[kermitology]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

I'm not buying the idea that lightning knocked out the radar and then the pilot flew into a tropical storm, which brought down the plane. What doesn't make sense about that is that the radar looks forward quite far... if the radar did get knocked out, the pilot still would have known what was in front of him and should have been flying around systems, which would have given him enough time to send out a communication that he was having problems. There is no way the radar got knocked out and immediately the plane broke apart which prevented the pilot from radioing in a mayday or pan.

As well, it's unlikely a lightning strike brought down the plane in a hurry. There are a lot of things not making sense with all the media reports and are starting to contradict each other.

VERY unlikely that the weather radar was knocked out by lightning strike. That would have registered the storm FAARRR in advance of the actual storm cell before they got into a lightning strike range. Lightning could possibly disrupt the electrical system, especially if there was sufficient strikes. There's plenty of devices on the aircraft to help with static dispersion and such, but lightning strikes can still cause a bunch of problems. My plane was struck in Malaysia while I was working and we didn't notice until we landed and saw that one of our prop blades was cracked.

Originally Posted by jolinar of malkshor

I don't think it would cost that much, would it? I mean we have satallite on west jet.

Generally satellites for TV and such are in geosynchronous orbit. Meaning that they're position is constant relative to the ground. So you can point a satellite receiver at the transmitting satellite and do stuff with the data like watch TV. Transmitting via a satellite uplink is much more complicated.

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Yes sometimes they are put on trial for murder.
Problem is when an airplane goes down, it usually not one single thing that takes a plane down, but a multitude of reasons.

I dunno about murder, but certainly negligent homicide. But this is less likely.

Originally Posted by Byrns

Or a GPS transmitter that could track the last location.

GPS receivers are used in the navigation systems of the aircraft, but same as the whole thing with a satellite uplink, it's more difficult to transmit you're location.

Originally Posted by Finny61

If ATC lost them on radar over the ocean I'd certainly buy the possibility of system failure (because they can't track their height) especially if they were flying instrument only and no visibility due to storms in the area, if the altimeter was failing they would believe they are flying at a set height but in fact were descending and then suddenly ocean.

They'd lose radar contact as soon as the aircraft gets outside of the radar range of the ground based radar systems. And you can effectively determine the height based on the angle of incidence of the returned radar signal.


Personally I would speculate that a combination of weather created a situation where the pilot's lost control of the aircraft, became disoriented and crashed.