as a dispatcher a few years, so I guess now it's OK to fly into a Cb now?
The Captain killed himself and 227 others! He could have, perhaps, skirted West a bit to bypass the wall. He didn't. He could have diverted. He didn't.
Even if the A/C can handle it, the passengers can't. I was jump-seating on a B727 flight into KPDX when we flew through a small thunderstorm with moderate to severe turbulence. In a three minute period we got hit by lightning twice. The look on the 1st Class Pax faces when we opened the cockpit door after landing was shocking.
Pat
Thunderstorms are not as bad on the inside as they appear from the outside.......
They are worse on the inside"
RF 1
RichL025
06-08-2009, 17:24
IIRC, it was an Airbus which crashed upon takeoff from NYC because its tail came off due to turbulence from following too closely behind another departing aircraft.
I don't think so - the news reports about this current tragedy kept mentioning that this was the first fatal airbus crash since its test flights (one of which went down also).
I don't think so - the news reports about this current tragedy kept mentioning that this was the first fatal airbus crash since its test flights (one of which went down also).
Richard is correct. The Far Rockaway, NY crash was an A300-600.
Pat
RichL025
06-08-2009, 21:25
Richard is correct. The Far Rockaway, NY crash was an A300-600.
Pat
OK, thanks, I guess I misunderstood - maybe this was the first crash of this airbus model or something. Thanks for the correction.
OK, thanks, I guess I misunderstood - maybe this was the first crash of this airbus model or something. Thanks for the correction.
Rich,
You probably heard correctly. The press is notoriously ignorant about aviation and aeronautics. They continue to refer to a "stall" as the engines quitting. :rolleyes:
Pat
Info on aircraft automated messages: LINK (http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/170669.asp?source=mypi)
Engineer decodes Air France Flight 447 emergency messages
I just finished listening to a podcast where an avionics engineer goes over the final messages sent by the Air France Flight 447 plane before it crashed.
The error messages sent by the plane show that multiple computer failures happened simultaneously, starting at 02:10 GMT, when a series of 14 warnings and failures emerged at once.
Addison Schonland, president of Innovation Analysis Group, and Michael Ciasullo, IAG's managing director of consulting services, led the podcast discussion. The engineer, who went only by Darryl, and his interviewers were careful not speculate.
Darryl is introduced as an engineer familiar with the the Honeywell ACARS system. His full name is not given because of the sensitivity over the crash, Schonland said. He does not work for Air France or Airbus.
He explains each ACARS message line by line. The ACARS is the aircraft's communications addressing and reporting system, which sends short pieces of data to other aircraft and satellites. When investigators talk of the "automatic messages" that give clues as to why the plane crashed, they are referring to the ACARS messages.
(You can see the ACARS for Flight 447 here. PDF.)
The cryptic lines contain chilling meaning.
First, the auto pilot system disengaged. Then came a basic auto flight message warning. Next, something within the flight control computer failed. Then, warning flags appeared on the personal flight displays of the captain and co-pilot. Then the rudder exceeds the limits of normal flight. And on it goes.
"With all of these failures, they don't have the information that they need to fly the aircraft in a safe environment," Darryl says. "If the pilot or first officer don't have any display functioning, then they're flying blind in the night. ... You're trying to fly the aircraft with no technology."
The last message received is a cryptic "213100206ADVISORY" warning at 02:14 GMT. It indicates loss of cabin pressure.
"There's so much going on, the pilots don't know what to do other than take a hold of the stick and fly the aircraft, because the airplane is not flying itself," Darryl said. "If this was happening in a clear day in the middle of the day, you'd still be in serious trouble, but at least you'd know if you were climbing or descending."
Info on aircraft automated messages: LINK (http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/170669.asp?source=mypi)
"There's so much going on, the pilots don't know what to do other than take a hold of the stick and fly the aircraft, because the airplane is not flying itself,"
I'll speculate. That's what happens when you fly an aircraft into an aircraft shredder! Whoever was in charge in the cockpit, and, given the flight length and crew count there were two cockpit crews on board, killed everyone on board.
As a dispatcher, I probably could not have legally released that flight, depending on forecasts, convective outlooks, and PIREPS. The Europeans do not have licensed dispatchers so the decision rests with the captain. I'm not sure if a relief captain can overrule an originating captain. I would guess that he could.
Pat
The Reaper
06-09-2009, 05:25
Rich,
You probably heard correctly. The press is notoriously ignorant about aviation and aeronautics. They continue to refer to a "stall" as the engines quitting. :rolleyes:
Pat
Probably confusing it with a compressor stall.
TR
Utah Bob
06-09-2009, 06:00
Rich,
........ The press is notoriously ignorant about aviation and aeronautics. ......
