French Plane Vanishes over Brazil!

[freshface]

You start with a fallacious assumption. It is possible to "land" an commercial airliner on calm seas -- they are called glassy calm seas because there are no waves.

Even in moderately heavy seas, or other less than ideal conditions, it is possible to "ditch at sea" with minimal casualties if the airplane can be controlled. People hav esurvived ditching at sea in much worse conditions than a dead calm (which wouldn't have been the case anyway because they apparently hit a thunderstorm and lost electrical power -- lightening strike?

The last news I heard was that wreckage has been found 400 miles from Brazil and that it appeared that the plane had attempted to turn back to Rio. That suggests that the plane was not controllable, and there has been no mention of emergency transponders from life rafts or mention of any survivors in life vests. So it doesn't sound like the crew got an opportunity to even try a controlled landing.

Waves are a relative term. Are you suggesting that there are conditions where the Atlantic Ocean does not have waves? I give you Dr. Hogben, an expert in Naval architecture. "Even if there is no wind locally, waves still form," Dr. Hogben said. "That is because of swell. The Atlantic has a continuous background of swell."

The Discovery broadcast on the Hudson River ditching interviewed an aeronautic expert who explained in some detail why airplanes would be unlikely to survive ditching in an ocean. If any piece of the aircraft hits the water at the wrong angle or in the wrong sequence, the plane cartwheels and comes apart. With any waves at all, the chance of that happens increases greatly. Do you have a record of a commercial jet successfully ditching in the ocean? The only one I could find was the Ethiopian Airline 767 in the Indian Ocean. They were almost on the beach when they hit and 71% of the passengers died. All of the other jets have ditched in rivers or lakes.

In moderately heavy seas, with no chance of setting down without nose, wing, and or tail stopping abruptly when it hits the water, the plane would disintegrate on impact. The odds of anyone surviving that are virtually non-existent, and that's even before you factor in things like lack of a rescue craft.

 

[trysail]

Waves are a relative term. Are you suggesting that there are conditions where the Atlantic Ocean does not have waves? I give you Dr. Hogben, an expert in Naval architecture. "Even if there is no wind locally, waves still form," Dr. Hogben said. "That is because of swell. The Atlantic has a continuous background of swell." ...

...In moderately heavy seas, with no chance of setting down without nose, wing, and or tail stopping abruptly when it hits the water, the plane would disintegrate on impact. The odds of anyone surviving that are virtually non-existent, and that's even before you factor in things like lack of a rescue craft.

I've been in the middle of the Atlantic in what are known as the "horse latitudes" ( in this particular case, an area adjacent to the Sargasso Sea ) when the ocean was as flat as a pancake. Many times, we'd just sit there wallowing on a glassy, calm sea.

The "horse latitudes" got their name because the Spanish used to throw cargo overboard in hopes of making progress in the notoriously windless zone.

A pilot could easily ditch an aircraft in those conditions. Hell, the damn Hudson would be considered choppy by comparison.

 

[freshface]

I've been in the middle of the Atlantic in what are known as the "horse latitudes" ( in this particular case, an area adjacent to the Sargasso Sea ) when the ocean was as flat as a pancake. Many times, we'd just sit there wallowing on a glassy, calm sea.

The "horse latitudes" got their name because the Spanish used to throw cargo overboard in hopes of making progress in the notoriously windless zone.

A pilot could easily ditch an aircraft in those conditions. Hell, the damn Hudson would be considered choppy by comparison.

I stand corrected. The Sargasso Sea is indeed a unique spot where geography isolates the sea from the rest of the Atlantic. I would point out that windless does not equal wave less, since you can go up and down on the waves without any forward movement. No idea how mats of seaweed would affect a water landing, but I continue to doubt that jets could survive ocean landings.

 

[trysail]

It's not just the Sargasso Sea. That's where I happened to be but the "horse latitudes" are extensive.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_latitudes

 

[OhMissScarlett]

and that's even before you factor in things like lack of a rescue craft.

This. It wouldn't even matter if that plane had pontoons, if they were out there in a storm with no communications and no close rescue crafts, they wouldn't make it.

 

[redpaint]

It is sad to say they didn't make it. I can't not imagen what wnet through their minds druing that time.

you may read about it here.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090602/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_plane

 

[Weird Harold]

This. It wouldn't even matter if that plane had pontoons, if they were out there in a storm with no communications and no close rescue crafts, they wouldn't make it.

All commercial aircraft have escape slides on the door exits and inflatable liferaft in the overhead compartments above the wing exits. The escape slides are also liferafts. If the plane made it into the water there are sufficient liferafts for the entire capacity of the plane with emergency beacons and survival supplies in the rafts.

It does not however appear that the plane did make it into the water intact. I strongly suspect that the A330's "glass cockpit" and fly-by-wire flight control computers fell victim to the electrical failure that was automatically reported before contact was lost. There are supposed to be sufficient reduncies and back-up power supplies built into the the digital intrumentation and computerized flight controls, but when you fry all of the wires/computers with a lightening strik or toatal electrical failure 400 miles from land, you're in deep kimchee.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

That's the Achilles heel of the entire Airbus line of planes. They are, AFAK, all fly by wire and almost impossible to control if the computers go out. At least Boeings can still be flown by hand, though with some difficulty, should all systems quit.

 

[Weird Harold]

That's the Achilles heel of the entire Airbus line of planes. They are, AFAK, all fly by wire and almost impossible to control if the computers go out. At least Boeings can still be flown by hand, though with some difficulty, should all systems quit.

