Air France jet missing

[VectorForFood]

Birgin(sp?)Air?

[Gabriel]

CNN)
"The plane went straight down, almost vertically, towards the surface of the water, very very fast."

No way. Impossible to get an almost undamaged lavatory door, galley and bulkhead with jumpseats from from a "straight down, almost vertical, very very fast" crash.

[Gabriel]

CNN)
"The plane went straight down, almost vertically, towards the surface of the water, very very fast."

No way. Impossible to get an almost undamaged lavatory door, galley and bulkhead with jumpseats from from a "straight down, almost vertical, very very fast" crash.

visual examination showed that the airplane was not destroyed in flight ; it appears to
have struck the surface of the sea in a straight line with high vertical acceleration.

That's quite a diferent thing.

[andrasz]

No way. Impossible to get an almost undamaged lavatory door, galley and bulkhead with jumpseats from from a "straight down, almost vertical, very very fast" crash.

As usual, misunderstood / misquoted / mistranslated statements from the press. The preliminary report is quite clear - all wreckage recovered supports and intact plane at impact, with a wings/nose near level attitude, however 'significant' vertical acceleration.

While the root causes are entirely different, the impact seems to be similar to the Aeroflot A310 Siberia accident, which suffered a high altitude upset/stall, and they ran out of altitude in the middle of the recovery, at wings/nose level but not enough forward speed to arrest the descent.

[IntheShade]

CNN)
"The plane went straight down, almost vertically, towards the surface of the water, very very fast."

No way. Impossible to get an almost undamaged lavatory door, galley and bulkhead with jumpseats from from a "straight down, almost vertical, very very fast" crash.

You starting to get the picture??

How did the tail end up so far from the rest of the derbis?

How did it remain so intact??

Why was the only visual damage on the lower aft rudder showing a air seperation instead of forward indicating impact??

Because there is no way the French are going to allow the truth to come out.

[andrasz]

Why was the only visual damage on the lower aft rudder showing a air seperation instead of forward indicating impact??

Actually in the preliminary report there is a close-up photo of the rudder attachment structure, the damage seems to be consistent with a low forward speed impact...

[3WE]

I think we probably need to use the word "largely"

The ACARS seems to suggest in-flight, at-altitude, structural failure (that does not neccesarily mean the plane is "totally" in pieces.)

Lots of debris suggests in-tact pancaking.

If memory serves: With TWA 800 the nose fell off, with the remaining fuselage remaining in-tact for a while- maybe even impacting the water with one or two larger pieces.

AA587 shed it's engines on the way down, but the plane crashed mostly in one piece.

Similar things could have happened here.

The evidence that the plane "pancaked largely in tact" is insightful, but doesn't disprove that something broke at altitude.

[Gabriel]

You starting to get the picture??

How did the tail end up so far from the rest of the derbis?

How did it remain so intact??

Why was the only visual damage on the lower aft rudder showing a air seperation instead of forward indicating impact??

Because there is no way the French are going to allow the truth to come out.

Hmmm, I'm really not getting the picture.

The answer to most of our questions is simply I don't know.
However, one answer I know:

The tail didn't end up so far from the rest of the debris.
If you look at the official initial report, it has a map showing the location of the bodies in red, of the debris in white, and the tail is specifically marked in yellow. Both all the debris and all bodies look like randomly distributed within a general area. The tail, specifically, is within that area too. There are not isolated remains or isolated "clusters" of remains, what is typical for an airplane breaking up in flight (like TWA or PanAm).

I know you support the theory that an in-flight separation of the fin is a key element in the sequence of events. I find nothing to support that, but since as I've said I can't answer your questions, I can't support a possition against that either.

For what it's worth, the report says that the mode the fin failed clearly marks a failure in the forward direction, with some twist. If that is true, I can only imagine that happening as a result of the impact.

[*InsertNameHere*]

OK, would anyone like to explain (/parlour talk) this one...

Here is a diagram from the preliminary report -

airfrance.jpg (142.34 KiB) Viewed 9459 times

According to the report, the last radio contact was at 01.35.43

At 1 h 35 min 46 s, the controller asked them to maintain FL350 and to give their estimated
time at the TASIL point.

Between 1 h 35 min 53 s and 1 h 36 min 14 s, the controller asked the crew three times for
its estimated time at the TASIL point. There was no further contact with the crew.

So, assuming something dramatic happened between 1.35.43 and 1.35.53 which prevented them from responding, what the hell was going on during the period between 1.35.53 and 02.10.00???

[rattler]

OK, would anyone like to explain (/parlour talk) this one...

Here is a diagram from the preliminary report -

airfrance.jpg

According to the report, the last radio contact was at 01.35.43

At 1 h 35 min 46 s, the controller asked them to maintain FL350 and to give their estimated
time at the TASIL point.

Between 1 h 35 min 53 s and 1 h 36 min 14 s, the controller asked the crew three times for
its estimated time at the TASIL point. There was no further contact with the crew.

So, assuming something dramatic happened between 1.35.43 and 1.35.53 which prevented them from responding, what the hell was going on during the period between 1.35.53 and 02.10.00???

Your assumption is quite obviously wrong.

Answer to your question: Nothing (spectacular) for most of the time.

Rattler

[Sir Gallivant]

In the area after last contact until position of the wreck, they were most likely communicating via HF radio, and if surrounded by all the static of the CB's they might have been unable to hear anyone calling them or the ground station has been unable to hear them.