Pat
And so many, many other things.;)
Probably confusing it with a compressor stall.
TR
You are being very generous! ;)
Pat
Interesting? Perhaps!
LINK (http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Terror-Names-Linked-To-Doomed-Flight-AF-447-Two-Passengers-Shared-Names-Of-Radical-Muslims/Article/200906215300405?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15300405_Terror_Names_Linked_To_Doomed _Flight_AF_447%3A_Two_Passengers_Shared_Names_Of_R adical_Muslims)
Excerpt: Full article at the link above
Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it has emerged.
French secret servicemen established the connection while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31.
Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it has emerged.
The French magazine L'Express reported that French intelligence services had matched the names of two passengers on Flight 447 with those of suspects linked to Islamic terrorism. It added that it might only be a case of people with similar names. The names themselves were not reported.
A senior French internal security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the nature of her job, told The Associated Press that French security "didn't find any suspicious names" on the passenger list. "That doesn't mean there aren't on a suspect list, but it's not ours," she said.
Other police and intelligence agencies said they also had no information about terrorist connections to Flight 447.
Brazil's federal police have examined airport video of passengers, but only to help identify bodies and not because of any suspicions of terrorism, a spokeswoman said. She insisted on anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the matter.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-06-11-airfrance-plane_N.htm?csp=YahooModule_News
....She insisted on anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the matter.....
I hate that.
"That doesn't mean there aren't on a suspect list, but it's not ours," she said.
Interesting translation.
Pat
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525835,00.html
A lady who missed the Air France flight was killed in a car accident, her husband is seriously injured.
Kinda reminds ya of that movie when those klids missed their flight and the "reaper" was out to get them....eeek:eek:
Utah Bob
06-11-2009, 16:05
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525835,00.html
A lady who missed the Air France flight was killed in a car accident, her husband is seriously injured.
Kinda reminds ya of that movie when those kids missed their flight and the "reaper" was out to get them....eeek:eek:
Yeah, "Final Destination" I think it was. Weird.
A llady who missed the Air France flight was killed in a car accident, her husband is seriously injured.
Kinda reminds ya of that movie when those klids missed their flight and the "reaper" was out to get them....eeek:eek:
Or - for the tinfoil hat crowd - they were 'silenced' by the perpetrators of this 'accident' ( :rolleyes: )to keep them from identifying the group responsible. Anybody checked the enquiring blogs or Snopes lately? I'm sure it's only a matter of time. :rolleyes:
Richard's $.02 :munchin
The Europeans do not have licensed dispatchers so the decision rests with the captain. I'm not sure if a relief captain can overrule an originating captain. I would guess that he could.
According to the crew list, there was only one Captain with 2 FOs. One of the FOs wife was on board as well.
Pat
Latest on the Air France loss.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Air France jet had rudder problem; still no cause in crash
USA Today, 14 Jun 2009
<snip> So far, there is no evidence of an explosion or terrorist act, just clues that point to systemic failures on the plane. Experts have said the evidence uncovered so far points to at least a partial midair breakup of the Airbus A330. <snip>
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-06-14-air-france-crash-brazil_N.htm?csp=YahooModule_News
longrange1947
06-14-2009, 06:46
My 2 cents would be a cascade that would start minor, and in rough weather, begin to trip other "minor" problems. From this cascade, catastrophic would occur. Worked with McDonnell Douglas back in 66-67 before I joined (My father got me in and was upset when I went Army). Saw how a minor glitch became serious while the pilot was involved in the developing cascade of trivia. It happens slow then escalates beyond the pilots control very rapidly.
Again my 2 cents.
Here's an interesting development.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
NTSB Focuses On Two A330 Jet Incidents
Alan Levin, USA TODAY, 25 Jun 2009
U.S. aviation accident investigators have launched probes into two recent incidents aboard Airbus A330 jets that appear to have similarities to the failures reported on the Air France jet that disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean on June 1.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Thursday it is looking into incidents on Northwest Airlines and Brazil's TAM Airlines in which pilots on the long-range, wide body jet received apparently erroneous airspeed and altitude data.
The investigation into the disappearance of Air France Flight 447, an A330 with 228 people aboard, has focused on the apparent failures of air pressure sensors that measure a jet's speed. The sensors are known as Pitot tubes. Data messages sent from the jet to an Air France maintenance computer indicated that the sensors failed minutes before the plane went down.
The failure of external air pressure sensors occur relatively frequently on all types of aircraft without serious consequences, according to federal aviation data bases. However, the failures can lead to critical problems if pilots do not respond properly and such failures have been linked to at least four fatal crashes around the world.
The NTSB, which is assisting French investigators in the Air France investigation, said it is looking into a Northwest flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo on Tuesday during which apparent similar failures occurred. The NTSB is collecting flight recorders, maintenance data, weather information and statements from the crew, the agency said. The flight landed safely in Tokyo.
