Breaking news on MSNBC - AF flight from Rio to Paris goes missing
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31040692/
CNN has coverage as well - it's an A330 that is missing
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/ ... index.html
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Breaking news on MSNBC - AF flight from Rio to Paris goes missing
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31040692/
CNN has coverage as well - it's an A330 that is missing
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/ ... index.html
My first thought was that after all the trouble Air France has been having with their 777-300ER fleet and engine failures, that sadly one of them had unfortunately crashed. I then continued reading and saw that number one the flight originated in GIG, not GRU, and that the aircraft involved was an A330-200.
This would be the first (?) fatal crash of an A330-200 if the verdict is 'catastrophic'. My thoughts go out to the family members waiting to hear and to Air France.
First Commerical Crash, 2nd airframe crash...Airbus Test Aircraft.
at 8:38am local, no wreckage found yet...
Latest news is that they say it flew through an area of severe storms and turbulence and then sent an automatic signal that there was an electronic circuit malfunction - probably struck by lightening. Those storms must have been very high up as the plane was 1,500 miles north east of Rio and I am guessing at cruising altitude - probably 35,000+?
let hope nothing severe.
Serigo.. the plane and its passengers are lost. If the plane successfully ditched the life rafts have GPS emitters that would have been picked up by receivers already. Sadly this is a lost cause.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta777LR
So sad. I can't even imagine what happened up there. I feel terrible for the families.
F-GZCP was the aircraft: http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.s ... humbnails=
Godspeed to all and may they always have tailwinds. It does not look good at all for this one. Once they do start finding wreckage this is going to be a real tricky one as well due to the distance off shore as they havew estimated already. Deep water filled with sharks. R.I.P.
For storms to be at that altitude, they must have been very severe. But I'm surprised that if weather was the culprit, that they'd even have flown through that to begin with.
Only automated messages from the plane indicate something very sudden. If they have an AFIRS system to receive automated messages, they probably also have coordinates of where the plane was when that message was sent, as well as other information on the plane such as thrust, fuel burn, etc.
Very sad story. My thoughts are with the families.
I agree with Phil - those storms had to be bad! Why not try to fly around them though. I appreciate that if the storm band was very long, they probably would have had to divert for extra fuel - but - safer....
Of course, I remember back to the Helderberg disaster in SAA's history many years ago - disappeared into the Indian Ocean off Mauritius - culprit there - hazardous cargo - so, what might have been in the cargo hold??
I just pray they knew nothing about it - it's a long fall from 35,000'! Our thoughts and prayers with the families as well.
CNN reports that in addition to the alert Air France received about the electrical failure, they received one indicating the fuselage had broken up...though I guess it's possible that was transmitted after impact.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkLawrence
Obviously lots of terribly frightening factors involved here, but perhaps the scariest is that we may never really know what happened since it will be challenging to locate the data and voice recorders.
Correction, there was no message about a break up, but there may have been an indication that the aircraft lost pressurization.Quote:
Originally Posted by GothamSpotter
Have not had a lot of time to read a lot but here a few things I have read not yet mentioned in this thread.
While many passengers where Brazilian or French they where many different nationalities onboard including 6 Americans. Their would have been 7 Americans but one was traveling with a Brazilian friend, the friend realized at check-in his passport had expired so both delayed their trip.
Some relatives claimed to have recieved text messages from onboard the flight saying "I love You" and "we are very scared."
The aircraft was delivered in April 2005 making it just over 4 years old C/N 660.
This is the response in my employers daily news message and was the lead story.
Air France Flight 447
US Airways and our 33,000 employees are keeping all of those touched by the events of Air France Flight 447 in our thoughts and prayers. The Airbus A330 went missing earlier this morning and has yet to be found. Officials from Air France reported that, prior to disappearing, the aircraft sent an automatic signal indicating electrical problems.
Regards
LGA777
Interesting Ron - thanks!!
Wouldn't this imply some form of cell service or internet service? Does Air France have internet capabilities on their long range flights?Quote:
Originally Posted by LGA777
Very unlikely that these were sent from over the ocean, as there is no cell service out there. I don't think AF offers internet, but that wouldn't have anything to do with an SMS txt msg anyway. I think it is possible that the plane was still over land and very much under control but some pax felt some bumps and saw storms out the window and sent those messages.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkLawrence
But since this is a modern aircraft wouldn't it have had the instruments onboard need to predict and 'see' the thunderstorm... like doppler rader or something like that for weather? Or even if they didn't have instruments like that, shouldn't the centers or controlers have told the pilot about the inclement weather?
My thoughts and prayers go out to them and their families.
