Air France A330 - Missing over Atantic

wabower said:
A conclusion clearly based on keen powers of observation and reasoning, coupled with a deep and profound grasp of the obvious?:p
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Why thank you! ;-)

Actually, I'm not an oceanographer... was thinking that Henning might pop in here and say that ocean currents CAN move stuff that far in two days...
 
SteveinMichigan said:
...I swear I lose a little faith in belief that people as a group are the smartest creatures on this planet a little more each day because of crap like this.....
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You might show a METAR with towering cumulous to 70,000 feet. That, of course would be smooth air. :nonod:
 
Sorry if someone's already posted it, but there are headlines now saying that the wreckage found is confirmed as being from the plane.
 
From avherald.com

New information provided by sources within Air France suggests, that the ACARS messages of system failures started to arrive at 02:10Z indicating, that the autopilot had disengaged and the fly by wire system had changed to alternate law. Between 02:11Z and 02:13Z a flurry of messages regarding ADIRU and ISIS faults arrived, at 02:13Z PRIM 1 and SEC 1 faults were indicated, at 02:14Z the last message received was an advisory regarding cabin vertical speed. That sequence of messages could not be independently verified.

Best,

Dave
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Summary in the link:
We can almost certainly count on some unexpected surprises once the CVR is recovered. =============================================================
Best,

Dave
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Well if they ever recover the CVR. Not sure how I see that happening in the middle of the south atlantic. I mean the couldn't even find the titanic for lord knows how many decades.
 
I hear ya Adam! But we might be able to hear it for about 30 days. Doesn't mean we can retrieve it, but we may know where it is if it properly functions. I still can't get my arms around the long period over which messages were being sent if the plane broke up in the air.

Best,

Dave
 
Dave, I imagine that was during the "fighting to save the airplane" phase, as well as (perhaps) the "falling to doom" phase (not being flippant, just descriptive).

I predict the US Navy will recover the CVR and DFDR. When the world absolutely, positively needs help, it's always the US that responds.
 
Dave Siciliano said:
From avherald.com

New information provided by sources within Air France suggests, that the ACARS messages of system failures started to arrive at 02:10Z indicating, that the autopilot had disengaged and the fly by wire system had changed to alternate law. Between 02:11Z and 02:13Z a flurry of messages regarding ADIRU and ISIS faults arrived, at 02:13Z PRIM 1 and SEC 1 faults were indicated, at 02:14Z the last message received was an advisory regarding cabin vertical speed. That sequence of messages could not be independently verified.

Best,

Dave
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From another board,

"1. ISIS failure. That's a BIG problem. Integrated Standby Instrumentation System. This is ALL you have if you lose everything else. For the ISIS to go or at least have to reset itself, you'd have to have a BAD electrical system spike. The ISIS gets its power directly from its own internal battery, continuously trickle charged through one of the aircraft's primary electrical AC Buses as long as they have power. Even if primary AC power is lost, the battery should provide uninterrupted power to the ISIS. For whatever reason, it appears it may have faulted.

2. Primary and Secondary aileron flight control damper unit failure (PRIM1 and SEC1) with a simultaneous ADIRU failure (Air Data Inertial Reference Unit - what gives the Primary Flight Display your attitude, VSI, airspeed, and heading readouts among other things) fault and almost simultaneously with the ISIS fault (within 90-120 seconds according to that data stream) means that they were at least momentarily (and possibly longer) without ANY instrumentation. No PFD, no ISIS, nada, zero, zilch with a flight control problem...

3. All of that while trying to fight an airplane that had reverted to alternate law on the flight control systems? That would be eye watering enough without anything like severe turbulence associated with a thunderstorm to compound the problem."


Over water, in thunderstorms, potentially no attitude guidance, and flight control system problems? As bad as it gets!

Eggman
 
An manufacture official was on one of the news shows here and said SONAR can detect the the FDR in that environment about 1/4 mile away. With the continuous flow of data from ACARS, it was thought less important to have the FDR signal stronger than before that data stream was available.

Best,

Dave
 
SkyHog said:
What is "Alternate Law?"
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It is one of the "Modes" that the flight control computers can be in. There are three, Normal Law, Alternate law and whatever the basic one is called. Been too long.
 
Very sad... I imagine that especially for passengers, the feeling of helplessness during those last moments must be a horrible way to go. :(
 
In different directions?

TangoWhiskey said:
Why thank you! ;-)

Actually, I'm not an oceanographer... was thinking that Henning might pop in here and say that ocean currents CAN move stuff that far in two days...
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Dave Siciliano said:
An manufacture official was on one of the news shows here and said SONAR can detect the the FDR in that environment about 1/4 mile away. With the continuous flow of data from ACARS, it was thought less important to have the FDR signal stronger than before that data stream was available.

