Homerun Posted June 1, 2009 Share Posted June 1, 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8076848.stm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest rattler Posted June 1, 2009 Share Posted June 1, 2009 Update on Aviation Safety Net. http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20090601-0 and another update from a different source. Update from Air France: Vol Air France 447 Rio de Janeiro - Paris-Charles de Gaulle Brief translation Air France regrets to announce the loss of flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro - Paris-Charles de Gaulle, expected arrival this morning at 11.10 am local, as just announced to the press by the Director General of Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon. AF447 Aircraft F-GZCP A330-200 departed Rio de Janeiro on the 31st May 2009 at 19:03 Local time (00:03 paris time). The aircraft went through a thunderstorm with strong turbulence at 2 am (universal time) or 4:00 GMT. An automated message was received at 2:14 (4:14 GMT) indicating a failure of electrical system in a remote area off the coast. All civilian air traffic control Brazilian, African, Spanish and french have tried in vain to make contact with the flight AF447. The french military air traffic control tried to detect the aircraft without success. 216 pax onboard, 126 men, 82 women, 7 infants and babies. 12 crew (3 pilots, 9 cabin crew) Captain 11,000 hrs TT (1700 on Airbus A330/A340) Copilot 3,000 hrs TT (800 on Airbus A330/A340) Copilot 6,600 hrs TT (2600 on Airbus A330/A340) Aircraft equipped with engines General Electric CF6-80E. Airframe had 18,870 flight hours since commencing service on 18 April 2005. Last visit maintenance hangar dated 16 April 2009. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tango Niner Posted June 1, 2009 Share Posted June 1, 2009 The aircraft apparently also sent an indication that its pressurisation system had failed. Can any Airbus folks enlighten me on these automatic messages? I'm a Boeing guy... are they part of the routine "Howgoesit" messages that the a/c sends? Or would these have been "special" messages? Condolences to the family and friends of the passengers and crew. T9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest rattler Posted June 1, 2009 Share Posted June 1, 2009 A rebuttal of the Lighting strike theory. Air France Mystery: Was Lightning to Blame? An Air France Airbus A330, carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, entered an area of strong turbulence and disappeared. The CEO of AirFrance confirms that the airplane most likely crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. Some, including company officials, have speculated that the plane was struck down by lightning, a claim that is not at all outrageous. According to experts, most commercial aircraft are struck by lightning at some point in their lives. But can lightning down a plane? We spoke to the experts about the likelihood of lightning being the culprit in this tragic downing. By Mark Huber Published on: June 1, 2009 Aviation experts agree that it is highly unlikely that lightning alone caused the crash of Air France Flight 447 earlier today. The 2005 Airbus A330-200 twinjet with 228 aboard disappeared on a flight from Rio to Paris shortly after the aircraft sent out automated signals indicated it had suffered a catastrophic electrical failure and a sudden loss of cabin pressure while flying through an area of severe thunderstorms. Late this afternoon the Brazilian Air Force was reporting that the aircraft likely crashed in an area approximately 60 miles south of the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Senegal. Air France spokesman Francois Brousse this morning stoked mounting speculation when he said "it is possible" the plane was hit by lightning. Virtually every commercial aircraft in the world is hit by lightning at least once a year according to Dr. Steven Skinner, an aerospace engineering professor at Wichita State University. However, lightning generally passes harmlessly through aluminum-skinned aircraft. And, before they are even installed, the electrical and communication systems aboard are designed, tested and certified to withstand the sudden current surges that a lightning strike produces. These systems are redundant and can be powered by backup generators, including wind-powered ram-air turbines, that deploy in the event all engines fail. Composite aircraft, such as the Boeing 787, have structures impregnated with metallic mesh that perform similarly to all-aluminum aircraft when struck by lightning, giving the energy a clear pathway out of the airplane without damage to structures or systems. "I don't recall ever hearing about complete electrical failures caused by lightning," says Mike Dargi, vice president of Lightning Technologies Inc. (LTI), a Pittsfield, Mass.