Air France flight AF447 disappears over the Atlantic

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

The depth of the ocean at the crash site (10,000-14,000 feet, different news sources are reporting varying depths) makes it unlikely that the black boxes will be recovered. Not impossible, the CIA's Project Jennifer was at least a partial success at 16,000 feet. I doubt they'd haul out the Glomar Explorer for this, though.

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: Yoman3

On a side note....Africa has radar?quote>

 

Africa has airports and the planes are not randomly crashing into each other all the time so, yes, I imagine Africa has radar.

[un1 41]

Originally posted by: manticorefan

The depth of the ocean at the crash site (10,000-14,000 feet, different news sources are reporting varying depths) makes it unlikely that the black boxes will be recovered. Not impossible, the CIA's Project Jennifer was at least a partial success at 16,000 feet. I doubt they'd haul out the Glomar Explorer for this, though.

quote>

Well it has happened before, I don't remember the exact date but in the 1980's a plane crashed in the Indian Ocean and the wreckage was 16,000 feet deep. They were able to recover only one of the black boxes, but by the time they got it it had been destroyed, so still to this day the cause is still pretty much uknown.

[Jumpthefence 74]

Finally, some news we can use! How to find a plane on the bottom of the ocean!

Now I'm wondering if people click that, thinking it's a how-to article...

Alas, Wikipedia has declared all the passengers perished, and I doubt anyone disagrees with me. It's a shame, and I hope it wasn't caused by a stupid mistake by Air France. Some things are unavoidable, but some can be avoided, but aren't. Like airplane accidents. It's just terrible.

But now authorities are wondering about terrorism being linked to the crash! Now you're just trying to make everyone scared about air travel! I heard there was a bomb threat on the Rio de Janero (I don't think I spelled that right) route, one of several airports get every year, so now they're investigating that. Really? Do you have to make this information public? I'm sure I'll get criticized for this, but I'm happy with the lie. I hope this wasn't terrorism, but it's a developing story, we'll have to wait and see.

[Barbarossa 51]

.

  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

If it was terrorism surely somebody would have claimed credit immediately.

[duack 14]

Originally posted by: Merlin of Flyote

If it was terrorism surely somebody would have claimed credit immediately.quote>

^^ Very true. Otherwise there'd be no point.

[Meg 368]

According to this article:

The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure — catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean. quote>

If there was a complete electrical failure, how was the message sent?  Battery backup?

Maybe I'm just being pedantic . . .

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

According to this article:

The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure — catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean. quote>

If there was a complete electrical failure, how was the message sent?  Battery backup?

Maybe I'm just being pedantic . . .

quote>

Im sure emergency batterys provide that power.  although it may not be enough for the normal radio to function.

I wonder why they actualy have to find the black boxes, the things have power for a locator beacon to last 30 days, wonder why they cannot make them just transmit the information to some place.

[FreewayofFlight 41]

Originally posted by: Easy Bakes

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

According to this article:

The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure — catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean. quote>

If there was a complete electrical failure, how was the message sent?  Battery backup?

Maybe I'm just being pedantic . . .

quote>

Im sure emergency batterys provide that power.  although it may not be enough for the normal radio to function.

I wonder why they actualy have to find the black boxes, the things have power for a locator beacon to last 30 days, wonder why they cannot make them just transmit the information to some place.

quote>

The black box contains vital information that can help determine what caused AF 447 to crash into the Atlantic.

I think that a series of tragic events could have taken place on the last moments of the flight. The airplane was travelling through an extreme storm, a massive lightning strike could have found a soft spot and damaged some of the electrical equipment, coupled with severe up/down-drafts could have shook the flight to pieces.

I hope the black box is found so the families might be able to have some degree of closure.

[SuburbianNightmare 0]

Surely though, if the plane broadcast emergency messages on lose of power and cabin pressure, it may have been an explosive decompression. And seeing as it was at cruising altitude of around 37,000 feet (i'm guessing) the cabin pressure and air pressure would have been at a significant difference. The Explosive decompression would have not only caused the cabin to depresserize very quickly and ripe out all the electrical wiring.

This would also explain the plane falling to pieces, the considerable size of the hole which was created in the side of the aircraft would have caused massive structual weakness.

[Edit 1] Lighting from the storm may have hit a weak spot on the aircraft causing an explosive decompression.

Praying for the families

~~ SuburbianNightmare

[Aontan 0]

Four missed Air France flight

Fri, Jun 05, 2009

Four would-be passengers missed Air France flight 447 on Sunday night and were saved from the fate of 228 others who lost their lives in the mid-Atlantic.

The survivors say their relief is overshadowed by the immense sense of loss they feel for those who didn't make it.

