Air France jet from Brazil missing with 228 on board

[newsartist]

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

Wayne

That from a quote at the Paris Air Show.

As stated elsewhere in the piece, French experts have been legally involved since June 10. Sylvie Garnier (Commissioner of Police), Gil Delehaye (investigator), Charles Danjart (dental surgeon) and Alain Sanvoisin (medical).

The Brazilian Police in Pernambuco are in charge of human remains.

One 'body', previously mentioned, has turned out to be part of a 'marine animal'.

 

[davf]

There is an article in USA Today... today.... that states that it was an inflight breakup. Certainly the large pieces of wreckage seem to suggest that. Also, they quote as source as saying the injuries on the (mostly whole) bodies are consistent with inflight breakup. Of course this still doesn't explain WHY the breakup occured.

The disputes over access are going to be fodder for the lawyers...

 

[drwayne]

Supposed focus on "computer bug"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... itted=true

Article really doesn't quite match the title, and the information does not appear to be much new.

Wayne

 

[newsartist]

No major developments today.

Spain has added a maritime patrol F-27 to the search, flying from Dakar. It identified another floating concentration of debris, probably luggage.

The French amphibious carrier Mistral, should be on scene tomorrow with helicopters.

 

[davf]

Spain too! This is keeps getting more and more interesting... let's hope the findings keep coming!

 

[Smersh]

Given the reports we've heard of cabin pressurisation failure (as mentioned by Newsartist early in this thread,) plus the Sky News report claiming the aircraft broke up over a period of time, rather than in one catastrophic incident, plus the reports of bodies being found 50 nm apart - does that suggest that some people might have been sucked out of the cabin before the aircraft finally went down?

If so, I wonder what caused the fuselage to suddenly get a hole in it?

It's getting desperate to find those flight recorders by now I should think. The homing signal only lasts for 30 days, as I understand it.

 

[newsartist]

There isn't enough reliable data yet to make a firm statement about anything.

The "cabin altitude change' was just one electronic indication, but other notes seem to indicate the whole electronic system was having issues at that time, so it can't be positively stated as being true.

It alnost certainly came apart catestrophically. Once the vertical fin came off, it would have skidded and the airflow would have shredded the airplane in seconds.

What was found spent a lot of time in the water, subject to wind and current. Anything that was released from depth underwater had yet a different current situation. A 50 mile spread is not unreasonable for a single event source.

Data recorders have been found without 'pingers' before, and with even less information as to where the accident happened. It all boils down to how much the investigators are willing to spend on the task.

 

[scottb50]

There isn't enough reliable data yet to make a firm statement about anything.

The "cabin altitude change' was just one electronic indication, but other notes seem to indicate the whole electronic system was having issues at that time, so it can't be positively stated as being true.

It alnost certainly came apart catestrophically. Once the vertical fin came off, it would have skidded and the airflow would have shredded the airplane in seconds.

What was found spent a lot of time in the water, subject to wind and current. Anything that was released from depth underwater had yet a different current situation. A 50 mile spread is not unreasonable for a single event source.

Data recorders have been found without 'pingers' before, and with even less information as to where the accident happened. It all boils down to how much the investigators are willing to spend on the task.

Failure or the vertical stabilizer would be a result of something else, not the causal factor, it's loss alone would not be catastrophic a number of aircraft have lost their vetical stabilizers, or large parts of them and still survived. That parts drifted from their impact point is obvious and the fact the stabilizer and rudder are the main composite structures on that aircraft mean the could have been miles from where the main part, or they, hit the water.

Perhaps it makes some sense to mount the recorders in those structures rather then in the rear fuselage. Or even better that you transmit the data by satellite, if all of it was, not just the minimal data uplinked to engineering, all the channels would be available all the time.

The biggest problem I see is most countries are more interested in placing blame and punishing pilots who are dealing with extraordinary situations then correcting the underlying problem that caused the crash. Normal conversation, when everything is normal builds crew confidence and respect needed in an emergency rather then being a cause of a problem. In my experience aviation is 80% boredom, 19% intense concentration, and, if it happens 1% sheer terror.