In another incident on May 21, TAM Flight 8091 from Miami to São Paulo lost speed and altitude information in the cockpit, the NTSB said.
The crew noticed a rapid drop in outside temperature while cruising, followed by several abrupt failures. The autopilot and throttle controls disconnected and the crew lost speed and altitude information, the NTSB said.
The crew was able to fly the plane using backup instruments. Speed and altitude information returned after about five minutes and the plane landed safely in São Paulo.
The incidents could shed light on the Air France investigation. Last year, Airbus advised airlines to replace Pitot tubes on A330s because they could provide erroneous readings in bad weather, but many airlines have not completed the switch.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-06-25-ntsb_N.htm?csp=YahooModule_News
Here's an interesting development.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Fine and dandy, but there should be 3 independent pitot/static systems. One for the Capt., one for the F/O and a back-up. That said (and I've never worked with Airbus aircraft, just Boeing and McD), being a fly-by-wire A/C, if they feed the three sources into one computer (the real pilot) I can see this being a problem. But GPS also gives airspeed info to the living breathing pilot, I believe (I was retired before GPS).
Odd how they forget to mention the 60,000' thunderstorms in these reports.
The NTSB will not be invited to help investigate. EDIT: (I misread this so I guess were invited to help) "The NTSB, which is assisting French investigators in the Air France investigation".
Pat
Ret10Echo
07-02-2009, 10:50
French: Air France plane hit the sea belly first
By GREG KELLER and EMMA VANDORE, Associated Press Writers Greg Keller And Emma Vandore, Associated Press Writers 47 mins ago
LE BOURGET, France – An intact Air France Flight 447 slammed belly first into the Atlantic Ocean at a very high speed, a top French investigator said Thursday, adding that problems with the plane's speed sensors were not the direct cause of the crash.
Alain Bouillard, who is leading the investigation into the June 1 crash for the French accident agency BEA, says the speed sensors, called Pitot tubes, were "a factor but not the only one."
"It is an element but not the cause," Bouillard told a news conference in Le Bourget outside Paris. "Today we are very far from establishing the causes of the accident."
The Airbus A330-200 plane was carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it went down just after midnight in a remote area of the Atlantic, 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) off Brazil's mainland and far from radar coverage.
The BEA released its first preliminary findings on the crash Thursday, calling it one of history's most challenging plane crash investigations. Yet the probe, which has operated without access to the plane's flight data and voice recorders, appears to have unveiled little about what really caused the accident.
"Between the surface of the water and 35,000 feet, we don't know what happened," Bouillard admitted. "In the absence of the flight recorders, it is extremely difficult to draw conclusions."
Bouillard said the plane "was not destroyed in flight" and appeared to have hit "belly first," gathering speed as it dropped thousands of feet through the air.
He said investigators have found "neither traces of fire nor traces of explosives."
One of the automatic messages emitted by the Air France plane indicates it was receiving incorrect speed information from the external monitoring instruments, which could destabilize the plane's control systems. Experts have suggested those external instruments might have iced over.
The Pitots have not been "excluded form the chain that led to the accident," he said.
Kieran Daly, editor of Air Transport Intelligence, said although investigators seem to know very little about what happened due to "a horrendous lack of evidence" it was significant that the plane landed the right way up.
"It suggests they were in some kind of flight attitude," he said.
But he warned that "without finding the black boxes it's going to be phenomenally difficult, maybe impossible, to determine what happened."
Bouillard said life vests found among the wreckage were not inflated, suggesting that passengers were not prepared for a crash landing in the water. The pilots apparently also did not send any mayday calls.
He said there was "no information" suggesting a need to ground the world's fleet of more than 600 A330 planes as a result of the crash.
"As far as I'm concerned there's no problem flying these aircraft," he said.
A burst of automated messages emitted by the plane before it fell gave rescuers only a vague location to begin their search, which has failed to locate the plane's black boxes in the vast ocean expanse. The chances of finding the flight recorders are falling daily as the signals they emit fade. Without them, the full causes of the tragic accident may never be known.
The black boxes — which are in reality bright orange — are resting somewhere on an underwater mountain range filled with crevasses and rough, uneven terrain. Bouillard said the search for the plane's black boxes has been extended by 10 days through July 10.
The remote location, combined with the mystery of what happened to the plane — the pilots had either no time or no radio frequency to make a mayday call — makes the inquiry exceptionally challenging.
Bouillard said French investigators have yet to receive any information from Brazilian authorities about the results of the autopsies on the 51 bodies recovered from the site.
Families of the victims met with officials from BEA, Air France and the French transport ministry before the report was released Thursday. An association of families addressed a letter to the CEO of Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, demanding answers to several questions about the plane.