Other aspects of HF radio wave propagation may have played a role.

In my night shifts at Sondrestrom FIC in Greenland, I have many times heard ground stations and aircraft in South America communicating on HF, using the same frequencies as we did in Sondrestrom. On one occasion I answered one aircraft which was unsuccessfully trying to raise a Brazilian ground station. Turned out to be an RAF C130 enroute to UK, had shut down an engine and turned around towards Brazil again. Nothing major, but at least I could relay the message to the interested parties.

[*InsertNameHere*]

In the area after last contact until position of the wreck, they were most likely communicating via HF radio, and if surrounded by all the static of the CB's they might have been unable to hear anyone calling them or the ground station has been unable to hear them.

Other aspects of HF radio wave propagation may have played a role.

In my night shifts at Sondrestrom FIC in Greenland, I have many times heard ground stations and aircraft in South America communicating on HF, using the same frequencies as we did in Sondrestrom. On one occasion I answered one aircraft which was unsuccessfully trying to raise a Brazilian ground station. Turned out to be an RAF C130 enroute to UK, had shut down an engine and turned around towards Brazil again. Nothing major, but at least I could relay the message to the interested parties.

oh ok, fair enough, ta.

[VectorForFood]

An Air France jet not answering radio calls is not exactly surprising.

[flyboy2548m]

Hmmm, I'm really not getting the picture.

What a surprise.

[orangehuggy]

They went off rt at 1:35 on to selcall, approaching the worst t-storms they unsuccessfully tried to contact atc at 2:01 presumably for a diversion clearance, then they entered the weather and got themselves in trouble. What is still puzzling is that the acars suggest pitot failure but the report states "...the presence of super cooled water at FL350 is not very probable and would necessarily have been limited to small quantities" so what else can cause pitot failure if not icing????

[Robert Hilton]

They went off rt at 1:35 on to selcall, approaching the worst t-storms they unsuccessfully tried to contact atc at 2:01 presumably for a diversion clearance, then they entered the weather and got themselves in trouble. What is still puzzling is that the acars suggest pitot failure but the report states "...the presence of super cooled water at FL350 is not very probable and would necessarily have been limited to small quantities" so what else can cause pitot failure if not icing????

Maybe the pitot was blocked with something else.

[orangehuggy]

Maybe the pitot was blocked with something else.

like what? volcanic ash, disintegrating comet debris, swarm of high flying insects ? this happened suddenly at 2:10.

[Gabriel]

Maybe the pitot was blocked with something else.

All three at the same time?

[Robert Hilton]

Maybe the pitot was blocked with something else.

like what? volcanic ash, disintegrating comet debris, swarm of high flying insects ? this happened suddenly at 2:10.

The crash happened suddenly, the events leading up to it, we know nothing about yet.

[orangehuggy]

All crashes happen suddenly, otherwise the events are known as landings. We do know something about what happened before the crash, both air data computers sent failure messages, these occur when >50knot(IIR) change in air speed is recorded in a short time and that only could be caused by faulty (blocked) pitot tubes. The only other speculation is an extreme aoa which could mess up the readings.

[Robert Hilton]

It is sometimes the most innocuous thing that starts the ball rolling. It doesn't have to pitot icing as is so often bandied about. That also begs the question "all three at the same time"?
If the pitot tubes were blocked (not yet proven), then there are more questions, when and with what? After that it's the how and can we avoid it again?

[GlennAB1]

All three at the same time?

The same was said about the engines on an Eastern L-1011....

AF447 - I'm guessing that the pitot tube drains were plugged

[L driver]

I think we probably need to use the word "largely"

The ACARS seems to suggest in-flight, at-altitude, structural failure (that does not neccesarily mean the plane is "totally" in pieces.)

Lots of debris suggests in-tact pancaking.

If memory serves: With TWA 800 the nose fell off, with the remaining fuselage remaining in-tact for a while- maybe even impacting the water with one or two larger pieces.

AA587 shed it's engines on the way down, but the plane crashed mostly in one piece.

Similar things could have happened here.

The evidence that the plane "pancaked largely in tact" is insightful, but doesn't disprove that something broke at altitude.

Just adding more to the above, the Lauda crash at Bangkok (1991) suffered structural break up at I believe 10,000 ft, yet almost all the wreckage was found within a 1/2 square mile area, with the furthest fragments some 2 miles out from the main debris. The debris chart mentioned in the BEA preliminary for 447 shows the wreckage spread out over 100 miles north/south and a 50 mile or so west/east spread for the thickest concentration. The furthest white circle (which represents each piece found) in the south of this field seems to be around 60-80 miles south of where the tail was found. This is a debris field thousands of square miles. Given the ocean currents, does it really say anything about in-flight break up?

[GlennAB1]

I just heard something about an Emergency AD to have the FDR and CVR relocated to the vertical stabilizer so they can be found after future accidents.

[Ed]

I just heard something about an Emergency AD to have the FDR and CVR relocated to the vertical stabilizer so they can be found after future accidents.

It is somewhat unreassuring to know that effort is being expended into where to place the recorders for the next crash.

Since they found part of the galley, that would be a candidate place, and since they found the captain's body, that would be a candidate place too. I think they found some guy's briefcase, so that would be a good place too for next time....