"It feels miraculous and sad at the same time," said Amina Benouargha-Jaffiol, who tried to get on the flight on Sunday night, even enlisting a diplomat friend to try to pressure Air France to let her and her husband on.

"Of course, at some level we feel lucky, but we also feel an enormous sadness for all those who perished," she said.

 

For some it was a simple matter of arriving at Rio's airport late; for Andrej Aplinc, it was because he got there early.

The 39-year-old Slovenian sailor and father of two was spared because his cab driver was in a hurry to see a soccer match.

With time to spare at the airport, Aplinc, who was supposed to take Flight 447, learned there was no seat on the plane with enough legroom for him to stretch out a sore leg. But since he'd arrived early, he was able to board an earlier 4 pm Air France flight.

"It was such huge luck that I flew with that earlier plane," Mr Aplinc said from his home in Radelj Ob Dravi in northeastern Slovenia.

Gustavo Ciriaco was scheduled to be on that 4pm flight. But he arrived late at the check-in and was told airline agents could not find his seat and the gate was about to close.

The 39-year-old Brazilian choreographer and dancer was on his way to Europe for two weeks of rehearsals for his next ballet, and had a connecting flight to catch in Paris.

Mr Ciriaco pleaded to be let him on the plane, and finally the airline discovered the seating error and relented.

If the reservation mix-up hadn't been resolved, "I would have tried to take the following flight because I would have arrived in Paris with enough time to catch my connection," Ciriaco said.

The next flight? Air France 447.

"Survivors" like these often need psychological counseling, said Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, whose father was among the 170 people killed in 1989 when Libyan terrorists downed UTA Flight 772 with a suitcase bomb. He now heads an association that helps victims of airline disasters.

"They can have big psychological problems. We meet a lot of people like that," said Mr Denoix de Saint-Marc, who was asked by French authorities to counsel relatives of the victims of Flight 447 at a crisis center at Paris' airport.

In the case of UTA flight 772, some of the pilots and cabin crew who had flown the French DC-10 jetliner before handing it over to the doomed crew "couldn't resume their careers," Mr Denoix de Saint-Marc said.

"They lost their flying licenses because of big psychological problems or alcoholism," he said.

Such traumas have a name: "Survivors' syndrome," seen often in combat and other crisis situations in which those who make it feel as though they fled, deserted their buddies or were cowardly, said psychiatrist Ronan Orio.

But being saved by the ticket counter, traffic or other caprices of life should not be considered traumatic, said Mr Orio, who has worked with victims of hostage situations, terror attacks and airline crashes. Instead, near-miss situations should be viewed in a positive light, he said.

"People who take a plane and have a second chance win the lotto. They have the right to continue where the others died," he said.

Ms Benouargha-Jaffiol and her husband Claude Jaffiol got a second chance last Sunday.

The couple, who live in Montpellier, France, had pulled strings to try to get on Flight 447, even drafting a family friend, a Dutch diplomat, to phone Air France and try to get them seats on the overcrowded plane.

"My husband demanded that Air France put us on that flight," Benouargha-Jaffiol said. "But nothing doing, the flight was totally full."

She and her husband finally left the airport, returning the day after the disaster.

"This type of tragedy should give us all a lesson in humility and humanism," she said. "No one lives forever. We often forget that."

AP 

© 2009 irishtimes.com

quote>

 

How lucky must they feel? 

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Merlin of Flyote

Sorry to say, but survival time in cold water is generally recognized as minutes not days.quote>

Cold water. As in, frigid wintery water. It's june, and the location of the crash is in the tropics. The water there is about 80°F (27°C). Not cold enough to cause hypothermia.

[Xyloxadoria 1,098]

Originally posted by: duack

An explosion is highly likely, because the plane was on fire when witnessess saw it and because there was no mayday signal. I doubt the storm alone would have done it, because winds would cause a struggle before causing a crash and lightning alone wont do it. Electrical failure of some sort would have played a part. Before trying to guess what it is the black box must be found.quote>

A recent report by some other pilots makes your theroy even more palusible

Two pilots of an Air Comet flight from Lima to Lisbon saw a bright flash of light in the area where Flight 447 went down, the Madrid-based airline told CNN. The pilots have turned in their report to authorities.

"Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds," the captain wrote in the report.

The flash of light contributes to the theory that an explosion is what brought down Flight 447, which was carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.quote>

[SuburbianNightmare 0]

UPDATE ON DEBRIS FOUND

the debris was NOT from the missing aircraft, as it said on the news at 21:00 today. (Friday 5th June 2009)

[pagenotfound 53]

if the debris is not from the plane then where IS it from?

