Air France plane lost: 'no hope' of finding airliner ** UPDATE- Wreckage Found **

[worth]

12 days until I cross the Pacific in an Airbus A330-300. I don't have a problem flying, but this news doesn't exactly have me jumping for joy.

I've only ever flown over water over the gulf of Mexico. So not that long. Now I basically have 10 hours of flight over the ocean. Yaaay.

That would probably be one of the worst ways to die. A few minutes (i'm guessing) of sheer terror. Not a good way to end it.

Don't think it's the dead part that worries most people, it's the events that lead up to death that suck.

Condolences to the family.

Maybe I should think about what I would do in that eventuality. Make a playlist on my ipod of music I want to go out to. have that blaring full blast and maybe make a deal with the hot chick sitting next to me that we should get it on in that situation. Plus beer and sandwiches. But maybe that situation would be so scary I would be limp out of fear. Better remember to bring 20 viagra to pop.

[Winsor_Pilates]

RIP
Horrible news

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

That's a little misleading. Just because there are 4 backup genarators doesn't mean they have full quadruple redundancy in the electrical system. It's still possible 1 system failure could bring the plane down, although that is equally unlikely as any system that is critical enough that if lost, will result in losing the plane, likely has at least one backup.

But if say you lose the transmitters from the autopilot/control stick to the rudder, then all the backup generators in the world won't help you.

Of course one critical system failure can bring it down, but it would have to be a serious failure. And the electrical system failing would have to mean that these backups all failed. If (and I mean serious IFF) the electrical system failed, than Airbus could be in serious trouble as all but 1 in production model uses this FBW system.

For them to lose all rudder control, and it not be structural would be something similar to the Swiss Air flight on the east coast where there was a fire in the avionics due to insulating foam. The Hydraulics last resort is simply that, its for basic steerage and nothing more.

Also, lightening knocking out the weather dopler is likely, however they would have had pre flight weather reports from CDG, as well as the information they had before it went down. The US weather network has serious storms in their flight paths. Also remember that almost all hurricanes that hit North America originate in that area of the Atlantic.

Compare the 2 flight decks. Airbus - A330 FlyByWire (FBW) with no stick, if the electrical and all backups fail all you have is rudder via the pedals. Electrical system is required to fly the plane hence the reason for the four fully redundant electrical systems



Boeing 777 - newest model they produce only has 2 electrical generators, however they are independent and run all the time since its used similar to power steering instead of running a computer.

[BlackArcher101]

Good to see another aviation minded person here myk.

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.

My personal take on it... I have no clue. If the report of the plane sending the automatic report that the cabin lost pressure is true... then I'm guessing they encountered exteme turbulence combined with wind shear/updraft and broke apart. Also possible that they flew through severe hail, but again the wx radar would have had to be down for a while, and how come they didn't report it?

[Bobblehead]

Latest reports question the lightning theory:

An Air France captain operating on long-range routes, who agreed to speak to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said lightning alone was unlikely to have caused the presumed crash.

"I would not think it was possible that lightning could lead to a short-circuit and disrupt all of the plane's electrical systems. Test planes have resisted some 30 lightning strikes and nothing ever happened," the pilot said.

More likely, he said, is that the jet might have suffered an electrical system failure which would have turned off its radars and communications systems, turning it blind and making it more vulnerable to storms and strong lateral air currents.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090601...b-7f5ebb3.html

[LChoy]

Someone posted on the CBC comments:

"Did the plane disappear through the Bermuda Triange?"



Seriously though, it'll take months if not years I think for investigators to find out what went wrong. It's shocking that it happen all so quickly and with little warning. The search area is huge as well, so it may take awhile just to find evidence of wreakage

[worth]

Maybe Quinn Mallory opened up a wormhole at 35,000ft and "The Cryin' Man" Rembrandt Brown flew the plane into said wormhole, and they ended up in another dimension, except this time, the US was communist.

[BlackArcher101]

To all reporting news reports (mainly cnn)... keep in mind they are reading posts of message boards, particularily another one I'm following. These experts are self-titled and are a disgrace to go on tv and spread speculation.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by ken0042

That's good to know. I often see episodes of "Mayday" where they lose engine power, and also lose other key systems because they have lost the ability to generate power. I always wondered why they have a propeller to deploy for power (which has to create drag) instead of having some sort of generator they can switch on.

Generators need fuel, so what happens if there is no fuel? That's where those little propellers come in.

[mykalberta]

Here is the weather approx durring the time the plane went down. So unlikely they could have flown around. Also, 2 other aircraft - and AF 744 and a Tam A330 were on the same routing durring approx the same time. Its normal for Brazil to have routings at similar times due to the passenger prefereance for overnight flights.

[BlackArcher101]

Pretty much no route around it... would have penetrated at one point.

Here's another showing divergence.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Generators need fuel, so what happens if there is no fuel? That's where those little propellers come in.

I am not 100% sure, but I dont believe fuel powered generators are used. Most "fuel" that aircraft systems use comes in the form electricity being created by the Engine itself. Usually bleed air runs a turbine I believe.

I dont believe its the case that there are gas fueled generators in the aircraft. Yes its a single point of failure, but if your engines die, you are likely dead and no backup system is of much use.

EDIT: One other thing, if you are worried about loved ones please note. The flight number of the missing plane is AF447 (Airbus A330-200). There was also an Air France 744 (Boeing 747-400)(plane type, not flight number) that took off within an hour of AF447. I think news agencies are getting passenger manifests confused a bit because of the similar numbers.

[HOOT]

Anyone else feel as dumb as I do reading and looking at some of these pictures?

[Jayems]

Originally Posted by HOOT

Anyone else feel as dumb as I do reading and looking at some of these pictures?

I just 2 seconds ago abandoned a photoshop of that exact gif with a bunch of arrows and sentences in german saying:

Und einige bewölkt weiß Stuff hier (and some white cloudy stuff over here)

with a few others... but it was too much work to be able to read the writing, and no one would get it if they didn't speak german... so I abandoned my aspirations of a funny photoshop.

The reference was supposed to be : That map is like trying to read german. It didn't translate out so well...

[STeeLy]

Originally Posted by HOOT

Anyone else feel as dumb as I do reading and looking at some of these pictures?

Yeah, you're not the only one, no worries

[BlackArcher101]

Here's some more german for you then

[wittynickname]

I just want to say that I'm only understanding about a third of what's being said in this thread, however it's fascinating to me, and I appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts and expertise, because I love reading all of it.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by http://www.cbs19.tv/Global/story.asp?S=10458071

But around 4:15 a.m. Paris time (10:15 p.m. ET), Flight 447's automatic system began a four-minute exchange of messages to the company's maintenance computers, indicating that "several pieces of aircraft equipment were at fault or had broken down," he told reporters.

If true, then that means it still had electrical power for 4 minutes but was in severe distress. Strange.

Oh, and yet another map.

[jolinar of malkshor]

Question...

Why don't they have real time inflight cameras connected wirelessly so we can see what happens in these events?

[Jayems]

I wonder if airplane mechanics ever get blamed for showing up to work hungover or for simply having shoddy workmanship that results in catastrophic consequences.