Thread: Air France Incident!!!

The news reported that several families of passengers had received text messages from pax. Seems unlikely.

Originally Posted by p38arover

The news reported that several families of passengers had received text messages from pax. Seems unlikely.

I heard that too Ron, how on earth can they get coverage, mid Atlantic when I can't get it 50 k from Brisbane CBD. Sounds like a furphy.

Originally Posted by cjc_td5

I think you might find that the control staff in France know more about what happened than the flight crew. I have read that the computers in these planes have continual contact with a central control centre, monitoring the many systems on board. It was quite common for the control centre to ring the pilot on the satphone and suggest a change to throttle etc or discuss a problem that the flight deck had not yet noticed themselves.

I think that is why the news reports are saying that Air France received several fault messages before the plane disappeared from the radar.

Very sad, a hell of a way to go...

Reports on the news etc have reported that Air Frances in flight monitoring (back in France) had received considerable data indicating multiple system failures. (however we know how reliable news reports can be) I think the pointers to a major catastrophic failure is that (apparently) there were no abnormal radio messages from the flight crew.

When I first heard about it (maybe 9:30ish last night) this Air France A330-200 missing - PPRuNe Forums site was down due to overload.


Martyn

I was passed this link, which some may find of interest.

Air France 447 - AFR447 - A detailed meteorological analysis - Satellite and weather data

John

Seem to have found the "bits" in the last few hours.

Now to find the beacon/black box which could be 3000 to 7000m below

A lot of that was well over my head but if the comments from supposedly industry types are to be taken at face value, this guy is one clever dude. Thanks for the link.
Steve

I was told this at work last night, and thought it might lighten the mood:

"The Brazilian Navy has exhausted it's search off the coast of Brazil for the Air France plane and has asked the Royal Australian Navy to look in the Southern Ocean because the Brazillians don't have a Map of Tassie."

this is a very scary accident.. It has happened to a very well maintained airline with an excellent safety record, on a plane that has an excellent safety record. Just shows that no one is completely safe. My thoughts are with the familys of those killed. Also i feel for the pilots, hosties and engineers that would have to go back to work, knowing there is an unresolved safety issue.

Lighting strikes are common, but still deserve respect. They can leave just a scorch mark or vapourise composite structure. lighting strikes are the most common on to enter on the nose. (raydome, windscreens frames, pitot's (airspeed)). then they will travel though the plane and exit out the trailing edge. (flight controls, flaps, apu exaust, nav lights)

A lighting strike could have taken out there weather radar and lead them into worse weather. or ceased a flight control. It could be terrorist, or on board fire. There are just too many options to speculate. Altho I do belive it would have been quick as there were no distress calls. Maybe structural failure or fuel tank explosion.

Im sure airbus and airfrance would do whatever they can to recover the fuselage. They need answers.