Airbus A320 Plane crashes in the Alps

[KelVarnsen]

Robert Wall ‏@R_Wall 1m1 minute ago
France says one of two Germanwings black boxes recovered http://stream.wsj.com/story/germanwi...e/SS-2-762873/

[polak]

Scary, I've flown out of Nice before and it's mountains pretty much every where north.

[KelVarnsen]

Germanwings A320 left cruising altitude after 1min

Germanwings has disclosed that the Airbus A320 lost over the French Alps today initiated its descent about 1min after reaching its cruising altitude.

The aircraft – en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf – had departed the Spanish city's El Prat airport at 10:01 local time. It reached its regular cruising altitude of 38,000ft at 10:45, but left that altitude around 1min later as it approached the French coast, said Germanwings chief executive Thomas Winkelmann at a press conference in Cologne today.

He says the descent lasted around 8min before radar contact was lost at an altitude of approximately 6,000ft, above mountainous terrain in the French Alps.

The flightcrew had not requested clearance to leave the cruising altitude.

It has not been confirmed whether or not the crew issued an emergency call. Germanwings chief pilot Stefan Kenan-Scheib says the airline has been given conflicting reports by French radar stations about an emergency call from the aircraft. The conflict had not been resolved by the time of the press conference.

The aircraft had undergone a regular line check at Dusseldorf yesterday. Its last C-check was conducted in accordance with the manufacturer's maintenance schedule in summer 2013, says Winkelmann.

Kenan-Scheib says the aircraft's computers had been upgraded to the latest software standard.

A report from news agency The Associated Press quotes French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve as saying that a black box has been located at the crash site.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...r-1min-410511/

[Northendzone]

^ personally i wish they would hold off issuing any information util they have a better idea of what might have happened. the whole air malaysia thing was a gong show with things being released and then corrections made.

i realize peole want info, but give the officials time to sort stuff out first.

[nik-]

News is about ratings, not the truth.

[hwy19man]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/passenger-plane-crashes-in-southern-france/article23589683/

No distress call was made to air traffic controllers, French officials said, suggesting some sort of an event – perhaps a depressurization and failure to don oxygen masks – left the pilots incapacitated. This brings up the 2005 Helios Boeing 737 crash.

• Sixteen Grade 10 students among dead in Alps plane crash
• In photos: Scenes from the deadly Germanwings plane crash

on the foothills of the Alps

[hwy19man]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/germanwings-flight-4u9525-airbus-a320-crash-in-french-alps-kills-150-aboard-1.3006701

[polak]

Well, hopefully everyone on board was passed out if that was the case.

[Jbo]

Awful and very sad. RIP to those on that flight.

As many know on CP, I am a very scared flyer, and the last year with the two Asia flights, and now this,are the things of nightmares for me.

My only hope is that the tragedies this year lead to further innovation and safety in the industry/

[skudr248]

Originally Posted by Jbo

Awful and very sad. RIP to those on that flight.

As many know on CP, I am a very scared flyer, and the last year with the two Asia flights, and now this,are the things of nightmares for me.

My only hope is that the tragedies this year lead to further innovation and safety in the industry/

With ya there buddy. No control is frightening

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by nik-

News is about ratings, not the truth.

God comments like this bug me.
Any reputable news agency is all about the truth. There is the business side to it yes - but their job is to report the information that is available. So if information is released - they report it.

Just too easy to take pot shots at the media. Most of those pot shots are nothing more than throwaway comments like the above.

I`ll leave it there to allow the focus of the thread to be where it should be.

[KelVarnsen]

AviationSafety ‏@AviationSafety 3h3 hours ago
BEA France releases photo of Cockpit Voice Recorder of Germanwings flight #4U9525

Spoiler!

[CaptainCrunch]

Maybe some pilots can answer this.

But I read somewhere that newer planes are coming with a satellite data link that can provide ground control with up to the minute real time information on airplanes mechanically.

Or did I read wrong.

I would think that would be hugely important going forward for planes in distress or planes with pilots that are unable to function.

[burn_this_city]

That recorder is mangled, I don't think I've seen one that beat up before. I saw a graph of the plane's airspeed and it looks like they hit the mountain at 400 knots. Horrible.

[SportsJunky]

Horrible yes but I'd rather go like that than a nose down death dive. Hit a mountain, lights out.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

That recorder is mangled, I don't think I've seen one that beat up before. I saw a graph of the plane's airspeed and it looks like they hit the mountain at 400 knots. Horrible.

It goes in line with the crash site photo. I don't know if I've ever seen a plane crash site where it was so totally obliterated. There's usually several large pieces at a crash site, that one has like one?

[Peanut]

They said the biggest piece of debris is the size of a car. And I also read the biggest body part they've found is the size of a briefcase.

At least it would have all been over in an instant. That's about the only solace I can find.

[Ryan Coke]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Maybe some pilots can answer this.

But I read somewhere that newer planes are coming with a satellite data link that can provide ground control with up to the minute real time information on airplanes mechanically.

Or did I read wrong.

I would think that would be hugely important going forward for planes in distress or planes with pilots that are unable to function.

Yes but it is intended to be preventative in nature, in order to detect issues before they become failures. It can also be useful from an investigative standpoint following an incident or accident. But there isn't any benefit in the moment of an issue occurring....it isn't going to help a crew or stop a plane from crashing.

But satellite uplinked flight data monitoring is quite common.

[hwy19man]

Remi Jouty, director of the French aviation investigative agency said the plane was flying "until the end" and was at 1,820 metres just before it smashed into the mountainside, well below its previous cruising altitude of about 11,500 metres.

Investigators were zooming in on two key minutes Tuesday — 10:30-10:31 a.m. — said Segolene Royal, a top government minister whose portfolio includes transport. From then on, air traffic controllers were unable to make contact with the plane.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/germanwings-flight-4u9525-search-back-on-for-flight-data-recorder-1.3008432

[hwy19man]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

AviationSafety ‏@AviationSafety 3h3 hours ago
BEA France releases photo of Cockpit Voice Recorder of Germanwings flight #4U9525

Spoiler!

French President Francois Hollande, meanwhile, said the case for the plane's second black box had been found but not its contents. Jouty refused to confirm that about the flight data recorder.

From the same link as posted above.