 

[Smersh]

There isn't enough reliable data yet to make a firm statement about anything ...

Yes, of course you are absolutely right - especially as the flight recorders haven't been found yet. I was just speculating, but the disaster could have been caused by a whole host of possible things going wrong.

... Data recorders have been found without 'pingers' before, and with even less information as to where the accident happened. It all boils down to how much the investigators are willing to spend on the task.

Have they been found without pingers when they're a mile or more deep on the ocean floor though? Still, at least they're bright orange (which is why they are known in the trade as "red eggs" of course,) so maybe we shouldn't lose all hope. There were reports of a French nuclear sub (hunter-killer I would think) assisting in the search so if that's true I guess we're throwing all the technology at the problem we can.

... Perhaps it makes some sense to mount the recorders in those structures rather then in the rear fuselage. Or even better that you transmit the data by satellite, if all of it was, not just the minimal data uplinked to engineering, all the channels would be available all the time ...

Transmitting the data by satellite sounds an excellent idea to me. I wonder why that hasn't been brought in yet? Pilots' unions not comfortable with the possible "Big Brother" aspect maybe? (Although I would have thought if that was a sticking point it could easily be resolved.)

Maybe flight recorders that float might be an idea as well.

 

[MeteorWayne]

I think the real problem with real time black box data broadcasting is the pure volume of data. How many flights are in the air at any given time? How many parameters are monitored?
How do you receive the data?
Where do you store it?

It's a logistical nightmare.

 

[drwayne]

For a while there were reports that the pingers had been detected, but the French have denied
it fairly categorically.

I remember the hunt for the KAL-007 pingers, we never found them, but the Russians did. Anyone ever
see whether they found them when they were pinging, or just found the wreckage later?

Wayne

 

[newsartist]

SAR efforts from Senegal have been terminated.

Brazilian aircraft are still searching, but not much is being found, and no more human remains.

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

So is it time to start laying out a pattern of sonobouys ? I assume France has the needed ASW equipment that could be used in this type of search.

 

[scottb50]

I think the real problem with real time black box data broadcasting is the pure volume of data. How many flights are in the air at any given time? How many parameters are monitored?
How do you receive the data?
Where do you store it?

It's a logistical nightmare.

I don't see that to be too big of a problem, the minimun requirement is 88 parameters but most record way more then that, most 150 or more. Since it is all digital uplinking it would be rather simple. That it not be available for civil uses could be handled by simply erasing it, if nothing happens or restricting access for anythng other then accident investigation. It is much more important to prevent reassurances of a problem then to fix blame and that should be the main reason to record data.

 

[drwayne]

They apparently have recovered the body of the pilot.

Speculation states that this might place the pilot not at the controls, perhaps in the rest bunk,
which is further back in the plane. Depending on how things are scheduled for long trans-Atlantic
flights, this may be consistent with normal operating procedures.

Wayne

 

[newsartist]

Speculation states that this might place the pilot not at the controls, perhaps in the rest bunk,
which is further back in the plane. Wayne

That would still leave two fully-qualified pilots in charge, and is a standard practice.

Pieces of the shattered rest module were among the very first wreckage recovered.

 

[drwayne]

Understood on the two pilots, I was not implying anything irregular.

It might have some bearing on how fast things developed that can be a part of the
puzzle.

Wayne

IANAP of course

 

[drwayne]

Not much new,but a summary:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009 ... lane_N.htm

 

[scottb50]

Don't know the writer, but this narrative was sent to me by a friend.


This from Brent Stratton, a friend and NWA pilot I flew the B-757 with out of our Tokyo base.........Now obviously on the A-330

Well, I'm sure you have all heard of the Air France accident. I fly the same plane, the A330.


Yesterday while coming up from Hong Kong to Tokyo , a 1700nm 4hr. flight, we experienced the same problems Air France had while flying thru bad weather.

