Air France jet from Brazil missing with 228 on board

[Testing]

PPrune.org has a transcript of the ACARS messages. And an almost reasonable disscussion and translation. Skip the long thread and read the short one.

 

[Smersh]

PPrune.org has a transcript of the ACARS messages. And an almost reasonable disscussion and translation. Skip the long thread and read the short one.

Thanks Testing. I think the thread you mean is this one, is it?

BBC says a French nuclear sub is being sent to assist with the search ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8085539.stm

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: Doubts over lightning's role in missing jetliner

Please try to avoid starting parallel threads on the same topic. Thanks!

Wayne

Indeed, I have merged the topics

The other Wayne

 

[Smersh]

About half-way down the second readout there is "ADR disagree." Could that be significant perhaps?

Pitot heads have also been mentioned in the Pprune thread (iced up maybe?) This TD was mentioned on page 1 of that thread ...

Alert TD on all Airbuses
It looks like, all pitot tubes on 320,330, 340
have to be replaced to another type
within 2 weeks.

I had a lot of experience sourcing aircraft spares in civil aviation before I retired. I'm sure there is no way new type pitot tubes in such a huge quantity would be immediately available "off the shelf." They would have to be manufactured and a 2 week target time would be asking a lot, to say the least ...

 

[MeteorWayne]

From Comcast:

RECIFE, Brazil/PARIS — Brazilian search crews on Saturday retrieved the first bodies from a crashed Air France flight in the Atlantic, and the plane's maker said it had detected faulty speed readings on the same type of jets.

Navy ships found the bodies of two men and debris including a blue seat with a serial number matching Air France flight 447, a rucksack containing a vaccination card, and a briefcase with an Air France ticket inside, rescue officials said.

"This morning at 8:14 a.m., we confirmed the rescue from the water of pieces and bodies that belonged to the Air France flight," air force spokesman Jorge Amaral told reporters in the northeastern city of Recife.

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

Another three bodies recovered. I sure hope they can recover the "black boxes" and then find the cause of this disaster.

 

[newsartist]

The vertical fin, including rudders, has been found mostly intact. It was floating in the water, and recovered by the Brazilian military.

 

[newsartist]

Direct from the Brazilian military:

A total of 24 victims had been recovered by the end of today. Bad weather may be moving in. Included in the total of 12 Brazilian and two French search aircraft is a sensor-equipped "R-99" survey aircraft. This is a much-modified Embraer 145 jet, normally used for earth resources work.

In addition, an "H-34" (Super Puma,) heavy helicopter has staged to Fernando de Noronha to assist as conditions allow.

 

[scottb50]

The vertical fin, including rudders, has been found mostly intact. It was floating in the water, and recovered by the Brazilian military.

From what I can see the rudder is mostly intact except at the lower end where both it and a section of the stabilizer look like they broke off. I am somewhat puzzled by all the media hype about the rudder coming off when it clearly looks to still be attached. Adding to that would be an incident a number of years ago on an A-300 or 310 where the rudder did come off and the aircraft landed without serious problems.

That the stabilizer looks to have failed well above the attachment points would seem to indicate it was a victim of what happened rather then a cause. Having the air data system fail has been shown to cause rather violent reactions, combined with turbulence from the weather an upset could very well have happened. That the rudder was found in the same area as other debris and bodies could mean the aircraft remained fairly intact until it hit the water.

 

[davf]

If not mistaken, that was an Air Transat A-310 out of Cuba that had the rudder delaminate.

How about the 'bus that went into Jamaica Bay after losing the entire vert stab? Didn't the pilot apply full rudder during turbulance, overstressing the stab?

Of course there are dozens of reasons for the stab to be found like that.....

(somewhat irrelevant) Question: Is the stab in the 330 wet? I'm always impressed with structural parts like this are found floating...

 

[scottb50]

If not mistaken, that was an Air Transat A-310 out of Cuba that had the rudder delaminate.

How about the 'bus that went into Jamaica Bay after losing the entire vert stab? Didn't the pilot apply full rudder during turbulance, overstressing the stab?

Of course there are dozens of reasons for the stab to be found like that.....

(somewhat irrelevant) Question: Is the stab in the 330 wet? I'm always impressed with structural parts like this are found floating...