[jotauveefe 24]

there is debris that is thrown away by ships which pass by

[jotauveefe 24]

and the oil waste comes also from ships

[Duke87 1,070]

Shouldn't it be pretty obvious from the nature of the debris what it' from? I mean, pieces of an airplane would be distinctly different from garbage thrown away by ships or whatever.

It does seem that the plane likely exploded midflight. The question then is, of course, what caused the explosion? There's plenty of jet fule aboard an airliner, but it's in tanks with what I'd imagine would be a very limited exposure to oxygen, so a spark wouldn't just ignite it. An explosion could initiate in one of the engines, tearing a hole in the wing which then leaves the rest of the fuel exposed to oxygen and kaboom it goes, though I don't know that there's be enough fuel in the engine itself at any given time to explode with enough force for that.

...unless there was a bomb of some sort, it'd be a pretty freak occurence for something like this happen to a plane that was in proper working order. Something was likely wrong with the plane structurally, mechanically, and/or electrically prior to the incident.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

The French are sending a nuclear sub to help with the search link

[Abes 0]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

Originally posted by: Yoman3 On a side note....Africa has radar?quote>

I'm sure you just didn't think about that comment before posting (it happens to all of us), but it sounds quite bigoted.  Of course "Africa" has radar.  How do you think planes land?  By good feelings?

Barbarossa

quote>

Barbarossa, I agree! How could you line-up and land a Boeing 747-400 without radar? Airports HAVE to have radar, or the air traffic control simply couldn't do it's job!

[Abes 0]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Shouldn't it be pretty obvious from the nature of the debris what it' from? I mean, pieces of an airplane would be distinctly different from garbage thrown away by ships or whatever.

It does seem that the plane likely exploded midflight. The question then is, of course, what caused the explosion? There's plenty of jet fule aboard an airliner, but it's in tanks with what I'd imagine would be a very limited exposure to oxygen, so a spark wouldn't just ignite it. An explosion could initiate in one of the engines, tearing a hole in the wing which then leaves the rest of the fuel exposed to oxygen and kaboom it goes, though I don't know that there's be enough fuel in the engine itself at any given time to explode with enough force for that.

...unless there was a bomb of some sort, it'd be a pretty freak occurence for something like this happen to a plane that was in proper working order. Something was likely wrong with the plane structurally, mechanically, and/or electrically prior to the incident.

quote>

Something doestn't have to be physically wrong with an airliner to cause accidents. I read on Wikipedia a few weeks ago that an engine fault on a newer Boeing 737 doing a flight from London Heathrow to Glasgow led to the plane crashing onto the M1 Motorway during an emergency landing, and although one engine had caught fire (the flight crew were not trained on the newest variant of that airliner) the Captain shut down the WRONG engine, then increased the load on the damaged engine, which promptly exploded, causing the airliner to lose all power and fall out of the sky, crashing onto the southbound cariageway of the M1 Motorway, about 100 metres short of the runway the captain was aiming at.

If the flight crew had known what they were doing the airliner could have made it's emergency landing safely.

[SuburbianNightmare 0]

"Something doestn't have to be physically wrong with an airliner to cause accidents. I read on Wikipedia a few weeks ago that an engine fault on a newer Boeing 737 doing a flight from London Heathrow to Glasgow led to the plane crashing onto the M1 Motorway during an emergency landing, and although one engine had caught fire (the flight crew were not trained on the newest variant of that airliner) the Captain shut down the WRONG engine, then increased the load on the damaged engine, which promptly exploded, causing the airliner to lose all power and fall out of the sky, crashing onto the southbound cariageway of the M1 Motorway, about 100 metres short of the runway the captain was aiming at." ~~Abes

I remember that! I was being driven down the M1 by my Dad. We were near the front of the queue caused by the aircraft crash.

Anyway I completetly agree about the plane being structually weak. It's most like a series of events that led up to it.

[ilikehotdogsalot 311]

BBC reports that bodies have been found...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8087303.stm

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Originally posted by: Merlin of Flyote

Sorry to say, but survival time in cold water is generally recognized as minutes not days.quote>

Cold water. As in, frigid wintery water. It's june, and the location of the crash is in the tropics. The water there is about 80°F (27°C). Not cold enough to cause hypothermia.

quote>

Wet bodies lose heat faster than dry bodies, even in hot places such as the Sahara Desert for example it can become cold at night. Also no water to drink if you had survived in water. Drinking sea water is not an option.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: SuburbianNightmare

"Something doestn't have to be physically wrong with an airliner to cause accidents. I read on Wikipedia a few weeks ago that an engine fault on a newer Boeing 737 doing a flight from London Heathrow to Glasgow led to the plane crashing onto the M1 Motorway during an emergency landing, and although one engine had caught fire (the flight crew were not trained on the newest variant of that airliner) the Captain shut down the WRONG engine, then increased the load on the damaged engine, which promptly exploded, causing the airliner to lose all power and fall out of the sky, crashing onto the southbound cariageway of the M1 Motorway, about 100 metres short of the runway the captain was aiming at." ~~Abes

I remember that! I was being driven down the M1 by my Dad. We were near the front of the queue caused by the aircraft crash.