I have a link to the failures that occurred on AF 447. My list is almost the same.
http://www.eurocockpit.com/images/acars447.php

The problem I suspect is the pitot tubes ice over and you loose your airspeed indication along with the auto pilot, auto throttles and rudder limit protection. The rudder limit protection keeps you from over stressing the rudder at high speed.
Synopsis;

Tuesday 23, 2009 10am enroute HKG to NRT. Entering Nara Japan airspace. FL390 mostly clear with occasional isolated areas of rain, clouds tops about FL410. Outside air temperature was -50C TAT -21C (your not supposed to get liquid water at these temps). We did.

As we were following other aircraft along our route. We approached a large area of rain below us. Tilting the weather radar down we could see the heavy rain below, displayed in red. At our altitude the radar indicated green or light precipitation, most likely ice crystals we thought. Entering the cloud tops we experienced just light to moderate turbulence. (The winds were around 30kts at altitude.) After about 15 sec. we encountered moderate rain. We thought it odd to have rain streaming up the windshield at this altitude and the sound of the plane getting pelted like an aluminum garage door. It got very warm and humid in the cockpit all of a sudden.

Five seconds later the Captains, First Officers, and standby airspeed indicators rolled back to 60kts. The auto pilot and auto throttles disengaged. The Master Warning and Master Caution flashed, and the sounds of chirps and clicks letting us know these things were happening. Jerry Staab, the Capt. hand flew the plane on the shortest vector out of the rain. The airspeed indicators briefly came back but failed again. The failure lasted for THREE minutes. We flew the recommended 83%N1 power setting. When the airspeed indicators came back. we were within 5 knots of our desired speed. Everything returned to normal except for the computer logic controlling the plane. (We were in alternate law for the rest of the flight.)

We had good conditions for the failure; daylight, we were rested, relatively small area, and light turbulence. I think it could have been much worse. Jerry did a great job fly and staying cool. We did our procedures called dispatch and maintenance on the SAT COM and landed in Narita. That's it.

 

[newsartist]

You, and everybody else on the Internet got this?

It has all the smell of being bogus.

 

[drwayne]

French end search for Flight 447 black boxes

PARIS – French investigators said Thursday they have abandoned a second round of search efforts for the black box flight recorders from Air France Flight 447, believed to be resting in the depths of the Atlantic.

The Airbus jet crashed into the ocean June 1 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, killing all 228 people aboard. The flight's voice and data recorders could provide important clues as to what precipitated the accident, whose cause has so far stumped investigators.

Rest of the story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090820/ap_ ... azil_plane

 

[veritassemper]

Re: French end search for Flight 447 black boxes

It is a great pity that the flight recorders remain unfound. Certainly I am fairly sure that what is considered to be the most likely scenario of events is probably correct. However, when such a disaster occurs, it can never be a satisfactory situation without the truth of the cause being known.

I note that Airbus have stated that they would be willing to fund a third search. It is in their interests to do so as they will be desperate to know just what fault there was in the Airbus 300-200 (?) that could have caused the tragedy. Only then can any design flaw be tackled.

From the prespective of the families and relatives of those who died, it would be desired that the flight recorders are found for obvious reasons. I hope another search does take place and this time proves to be successful.

v s

 

[JROYB]

Re: French end search for Flight 447 black boxes

I hold very little hope of the FDR / CVR ever being found. The acoustic beacons by now are expired, and it would be blind luck to chance upon them........especially in the topography of the area.

 

[drwayne]

France seeks help with Airbus A330 search

France wants to launch an expanded international effort to find the missing wreckage and flight recorders of the Air France jet which crashed in the Atlantic in June, the country's top crash investigator said today.

About a thousand fragments of the Airbus A330 which crashed on June 1st, killing 228 people, have been examined but most of the aircraft is still missing and it is still too early to say definitely what caused the crash, he said.

Rest of the story:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... king23.htm

 

[MeteorWayne]

Heard a news report today that there will be a 3 month search for the black boxes using sonar and robotic submersibles beginning in Fevbruary...no details that I can find yet.