Investigators should have an easier time recovering debris and black boxes in the crash of a Yemeni Airbus 310 with 153 people on board that went down Tuesday just nine miles (14.5 kilometers) north of the Indian Ocean island-nation of Comoros.
___
Vandore reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Cecile Brisson at Le Bourget and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
Dohhunter
05-27-2011, 10:30
38,000' in 3.5 minutes. Wow.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/27/air.france.447.crash/index.html?hpt=T1
Air France crash pilots lost vital speed data, say investigators
By Thair Shaikh, CNN
May 27, 2011 12:01 p.m. EDT
(CNN) -- Pilots of the Air France flight that crashed in 2009 and plummeted 38,000 ft in just three minutes and 30 seconds, lost vital speed data, France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said Friday.
Pilots on the aircraft got conflicting air speeds in the minutes leading up to the crash, the interim reports states. The aircraft climbed to 38,000 ft when "the stall warning was triggered and the airplane stalled," the report says.
Aviation experts are asking why the pilots responded to the stall by pulling the nose up instead of pushing it down to recover.
Miles O'Brien, a pilot and aviation analyst, said: "You push down on the wheel to gain air speed, perhaps they (pilots) were getting information that the air speed was too high. Pulling the nose up will exacerbate an aerodynamic stall."
The speed displayed on the left primary flight display were "inconsistent" with those on the integrated standby instrument system (ISIS), the report says.
The aircraft experienced some "rolling" before stalling and then descending rapidly into the ocean. The descent lasted 3 minutes and 30 seconds and the engines remained operational, said the report. It plunged at 10,912 feet (3,300 meters) per minute.
At the time of the descent, the two co-pilots and captain were in the aircraft cockpit.
Richard Quest, CNN's aviation expert, said: "For whatever reason the aircraft speed sensors failed and the A330 went into a high altitude stall. The pilot's actions were unable to recover the aircraft and some might say, made the bad situation worse.
"The actual falling from the sky will have been horrific. This plane fell out of the sky."
All 228 people aboard the Airbus A330 Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris were killed on June 1, 2009.
The pilots lost contact with air traffic controllers while flying across an area of the Atlantic Ocean known for constant bands of severe turbulence.
Air crash investigators at the Paris-based BEA have been working on the theory that the speed sensors, known as pitot tubes or probes, malfunctioned because of ice at high altitude.
Since the accident, Air France has replaced the pitots on its Airbus fleet with a newer model.
The report quotes some of the pilot's conversation -- who were not named -- and reveals that they were aware of the upcoming turbulence and storm.
Four hours and six minutes into the flight, one of the co-pilots, referred to as PF, called the cabin crew, telling them that: "In two minutes we should enter an area where it'll move about a bit more than at the moment, you should watch out... I'll call you back as soon as we're out of it."
The actual falling from the sky will have been horrific. This plane fell out of the sky
--Richard Quest, CNN's aviation expert
The report said that four hours and 10 minutes into the flight: "The autopilot [and] then [the] auto-thrust disengaged," and co-pilot PF said: "I have the controls." The report said the stall warning sounded twice in a row.
A short time later the other co-pilot, referred to as PNF said: "So, we've lost the speeds." A second later the stall warnings sounded again the report said.
At about this time, "The speed displayed on the left side increased sharply," the report said. The aircraft was then at an altitude of about 37,500 ft.
The report said that at this time co-pilot PNF tried several times to call the captain back to the cockpit.
The aircraft then climbed to 38,000 ft and at around four hours 11 minutes and 40 seconds into the flight, the captain re-entered the cockpit. During the following seconds all of the recorded speeds became invalid and the stall warning stopped, the report said.
Co-pilot PF said: "I don't have any more indications," and the co-pilot PNF said "we have no valid indications."
About a minute later co-pilot the PF said: "We're going to arrive at level one hundred." This is a height of 10,000ft. About fifteen seconds later, the data recorder indicate "simultaneous inputs by both pilots on the sidesticks."
The recordings stopped at four hours 14 minutes and 28 seconds into the flight. A full investigation into the crash is expected next year.
Airbus, manufacturers of the A330, said: "The BEA's work constitutes a significant step towards the identification of the complete chain of events that led to the tragic accident. Airbus is committed to continuing to provide support to the BEA investigation with the objective of identifying all potential lessons to be learnt," according to the Press Association.
Earlier this week French air crash investigators said they would be able to identify two bodies recovered this month from the crash site. The recovery team is now working on retrieving all the bodies, French officials have said.
In early May search teams found the crucial "data recorders" from the wreck site, estimated to lie at a depth of between 2,000 to 4,000 meters (6,562 to 13,124 feet).