Best,

Dave
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Well, now I don't know what to think. Another 'expert' was on and said the FDR could be found from much farther away. Sound usually travels well in water; so, I didn't understand the first comment. Guess we'll just have to wait 'n see.

Best,

Dave
 
As we get improved satellite communication rates, I imagine it won't be long before airliners stream FDR data live to ground stations, as a secondary data stream to that stored in the onboard FDR.
 
I fear that the number of profound failures at the same time may well have been more associated with the breakup of the airframe than the other way around.
 
SCCutler said:
I fear that the number of profound failures at the same time may well have been more associated with the breakup of the airframe than the other way around.
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That, plus the separate debris fields, sure sounds like an in-flight breakup.

And it would have taken them four minutes or so to fall from 35,000 feet, right? :hairraise:
 
AdamZ said:
Well if they ever recover the CVR. Not sure how I see that happening in the middle of the south atlantic. I mean the couldn't even find the titanic for lord knows how many decades.
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Those decades also involved two world wars and the development of technology to allow us to reach the depths at which the ship rests.....
 
SteveinMichigan said:
Those decades also involved two world wars and the development of technology to allow us to reach the depths at which the ship rests.....
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Somewhat interestingly, I saw an article not that long ago in which Ballard said that finding the Titanic was ancillary to a search for submarines sunk in the Cold war (the Thresher and Scorpion, I believe).

Here's what looks like an article on it: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3994955.ece
 
Doesn't look as if retrieving the FDR will be easy based on ocean depth and terrain:

Best,

Dave

"Once debris is found and confirmed to be wreckage from the plane, the work will hard. According to French Military spokesperson, Christophe Prazuck, “the research area overhangs an underwater mountain range as big as the Andes. The underwater landscape is very steep”"


air france 447
 
TangoWhiskey said:
As we get improved satellite communication rates, I imagine it won't be long before airliners stream FDR data live to ground stations, as a secondary data stream to that stored in the onboard FDR.
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I believe this already happens, at least for some maintenance-related data.
 
This is interesting. Notice there are two investigations because someone has to be guilty. I copied the info on the FDR below:

Best,

Dave
======================================================
A separate investigation is being carried out by the French prosecutor’s office to figure out who is responsible. Arslanian said he found it “normal” that there should be a parallel, judicial inquiry.

“Someone has to answer the question: ‘who is guilty’? ” he said. “That’s not my role.”

Black Boxes

Investigators are searching for the plane’s two black boxes, which record pilot conversations on one, technical data on the other, he said. The range of the search is over several hundreds of miles, and the ocean in that area is very deep, and mountainous, he said, making it more difficult.

The boxes emit signals that can be captured over one kilometer for 30 days following any accident. He said the signals were faint, and investigators are using “triangulation,” a surveying technique in which a region is divided into a series of triangles, to try and locate them.

He said the black boxes are at a minimum depth of 1,000 meters. They “aren’t essential” to the investigation, he said.

http://tinyurl.com/qggw4e
 
can they charge Mother Nature? what if she doesnt show up for her court date?
 
Obi Heed Kenobi said:
Somewhat interestingly, I saw an article not that long ago in which Ballard said that finding the Titanic was ancillary to a search for submarines sunk in the Cold war (the Thresher and Scorpion, I believe).

Here's what looks like an article on it: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3994955.ece
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He received permission to search for the Titanic on the way home from the search for the USS Scorpion (I think that was the sub in question, but don't hold me to it). Otherwise, he could not obtain the funding necessary to conduct a large scale search. It was actually quite an interesting story and it's even more interesting to hear Dr. Ballard tell it in person since he gets into the "politics" and wrangling it took to get permission to do what he did to find the Titanic. He's a very interesting man to talk to...
 
tonycondon said:
can they charge Mother Nature? what if she doesnt show up for her court date?
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Clearly, aircraft are supposed to have a 0% failure rate, with infinite life, and be able to go through any weather conditions, period.

That attitude that the general public has really annoys me. Why don't they build people anymore who understand and accept risk?
 
Holy ****: (from http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/03/france.plane.memorial/index.html )

CNN.com said:
Searchers found a 23-foot-long piece of the crashed Air France jet in a new debris field about 56 miles south of an earlier discovery, the Brazilian Air Force said today. A huge oil slick also was spotted. Eleven aircraft and five ships are searching the area. No survivors are expected, officials have said.
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CNN.com said:
The latest debris was found about 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of Tuesday's discovery, Amaral said. The earlier debris was about 650 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha Islands, an archipelago 355 kilometers (220 miles) off the northeast coast of Brazil.
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Ted DuPuis said:
Clearly, aircraft are supposed to have a 0% failure rate, with infinite life, and be able to go through any weather conditions, period.