I don't think that's true anymore. I don't know of any Airliner in the last ten years or so that isn't a glass cockpit and computer controlled fly-by-wire(with computer controled engines, too.) If any of them suffere a complete electrical failure, they quit flying.

I think Boeing probably has a better handle on fail-safe redundancy and hardened wiring because of their long military aircraft heritiage, but modern ones still can't be flown manually.

 

[Handley_Page]

Naturally, the spotter planes have been out:-

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-GB&vid=e1363744-6b96-4095-8e1a-789e7dbe390e&from=homepage_carousel

 

[Weird Harold]

The Weather Channel just did an interesting update with their tropical weather expert. Apparently the nearest lightening to the plane's location was some 250 miles southwest of where the wreckage was found -- according to two different lightening tracking networks. There were no major winds or storms in that area either as far as can be determined from weather data gathering networks.

That makes the cause of the crash much harder to guess because the weather/lightening has been the prime suspect. The Weather can't be completely ruled out until they find the black boxes, but it had to have been something extremely localized if it was weather related.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

The Weather Channel just did an interesting update with their tropical wetaher expert. Apparently the nearest lightening to the plane's location was some 250 miles southwest of where the wreckage was found -- according to two different lightening tracking networks. There were no major winds or storms in that area either as far as can be determined from weather data gathering networks.

That makes the cause of the crash much harder to guess because the weather/lightening has been the prime suspect. The Weather can't be completely ruled out until they find the black boxes, but it had to have been something extremely localized if it was weather related.

Now it begins to sound ugly . . .

 

[Weird Harold]

Now it begins to sound ugly . . .

My thought exactly -- but design/mechanical failure or sabotage?

 

[3113]

My thought exactly -- but design/mechanical failure or sabotage?

I think, following Occam's razor, that sabotage really has to be last on the list unless someone is claiming credit for it. As I recall reading, there were mechanical failures with this plane in recent tests.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I think, following Occam's razor, that sabotage really has to be last on the list unless someone is claiming credit for it. As I recall reading, there were mechanical failures with this plane in recent tests.

Yes, there were.

 

[jomar]

Now it begins to sound ugly . . .

I think, following Occam's razor, that sabotage really has to be last on the list unless someone is claiming credit for it. As I recall reading, there were mechanical failures with this plane in recent tests.

Yes. A disgruntled employee would fuck up baggage claim. And terrorists seem to prefer other than disappearance in the dark.

It will probably boil down to some inspection lapse resulting in a component failure (during weather?) leading to a cascade of problems...

 

[R. Richard]

I just read an update. There were several broadcasts by emergency equiment on board the plane. Apparently systems began to fail and the final message was that all regular electric had failed and the cabin was dark and depressurizing. The message was consistent with a plane breaking up in mid-air.

 

[trysail]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=HON:US&sid=af1pryjsaayM

Honeywell Recorders Probably Pinging in Hunt for Jet

By Mary Jane Credeur and Mary Schlangenstein

June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Honeywell International Inc.’s so- called black box recorders on Air France Flight 447 are probably signaling investigators from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The trick is figuring out where to listen.

The data and voice recorders on the jet that crashed off eastern Brazil on June 1 with 228 people aboard have a water- activated “pinger” that runs for 30 days. Honeywell certifies that the boxes will remain intact as deep as 3.8 miles (6.1 kilometers), about twice the depth of where French officials estimate the wreckage to be located.

“We expect the box to be pinging,” said Bill Reavis, a spokesman for Honeywell Aerospace Inc. in Phoenix. “The box is configured to withstand a high impact.”

Investigators are concerned they may not find the signal because the ocean is “not only deep but mountainous” in that area, Paul Louis Arslanian, head of the French Aviation Accidents Investigation Bureau, told reporters today in Paris. The inquiry “is difficult, but not the most difficult we’ve ever had,” he said.

Searchers will probably use underwater microphones to help track the signal, among the processes that often prove successful in locating debris, said John Nance, who runs a Seattle aviation consulting firm under his name. The recorders are likely to be found as well, he said.

“Those things are almost indestructible and they almost always find them,” said Nance, a retired Air Force and commercial airline pilot with 40 years of flying. “If they can narrow down the search field and bring in the right equipment to hear it, I think they’ve got a good chance of finding them.”

*****​

The recorders’ capabilities are “vastly better” than 20 years ago when they included magnetic tape-recording devices with moving parts, said Bill Waldock, a crash investigation professor at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.

“If they’re able to get a lock on the pinger in the next couple weeks, chances are pretty good they’ll find them,” he said

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I just read an update. There were several broadcasts by emergency equiment on board the plane. Apparently systems began to fail and the final message was that all regular electric had failed and the cabin was dark and depressurizing. The message was consistent with a plane breaking up in mid-air.

Oh God! The nightmare's nightmare.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

More and more it's looking like a mid-air breakup.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

It's getting worse and worse.

 

[3113]

Damn.

I know that they've got at least one deep sea sub searching for the black box.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

The latest.

 

[CharleyH]

So ... the wreckage in the Atlantic was not the flight and one therefore deduces that the oil slick was not either. Where did this Air France flight disappear to? The ... Bermuda Triangle? What myths are alive in this region?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Nope, that first set of debris and oil slick was indeed trash but now they have recovered two male bodies and a suitcase with a flight 447 ticket in it. They've found the crash location.