I would think if it had failed in flight it wouldn't have been found in the same area bodies and large amounts of debris were found. As for being wet I know some aircraft have tanks in the horizontal surfaces but I'm not sure about the vertical.

 

[davf]

Good point about the stab and bodies found in the same place...

 

[Testing]

The Atlantic Ocean is approx 3,700 metres deep (about the same depth as RMS Titanic is resting) at the point Flight AF 477 came down, so finding the Black Boxes (bright Orange actually) will be very difficult, if possible indeed.

There has been speculation that we could not reach the depths where the wreckage might be located. If the pingers can be triangulated we can at least go look, if not recover.

link to press release from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&ti ... 586&ct=162

 

[newsartist]

Good point about the stab and bodies found in the same place...

We don't know what was found where yet.

They were reportedly looking at more than one location. In any event, the footprint probably isn't that large from breakup to impact, at least in terms of ocean searches.

Welcome back davf! Your aero knowledge has been missed.

 

[davf]

Thanks news'! That's much appreciated. This getting older thing sucks: apparently you have to start taking care of yourself and I missed the message! I have missed a lot of F1 fun and some great dialogue here in the aviation forums... looking forward to spending more time here. Glad to see yourself and many others are still around! It wouldn't be the same without you all.

 

[Smersh]

Thanks news'! That's much appreciated. This getting older thing sucks: apparently you have to start taking care of yourself and I missed the message! I have missed a lot of F1 fun and some great dialogue here in the aviation forums... looking forward to spending more time here. Glad to see yourself and many others are still around! It wouldn't be the same without you all.

Hi davf and welcome back! (F1 thread for this season is well underway, as you might have noticed. )

Re the Air France tragedy, Sky News is reporting that the aircraft "broke up over a number of minutes, rather than in one catastrophic incident." Also two terror suspects who were on board have been ruled out as being involved, (also according to Sky.)

Link

 

[newsartist]

Aircraft have spotted floating debris to the west of the present search field.

This doesn't imply anything about the break up, but is a result of computer simulation of wind and current, suggesting that they look there.

Tropical squalls today are restricting safe aircraft searches there, but ships are also being diverted.

 

[davf]

I wonder how this recovery compares to Air India and KAL 007? Both of those were deep-water recoveries, weren't they? While the position of KAL 007 was well known... I don't think they had any more position info for Air India than this Air France flight, did they?

 

[Smersh]

There's a pretty good article about the Air India recovery at AirDisaster.com here. Wreckage and bodies were recovered from the surface and the British vessel Guardline Locator recovered the CVR and FDR from a depth of about 6,700 ft.

I'm not certain if the flight recorders were ever recovered in the case of KAL 007 (unless I'm missing something.) There is an extensive write-up about it in Wikipedia here.

(EDIT) Oh hang on - looks like they were recovered (according to the same Wiki article anyway.) Scroll down to "Revised ICAO report (1993)."

 

[newsartist]

I wonder how this recovery compares to Air India and KAL 007?

I think a better accident to compare this to would be the South African Airways loss in 1987. (Despite the odds, they found it.)


It was also in deep water in an area with little tracking information, (Indian Ocean.)

 

[drwayne]

I have seen reports of at least two groups of bodies, separated by ~ 50 nm.

Wayne

 

[davf]

Thanks for the pointers everyone! Of course, it's pretty amazing when they recover anything and my comments certainly weren't intended to suggest it was an easy task... When you think of the depths and areas involved, it is just amazing to me that they have ever recovered FDR/CVRs from any crash...

At the risk of mixing topics... 50nm sounds pretty far even for currents to have dispersed... things get more interesting.

Perhaps a more poignant question on my mind is, can we expect an accurate investigation?

France doesn't exactly have a stellar record whenever a French aircraft is involved... and while I wouldn't dispute Brazil's technical ability... they don't exactly have a stellar record either. So will there be any outcome that results in an improvement to air safety from this investigation? At first blush, I would inclined to suggest there won't. Truly a shame...

 

[drwayne]

Interesting. The French have stated that their folks have not been granted access to the
autopsies.

Wayne

 

[drwayne]

Article

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090617/ap_ ... azil_plane

 

[newsartist]

Interesting. The French have stated that their folks have not been granted access to the
autopsies.

Wayne