Air France A.330 missing

[Nigel H-J]

Found some debris! :-(

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8079122.stm

Nigel.

[DispatchDragon]

Peter's comment about the height of cu nims I can verify - last week I was working the Eastern US desk and we had Level 5 tops to in excess of FL450 and some individual cell height returns at FL700 - (by the way the jetstream in the North Americas is presently located somewhere NORTH of the US/Canadian borde. We also recently had an aircraft that took "mulitple" lightening strikes going into Orlando so that sort of bombs the Media's theory. We also had an aircraft which took hail damage from a storm at FL330 SIXTY miles downwind from the anvil, Im a little PO'd at the media (as usual) who are now trying to say that the flight MUST have had problems with its weather radar but still continued into an area of sever weather -- well first Wx Radar DOESNT show Turbulence as we all know - it shows areas of precipitaton and even while contouring can only suggest areas to avoid. Secondly (surprise surprise) Wx Radar is one of those things that is REQUIRED to be operational for ETOPS operations
(along with APU's TCAS etc etc) so if he had some kind of failure he would have had to turn around and gone back to Recife.
Other aircraft along the convergence zone were reporting moderate to severe turbulence (Most airlines GOM's require crews to
find a way out of moderate turbulence immeadiatly) along the zone. The one thing that surprises me is that, ACARs like the automatic datalink is satellite driven - so why the crew didn't say anything even if they were up to their eyes with problems?this would have been a heavy crew so the guy sitting on the jumpseat could transmit an ACARS message - which brings me back to the thought that whatever happened was almost instantaneous.


Leif

[petermcleland]

I think the same Leif...When they get hold of some of that wreckage I think they will find some indications. My guess is a break up in the air.

[TSR2]

If the reports on Auntie Beeb are to be believed, the debris was found well south of the automatic fault reports. I think some rapid depresurisation and possibly the a/c continued on its way for some time before impact. All speculation, but I hope its the case as I wouldn't wish to be concious in such a situation. Absolutely trajic whatever the cause. May they all rest in peace.

[simondix]

When my wife and I flew to Keral in 2007 as we came down the Arabian Sea we saw a storm with clouds higher than we were approx 33000ft. I don't think you can take Mother Nature for granted whatever aircraft you are in. It could have been anything it's all just speculation at the moment. It could even be foul play.

[Chris Trott]

... Im a little PO'd at the media (as usual) who are now trying to say that the flight MUST have had problems with its weather radar but still continued into an area of sever weather...

They may have been taking cues off of PPRUNE where there has been some fairly extensive discussion about the default radar sensitivity settings on the Airbii not showing returns well when at FL and near the tops of storms. While the crew was experienced, it is possible they didn't expect to see anything serious becuase of their routing and the weather and hadn't changed the settings to be able to better detect any cells that might be near their route of flight.

[Tarasdad]

I just read that the debris they spotted is definitely from the AF A330. It's scattered over a 3 square mile (5km) area. With the weather common in the area at this time of year any recovery effort for the black boxes is going to be a real bear.

[bigred1970]

a note about turbulence possibly bringing down this aircraft. this is Airbus. the flight control computers have brought down airbus's before because they did one thing when the crew wanted to do another. if the plane got in bad enough turbulence to cause it to get badly out of strait and level flight. something like this maybe happened causing loss of the airplane. if it got inverted, and diving it could have gotten to the speed of structual failure before the crew and flight computer could decide amount themselves how to recover the airplane. :-(

[DispatchDragon]

Bigred

That applies to ANY large aircraft not just Airbus -- Jet upset is the most frightening thing imaginable for a crew
ask any crew.


Leif

[bigred1970]

Bigred

That applies to ANY large aircraft not just Airbus -- Jet upset is the most frightening thing imaginable for a crew
ask any crew.


Leif

that is true. but that being said, if the computers fought the crew for control after a upset, that would make a bad situation worse

as you can tell, I am not a big fan of how much in control Airbus thinks the flight crew needs to be........

there are just not that many things that could cause a modern airline to just disintegrate like this besides exceeding the limits of the airframe.

the other two suspects in my mind are

1. a thrust reverser deploying because of electrical problems. ( maybe a lighnting strike?) or damage due to turbulence. this caused a at least one airline that I know of to disintegrate in flight ( a 767 I think)

2. a explosion. maybe fuel vapor being set off by lightning or a short..... or.... as has already been mentions in the news here in the states.... a bomb....

that is all the speculation I am going to partake in....

god rest those that were on board..... :-(