French plane lost over Atlantic An Air France plane carrying at least 228 people from Brazil has disappeared from radar screens over the Atlantic. Paris Charles de Gaulle airport said contact was lost with the flight from Rio de Janeiro at 0600 GMT. Brazil's air force confirmed the disappearance. An airport official told AFP the Airbus 330 had been expected to arrive in Paris at 1110 local time (0910 GMT). Another official said it was possible that the plane had a transponder problem but this was very rare. "We are very worried," he said, quoted by AFP news agency. "The plane disappeared from the screens several hours ago." Flight AF 447 left Rio at 1900 local time (2200 GMT) on Sunday. It had 216 passengers and 12 crew on board. Airport authorities have set up a crisis centre at Charles de Gaulle. Ooohh it doesn't look good...
Yeah, that doesn't look good at all. It sounds like they may have been past the island of Fernando de Noronha when the problems occurred. Oh dear.
A lightning strike is not enough to bring a plane down. From what I gathered, before the plain disappeared, the plane reported that the plane was going through the stages of electrical failure and the cabin pressure was being lost before they stop transmitting. In my opinion, and it is most likely it happened, the plane got hit with a lightning strike. That lightning strike must have generated an EMP field. While it is rare for that to happen in thunderstorms, it is not uncommon either. That would explain the messages the plane was giving and the sudden lost of communication. While I don't want anything bad to happen to those people, they would likely be dead from the collision with the ocean. The plane being beneath the sea would also explain why the plane disappeared from the radar.
Which would mean, the tsunami warning system could also be modified for other detections. With all Military observations and survaliences. I find it hard to beleive in a crisis, NONE could zoom in on what happened. I do beleive its a paperwork trail and nothing more. Whether Air Force, Mairens, Navy or even other worldy goverenment operations would take presidence. Even underwater sonar or sound inventing like Resonance would almost immediately take shape. If that is correct terminology ... I do feel bad for the next big thing in air travel. Some times I do hope for sabotage instead of systems failure.
Air France plane missing over Atlantic http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/world/europe/02plane.html?partner=rss&emc=rss "The plane was flying beyond the reach of Brazilian and Senegalese radar when it went missing — a gap that always occurs for aircraft on long trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights. ... No Airbus 330-200 passenger flight has ever been involved in a fatal crash" Sad news.
I doubt the plane would be swallowed up whole if it impacted with the ocean. Disintegrate would probably be more like it with a debris field floating on top.
I'm no aviation expert, but I wonder if a lightning strike may have somehow caused the plane to depressurize. Very sad. I hope they at least find something soon.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8080290.stm It appears that Brazil is saying that the wreckage is from Air France Flight 447.. Unsurprisingly, no survivors have been found.
Given the lack of physical back up for control systems (actual cables to the control surfaces) a lightening strike could possibly disable all the electronic fly by wire systems if the airframe for some reason didn't dissipate all of the electrical energy. Who said that? Airbus? You know, given a previous crash of an AirBus in Brazil a few years ago that was blamed on the flight control computer taking back control of the plan from the pilot, I'm beginning to wonder if AirBus designs planes that are too smart for their own good.
Hopefully the flight data recorder will be located, although I think it is unlikely. It's possible the crew got preoccupied trying deal with multiple emergencies and simply flew the plane into the ocean. Unfortunately, it happens.
A 'friend of a friend' had a sister on board - Jane Deasy, only in her mid-20s. I honestly don't know what to say or think or do. May she, nad everybody who was on the flight, rest in peace.
you already showed your biased dislike of Airbus on previous occasions, and then as now it's clear you don't know what you are talking about. for one thing, the A330 is one of the safest planes out there. this was it's first fatal crash ever. secondly, you don't have to work for Airbus to know how modern planes are designed. these experts are spot on, regardless of what you want to believe.
What's funny about this is that while Airbus aircraft may be very safe and have a lower incidence of accident than aircraft by other makers, AirBus accidents have a higher tendency to be "catastrophic" failures. Until something happens that it doens't have a back up redundancy for. First time for everything... And there are a lot of "experts" that don't like the fact that there isn't a physical redundancy for control surfaces and that AirBus planes have shown a tendency for the planes supposed safety features of flight control computers to override the pilot in certain situations.
A good friend of mine spent x decades as an senior engine mechanic for United. (as in take one apart and reassemble it blindfolded (almost)) Ive often heard him use the phrase 'Scarebus'.
The following article discusses a previous flight where the autopilot forced an A330 into a dive due to faulty software. http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090603/wl_time/08599190242100 It's pure speculation that this had anything to do with the Brazil flight, but still interesting.
I am not a maritime expert (or even a novice) but debris fields that are 60-70 miles apart? Anyone else thinking catastrophic break up in the air, before hitting the water?
Nor am I, and it's quite possible. Planes are built stronger than you think to compensate for the stress of emergency maneuvers to avoid collision, sudden/freak weather phenomena, etc, but when a plane starts tumbling and the airframe is exposed to all manner of eccentric gyrations and stresses it was never designed to withstand, it will fold and break up. But I also recall the EgyptAir jet crash that was blamed on the co-pilot going kamakazi was also spread over a very large area because of the nature of the impact and the currents. Not to mention that it's been at least 48 hours since the A330 went down.
Pilots in the area reported intense white flaring light falling vertically around the time of the disappearance. A meteor is always a possibility, I guess.
The big one that hit Lake Michigan 40 years ago just missed Nelson Rockefeller's plane. The pilot said "by much less than a hundred feet" IIRC...
No doubt, but these aircraft are actually far more resilient than most people realize. There is a famous video out there of a 707 doing a barrel roll as part of a demo, and that's from an aircraft originally designed in the 1950s. Last I heard, they still have not officially found any debris from the plane, so really its too early to even speculate. But one theory (and he stresses that it's pure speculation) from Patrick Smith is that a combination of lighting (knocking out the fly-by-wire system), turbulence, and hail may have caused a structural failure.