Ðbased company that tests aircraft components against the effects of lightning. LTI examines items such as control-surface hinges, radomes, sensors and a gamut of other aircraft electrical components. Dargi says that these components— and the circuits that connect them—are protected by various structural and electronic safeguards such as bond straps and transorbers, similar to those you find in a personal computer. Dargi says that even the most high-tech aircraft systems, such as fly-by-wire, which control an aircraft through a network of computer-driven electrical actuators over fiber optics, are designed with dual channel backups that automatically switch over in the event of a failure. LTI's chief engineer, Andy Plumer, has been studying the impact of lightning strikes on aircraft since 1966. He says that standards, first adopted in the 1960s, have mitigated lightning's impact on modern commercial aircraft. The switch to less volatile Jet-A fuel and the fact that modern aircraft are designed to conduct strikes of up to 200,000 amps, Plumer says, are two big factors in improving lightning-strike safety over the last four decades. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) database confirms that there were 40 lightning-related accidents in the U.S. between 1963 and 1989. However, lightning largely was a contributing—and not a primary—cause of those accidents. The most recent lightning-related accident of a U.S. airliner occurred on November, 29, 2000, when a dormant tailcone antenna of an American Airlines MD-82 was stuck on takeoff from Washington-Dulles Airport. The strike traveled from the antenna up a pair of improperly grounded cables and triggered a cabin fire in the overhead panels. The fire quickly was extinguished and the airplane landed safely. Plumer notes that lightning is initially blamed for many weather-related crashes, but upon investigation it is "rarely the case." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest rattler Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 CNN is reporting that Air France says there was a series of automated status messages from the aircraft that lasted for over 4 mins and not just one as previously reported. Hope the data will be of use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mo32a Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Amazing - with every other aircraft accident this forum would have at least 100 posts by this time posing theories as to the cause. With this one, just because there is no known crash site, nobody seems to be postulating theories, yet we know just about as much about this accident as any other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Interesting observation mo32a. The PPRUNE website was so busy you could not get access to it and CNN was even quoting that forum's post regarding the crash. Not sure how smart that is. At last check there were over 6 pages of postings. Off course, if you think this website has its residence experts.... No, we are busy discussing how 'creative Westjet people' are going to cleverly save $25M. I guess we'll let the investigators do their thing and we'll discuss whatever is important to us in our little neighbourhood.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.O. Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 PPRuNe was up to 15 pages of mostly useless drivel when I checked in last night. I just can't be bothered to check any more. One of the things I like about this forum is that there's a greater level of common sense when it comes to accident discussions. As to a total lack of speculation up to now, what could one possibly use to make an informed guess as to the cause? It's far too early for that, IMHO. Or maybe it's just a realization that another nasty threat has finally caught up with some of our colleagues. I've often chaffed at how hard it is to get a clearance to deviate around weather in oceanic airspace because of a lack of radar covereage. I know there are contingency procedures available, but I really hope that this is NOT a factor in this accident. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kip Powick Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 CNN reports that the Brazilian AF is reporting wreckage found approx 435nm NE of the coast of Brazil (Natal?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kip Powick Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Would anyone here fly though a CB because they were not able to receive a "clearance" to go around it? Passing about 10,000 feet out of LGA we were vectored directly at a CB. Anyone who has flown down there knows how much RX/TX traffic there is and we couldn't get a word in edgewise as we got closer and closer to the CB. Cranked on the bank and turned about 90 degrees away, (we were still VFR, in and out of scud cloud). Flew about 2 mins on "our" selected heading before NY centre hollered at us and asked what we were doing. "Thuderstorm avoidance" was our reply...the controller calmed down and asked us to turn to another heading "when able". Any pilot who maintains a heading that stands their aircraft into a known danger zone.....should not be at the controls...and I'm sure 99.9% of the pilots will agree. What happened in this case(AF)????? WX....Systems....Etc.....Hopefully we do find out....someday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kip Powick Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s air force says it has found airplane seats and other debris floating in the Atlantic Ocean along the path that a missing Air France jet was flying. Air force spokesman Jorge Amaral says the seats were spotted by search planes early this morning but that authorities cannot immediately confirm they were from the plane. Also spotted were small white pieces of debris, material that may be metallic and signs of oil and kerosene, which is used as jet fuel. The debris was found about 650 kilometres northeast of the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.O. Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 You're right guys, and I wasn't suggesting that I would fly through a CB when ATC couldn't accommodate a request, but I have heard a few stories of pilots who scared the wits out of their partners because they refused to change heading without a clearance from ATC. They were so worried about covering their butts that they were willing to risk a nasty ride rather than make a decision for safety. I recently got an ASR from a colleague who used the published contingency procedures to avoid weather in oceanic airspace. I applauded his decision making at the time, and whether or not this one goes where I think it may, his actions should be SOP for all of us going forward. Another area that our industry needs to beef up is our collective knowledge of weather radar from an operational perspective and all radar components (including radomes) from a maintenance perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JW Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 ... Can any Airbus folks enlighten me on these automatic messages? I'm a Boeing guy... are they part of the routine "Howgoesit" messages that the a/c sends? Or would these have been "special" messages? ... T9 Fault messages are automatically sent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoomerPete Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 You're right guys, and I wasn't suggesting that I would fly through a CB when ATC couldn't accommodate a request, but I have heard a few stories of pilots who scared the wits out of their partners because they refused to change heading without a clearance from ATC. They were so worried about covering their butts that they were willing to risk a nasty ride rather than make a decision for safety. I recently got an ASR from a colleague who used the published contingency procedures to avoid weather in oceanic airspace. I applauded his decision making at the time, and whether or not this one goes where I think it may, his actions should be SOP for all of us going forward. Another area that our industry needs to beef up is our collective knowledge of weather radar from an operational perspective and all radar components (including radomes) from a maintenance perspective. Not that it's likely of any relevance to what happened to AF, but in some parts of the world ATC procedures and priorities can make life quite difficult when CB's show their ugly heads, and frankly the controllers sometimes neither understand nor care about the dangers involved. On one occasion while overhead PEK enroute from ICN to ZRH I was given a clearance that would have put me straight through a line of CB's. When I refused the clearance and requested a vector around the weather it was denied and I was told I must proceed as cleared. When I again refused the clearance and suggested an alternate route around the weather the next response was "Steer heading 180 ... return to ICN." Nothing like helpful ATC! I eventually got the controller to accept a routing around the weather, but instead of the 15-20 mile detour necessary it became approx. 100 miles with a descent to FL270 throw in for good measure. Just what you need with 9+ hours of flying to destination ahead of you. I guess the point is that in some parts of the world you need to be both assertive and a skilled negotiator when it comes to finding a safe route around the weather. Otherwise you end up like the aircraft below and in front of me that day. They accepted the vector and were last seen headed towards the big mass of red with all the bolts coming out of it. Being locals they were unprepared to challenge ATC's instructions. Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bm330 Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for many Asian carriers to blindly follow the green line regardless of the weather out the window. I've flown as little as a three mile offset in clear air to watch a local carrier fly through cells painting hard red. It's one of the reasons many carriers employ Expats in an effort to develop the sort of decision making abilities that N.A. and European pilots take for granted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timothy Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 There is an interesting post about weather radar near the bottom of page 20 on the AF A330 incident on PPrune. Most of us may recognize the author. The PPrune thread has a lot of interesting posts, but one must separate the wheat from the chaff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Interesting weather analysis for route of flight: weather analysis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest rattler Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Appears there is a vehicle capable of a recovery. A robotic sub called Nereus has reached the deepest-known part of the ocean. The dive to 10,902m (6.8 miles) took place on 31 May, at the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean. This makes Nereus the deepest-diving vehicle currently in service and the first vehicle to explore the Marianas Trench since 1998. The unmanned vehicle is remotely operated by pilots aboard a surface ship via a lightweight tether. Its thin, fibre-optic tether