That attitude that the general public has really annoys me. Why don't they build people anymore who understand and accept risk?
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When was the last time any airline mentioned "risk" in any ad touting air travel?

The Air transport industry prefers the public's perception.

Why do you think you barely see the airplane anymore? (Enter from a building through a tube and sit on another tube).
 
There has been some discussion about the solder used in the Airbus. A couple pretty strong opinions by folks.


http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/85/8529sci1.html

A key quote:
*******************************************************
Without lead, tin-based solder joints are much more likely to break when exposed to vibration or shocks, Handwerker notes. That's critical in, say, an airplane, which is exposed to repeated takeoffs and landings. A Boeing study predicts that "the vibration resistance of lead-free solder joints in the field is 20 times worse" than that of tin-lead....
*********************************************

Best,

Dave
 
Dave Siciliano said:
There has been some discussion about the solder used in the Airbus. A couple pretty strong opinions by folks.


http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/85/8529sci1.html

A key quote:
*******************************************************
Without lead, tin-based solder joints are much more likely to break when exposed to vibration or shocks, Handwerker notes. That's critical in, say, an airplane, which is exposed to repeated takeoffs and landings. A Boeing study predicts that "the vibration resistance of lead-free solder joints in the field is 20 times worse" than that of tin-lead....
*********************************************

Best,

Dave
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But, but, but!!! We can't put lead in landfills. It pollutes the ground!

Oh yeah, that's were we got it in the first place, we dug it out of the ground.

Don't confuse politicians with reality. It wrecks their day.

And this (lead free solder) is a real concern.
 
Ghery: If you were Jed Clampett today and oil spurted up while you were hunting, rather than move to Beverly Hills, you would be in charge of a toxic waste site <g>

Best,

Dave
 
Ewww boy. Another pundit that we should all look up to, right! Anyone see the mushroom cloud?

Best,

Dave
-----------------
While some experts questioned whether a bolt of lightning alone could bring
down an Airbus A330, Mary Schiavo, former inspector general for the U.S.
National Transportation Safety Board, said it was plausible.

''For this plane, the difference could have been if the lightning hit a fuel
tank or got inside and took out the electrical system,'' Schiavo said on CBS'
''The Early Show. ''It's like an atom bomb.''

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/03/world/AP-Brazil-Plane.html
 
Dave Siciliano said:
======================================================

The boxes emit signals that can be captured over one kilometer for 30 days following any accident. He said the signals were faint, and investigators are using “triangulation,” a surveying technique in which a region is divided into a series of triangles, to try and locate them.http://tinyurl.com/qggw4e
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You can learn so much from reporters.

Joe
 
... and investigators are using “triangulation,” a surveying technique in which a region is divided into a series of triangles, to try and locate them...
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Interesting explination of triangulation.
 
Where is Dan Rowan when you need him? "I didn't know that!" with finger pointed up.

Best,

Dave
 
Looks as if NTSB is going to participate in this. Bill English has been assigned to this for those of you that know him.

Best,

Dave


************************************************************
NTSB ADVISORY
************************************************************

National Transportation Safety Board
Washington, DC 20594

June 3, 2009

************************************************************

NTSB TO ASSIST FRENCH WITH AIRBUS A-330 ACCIDENT
INVESTIGATION

************************************************************

The National Transportation Safety Board has accepted an
invitation from the French aviation accident investigation
authority, the Bureau d'Enqu^tes et d'Analyses (BEA), to
assist in the investigation of Air France flight 447, the A-
330 that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off the Brazilian
coast on Monday morning.

NTSB Acting Chairman Mark V. Rosenker has designated senior
air safety investigator Bill English as the U.S. Accredited
Representative. The U.S. team will also include technical
advisors from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA),
General Electric and Honeywell.

Information on the progress of the investigation will be
released by the BEA. The agency's phone number in France is
(33)1 49 92 72 00; their website is
http://www.bea.aero/index.php, and their email address is
com@bea-fr.org.
 
Dave Siciliano said:
... Notice there are two investigations because someone has to be guilty. ....
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In this regard alone, it *might* (I don't know) be an issue of a translator's inadvertant choice of words. Keep in mind that for every word in French, there are multiple words in English that could be used, and vice versa.

Technically, a plaintiff "prosecutes" his case, even if it's civil and not criminal. So, reference to the "prosecutor's office" might be a poor choice of words, actually referring to something like the Colorado Attorney General's office, which "prosecutes" cases that aren't necessarily criminal, like safety regulation violations.

Same with "guilty." The guy speaking could easily have meant "held responsible," rather than "guilty of a criminal violation."

Now, I don't know that any of that's actually the case - but it might be worth keeping in mind.

If none of that's the case, be glad we're not French pilots....
 
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