Germanwings A320 crashes in the Alps

[dodger]

Likewise, a very sad day and Sincere condolences to all concerned.

Roger.

[robbie]

Terrible news, thoughts and prayers to all those concerned, I also wish strength to all those people attempting to recover the victims, it looks like an absolute nightmare down there!!!.

[cstorey]

It is a very sad business. To take up the point raised by Swanoir, since the advent of the wide bodied jet, accidents involving such aircraft have become so rare as to be a purely random event , and although short haul jet aeroplanes have a slightly worse record - probably because the number of sectors such aircraft fly inevitably is much higher than that of a widebody - , compared with the piston age, and even the turboprop era, the record is extremely good . What is a little worrying to me is that we have had a number of unexplained en route accidents which in the past, compared with take off/approach accidents were very rare , and I am afraid I am one of those people who think that the locked cockpit door is absolute lunacy . If you want to follow up the statistics, the Aviation Safety Network has a very extensive, and in my view reliable, database, going back to before the Second World War

http://aviation-safety.net/index.php

[airboatr]

Yes, it is very sad, especially that they had just reached cruise altitude and all was good.


I'll add my concerns, along with Chris, that those involved with the recovery are safe from injury.

[nigelb]

My condolences to all the victims and their families and friends. A tragic day indeed. At least they have already found one of the "black" boxes so perhaps we will have some answers soon, rather than speculation.

Nigel²

[Airspeed]

Condolences to all concerned.

Another mystery at present, quite rapid descent without any apparent distress call. Hopefully the black box will reveal why.

Seems that it was not the media who wrote of "the pilot";

Germanwings executive Thomas Winkelmann said that the pilot had "more than 10 years of experience" and some 6,000 flying hours on an Airbus jet under his belt.

[JohnWillimas]

This is obviously a tragic event but I was just looking at the data on Flight Track and saw something that puzzled me - wondered if anyone here had a view.

http://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/G ... L/tracklog

The plane's final descent starts at 09:30. It seems to begin immediately after it begins a course change from 43 degrees to 26 degrees.

Other flights on this route seem to execute a similar turn at about the same point, so I am assuming that was normal. Is it possible that in executing the turn the crew switched off altitude hold on the auto pilot?

[petermcleland]

Condolences to all concerned.

Another mystery at present, quite rapid descent without any apparent distress call. Hopefully the black box will reveal why.

Seems that it was not the media who wrote of "the pilot";

Germanwings executive Thomas Winkelmann said that the pilot had "more than 10 years of experience" and some 6,000 flying hours on an Airbus jet under his belt.

The only emergency in our simulations that involved a steep descent to 10000 feet would be a cabin pressurisation failure...But that does not explain the lack of a call. Everything is just conjecture at this point but they have one of the black boxes and even though it is damaged, I'm sure they will get a lot of data from it.

It is very sad!

[Tomliner]

Does anyone else feel that in this tragic incident the media constantly mentionthe loss of sixteen schoolchildren and two teachers,seemingly to the exclusion of the other victims.It must seem a bit insensitive to all the families and friends involved. Sometimes I think that these disasters are almost treated as a entertainment for viewers.Very sad indeed.EricT

[airboatr]

And publishing the statistics of people who do die in airplane crashes compared to those who die in automobile accidents really helps the survivors cope.

What is truly behind that. .....

Is it me, or do the adverts increase per hour when a tragedy of this magnitude happens.