to the research vessel Kilo Moana allows the submersible to make deep dives and be highly manoeuvrable. Nereus can also be switched into a free-swimming, autonomous vehicle. "With a robot like Nereus, we can now explore virtually anywhere in the ocean," said Andy Bowen, project manager and principal developer of the sub at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). "The trenches are virtually unexplored, and I am absolutely certain Nereus will enable new discoveries. I believe it marks the start of a new era in ocean exploration." The Challenger Deep is the deepest-known part of the ocean, and part of the Marianas Trench near the island of Guam in the west Pacific. It is the deepest abyss on Earth at 11,000m-deep, more than 2km (1.2 miles) deeper than Mount Everest is high. At that depth, pressures reach 1,100 times those at the surface. THE NEREUS SUBMERSIBLE Weight on land: 2,800kg Payload capacity: 25kg Maximum speed: 3 knots Batteries: rechargeable lithium ion As a result, only two vehicles have ever made the trip to its crushing depths. In January 1960, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh made the first and only manned voyage in a Swiss-built bathyscaphe known as the Trieste. The vessel consisted of a 2m-diameter (6ft) steel sphere containing the crew suspended below a huge 15m-long (50ft) tank of petrol, designed to provide buoyancy. During the nine-hour mission, the two men spent just 20 minutes on the ocean floor; enough time to measure the depth as 10,916m (35,813 ft). No manned submersible has ever repeated the dive. However, 35 years later, a Japanese remote-controlled vehicle called Kaiko returned, setting a depth record for unmanned exploration. During its dive, the vehicle recorded a depth of 10,911m (35,797ft). It was also able to recover a sediment core and record pictures of life, including a sea cucumber, a worm and a shrimp. Unlike Nereus, Kaiko had to rely on a cable connected to a ship at the surface for power and control. The Japanese craft was lost in 2003 on an unrelated dive when a cable connecting it to its control ship snapped. Currently, the deepest-rated vehicles are able to descend to 6,500m, allowing scientists access to 95% of the seafloor. Nereus aims to change this to 100%, whilst also allowing scientists to survey a much larger area than vehicles like Kaiko. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8080324.stm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kip Powick Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Well, I think any hope for survivors has long gone. None of us can imagine the terror that ocurred inside that aircraft whether it was extreme, severe turbulence, or an explosion that brought down that aircraft. May all aboard Rest In Peace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon The Loon Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 I heard a good question today: who was at the controls during the storm area penetration? The captain? The relief pilot? We may never know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 We may never know Well, it better have been the Capt; the aircraft is entering a massive area of CBs on the equator (so obviously the storms need to be treated with respect) and the Captain is in the back sleeping? I don't think that's they way it happened but you're right, we may never know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon The Loon Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Well, it better have been the Capt One would hope so. I also wonder if the company learned from its mistakes in Toronto with regards interpretation of severe weather in general.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 One would hope so. I also wonder if the company learned from its mistakes in Toronto with regards interpretation of severe weather in general.... Well, the GTAA sure didn't learn anything, no runaway arrestor system was installed and the runway is still ungrooved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tango Niner Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Here's what I consider to be an entirely plausible and PURELY SPECULATIVE scenario: 1) 3 hours into flight: Capt bunking down. 2) WX approaching; F/O and relief F/O reluctant to wake Capt due to desire to get some F/D time and/or sense of "we can handle this, we don't need the skipper" 3) WX radar mismanaged and/or severity of WX not respected; A/C enters severe WX 4) A/C takes one or more intense lightning strikes, resulting in electrical power interruption 5) A/P disengages 6) Severe turbulence upsets A/C 7) Due to electrics down, controls unresponsive; pilots unable to recover from upset 8) A/C upset condition worsens as severe turbulence continues 9) Pilots unable to restore electrics and recover from upset due severe G's and/or disorentation 10) A/C crashes Caveat: I'm a Boeing driver, not an Airbus driver. Comments? This seem plausible to anyone else? T9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.O. Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Tony: I think it's more likely that the electrical failure mentioned in relation to the ACARS report was a result of a negative G event. IDGs are susceptible to tripping off under high negative G. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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