Anyway I completetly agree about the plane being structually weak. It's most like a series of events that led up to it.quote>

It is possible an engine exposion or fire could have weakend the structure of the wing, and in the middle of  a storm a up or down draft caused weakend structure to fail even more. No wing, no electric control of the remaing engines. probabaly took less then a minute for a compleate break up.

 

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Merlin of Flyote

Wet bodies lose heat faster than dry bodies, even in hot places such as the Sahara Desert for example it can become cold at night.quote>

The thing about water is that it doesn't change temperature very readily. At night, the air wil cool down... but the water won't, really. Significant variations in ocean temperature occur between seasons, not between night and day.

You won't freeze to death in 80 degree water, you won't freeze to death in 75 degree water either.

Also no water to drink if you had survived in water. Drinking sea water is not an option.quote>

True. This is what kills you if you don't drown first. Still, you can last a few days.

[Abes 0]

Originally posted by: SuburbianNightmare

"Something doestn't have to be physically wrong with an airliner to cause accidents. I read on Wikipedia a few weeks ago that an engine fault on a newer Boeing 737 doing a flight from London Heathrow to Glasgow led to the plane crashing onto the M1 Motorway during an emergency landing, and although one engine had caught fire (the flight crew were not trained on the newest variant of that airliner) the Captain shut down the WRONG engine, then increased the load on the damaged engine, which promptly exploded, causing the airliner to lose all power and fall out of the sky, crashing onto the southbound cariageway of the M1 Motorway, about 100 metres short of the runway the captain was aiming at." ~~Abes

I remember that! I was being driven down the M1 by my Dad. We were near the front of the queue caused by the aircraft crash.

Anyway I completetly agree about the plane being structually weak. It's most like a series of events that led up to it.

quote>

What was the rubber-necking like? In both Australia and China even a person changing a flat tyre creates rubbernecks (ques of them in Australia's truly pathetic motorways).

Anyway, I was just trying to point out that pre-existing structural weakness isn't the ONLY reason airliners go down. I read a report from USA Today (I think) on Thursday that said that particular Air France Airbus had a perfect safety and maintenance record, which is why I think it was probably brought down by massive hull failure caused by the weather the plane was flying through at the time. Such as a massive lightning strike causing a spark or short circuit somewhere in the fuel system, leading to an explosion. Of course, since all of this is monitored for the flight crew, and they didn't even get out a distress call (apart from the electronics tracking systems' reporting system crashes and failure), I'm betting it was a combination of several unusually strong weather phenomenon that caused the plane to break up in mid air. It happens.....

As I said in a previous post, we still can't make aircraft able to resist absolutely everything the atmoshpere can throw at you, but our modern airliners are so safe and stable usually that we forget that the possibilty is always there for weather induced crashes, especially in cases of extreme weather and turbulence.

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

Originally posted by: Abes

Anyway, I was just trying to point out that pre-existing structural weakness isn't the ONLY reason airliners go down. I read a report from USA Today (I think) on Thursday that said that particular Air France Airbus had a perfect safety and maintenance record, which is why I think it was probably brought down by massive hull failure caused by the weather the plane was flying through at the time. Such as a massive lightning strike causing a spark or short circuit somewhere in the fuel system, leading to an explosion. Of course, since all of this is monitored for the flight crew, and they didn't even get out a distress call (apart from the electronics tracking systems' reporting system crashes and failure), I'm betting it was a combination of several unusually strong weather phenomenon that caused the plane to break up in mid air. It happens.....

As I said in a previous post, we still can't make aircraft able to resist absolutely everything the atmoshpere can throw at you, but our modern airliners are so safe and stable usually that we forget that the possibilty is always there for weather induced crashes, especially in cases of extreme weather and turbulence.

quote>

Storms are shown on Radar as Red, Yellow, Green. according to the density of the storm, and planes try to fly through the green where possible. However they don't carry enough fuel to avoid them altogether. The standard practice being to fuel the plane with enough for the destination plus 30 mins extra.

A French sub has begun the search and the USA are sending SONAR equipment.

[cirvianum 0]

I think it's unlikely that it was a terrorist act. If it was, sure it would have been somewhere where it had become a lot more notorious. After all, what they want is propaganda.