A spokesperson for AF is quoted as saying a "lightning strike" has caused the catastrophic crash. And the President of France has asked for help from the satellite assests of the United States to locate the wreckage.
Clarification: He said "it is possible" the plane was struck by lightning, which might have contributed to the crash, but lightning alone does not cause planes to crash. It is estimated that every single plane in the world gets struck by lightning at least once a year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerard
Apparently there are now reports of a TAM pilot having spotted flaming debris in the Atlantic near the Senegalese coast.
By this point I think this is a recovery event. I would have my doubts that there are any survivors at all. There has only been one passenger in history if my memory is correct who has ever survived a crash from cruise and that was in Soviet Russia
Yup. Interesting report by John Nance on ABCWorld News that lightning or turbulence "shouldnt" be able to bring a plane down and heQuote:
Originally Posted by GothamSpotter
was actually talking, in his opinion, of a possible explosion aboard the plane, hinting of terrorism.
But also learned that the A330 itself actually sent out 10 automated messages to maintenance advising of an electrical failure.
And the storms they ran into arent the typical Tstorms we see around here. They can go as high as 50,000 feet and the turbulence
is much much worse than one would typically run into.
Wonder if we will ever know what happened?
There are at least a 1000 posts on Anet that are PURE BS and speculation.
RIght now, all we can say is it went down, perhaps wreckage is found and the info that AF has pumped out is only there to drive further speculation.
What is TRULY amazing is that as advanced as we have become, with radar and GPS, that planes can still get "lost". Jsut goes to show that we are still behind.
I certainly hope its a rescue op, but only time will tell.
Very sad news, my thoughts go out to the friends and family of the victims. I am surprised that in this modern age we don't have rather sophisticated enough to track the aircraft efficiently over the ocean and that a modern airliner can fail due to weather. I hope the black boxes can be found in order to provide the vital clues needed in order to establish what happened.
Also, on a related note; I was watching CNN and they showed this photo: http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6521385
credited to Jetphotos.net
BREAKING NEWS: Brazilian media say search teams may have spotted Air France jet debris in the Atlantic
****No further information, so, standby for more news****
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
The only thing is that there is no radar over the ocean, so ATC cannot see them.Quote:
Originally Posted by mirrodie
Otherwise, I am sure that a new plane like that with a major airline did have GPS. I don't know every system known to man, but those "automated messages" sound like the plane had what is called an AFIRS system (Automated Flight Information Reporting System), which would report back to Air France system operations various info on the aircraft, and that those GPS positions would have been sent along with those electronic failure messages. The question would just be where the plane fell and floated to after those messages were received.
I wouldn't say the plane was "lost", but it's just that no amount of technology can determine the location of something that probably broke up into thousands of pieces in an uninhabited place.
Including the ones complaining about "speculation" in the media... :roll:Quote:
Originally Posted by mirrodie
Here is my question. I only know what I have heard via various media outlets as we have not even located this plane yet but what if we are looking in the totally wrong places for this airplane? :idea: Lets jhust say for sake of adding some more speculation that there was some sort of drastic electrical malfunction whether it be brought on by lightning (highly doubtful) or otherwise like maybe a rat down in the AV bay or somthing. So now with this in knowladge we move to the next tier of speculation. Knowing a little bit about the Airbus in normal configuaration the airplane regulated cabin pressure through the outflow valve automaticly. Let us just say for sake of arguement that there was a failure or two in systems brought on for whatever it might be and it caused a depressureization. Most failures on the Airbus will appear as an ECAM message or warning to the crew but lets say that we have a major failure on our hands and Gen.1/2 are both out. So now we have a plane by this point that is now at a cabin alt of 35,000 feet with major electrical problems. Very Al la Paine Stewart. That is just one of my ideas struck in a moment of bored speculation.
Unless there is a large hole in the side of the fuselage, you are not likely to rapidly lose cabin pressure. If the pressurization system failed, and the cabin altitude began to climb, the cockpit crew would receive a warning, allowing them to don their oxygen masks, and the cabin oxygen masks would deploy for the passengers. Even without a cockpit warning, you will generally feel the effects of lack of oxygen, and if nothing else, when the cabin masks drop down (automatically due to cabin altitude) the crew will know something is wrong, and it should happen early enough to let them get their masks on.Quote:
Originally Posted by N101CV
In the Paine Stewart crash, I can't speak for the crew, but I don't know that there were automatic masks for the passengers, given it was a business jet and certified under different standards from airliners.
Good point which I overlooked on the cabin mask deployment. So scratch idea.
I'm a little puzzled that it seems there are no reports coming from ships in the area. Does that mean there are really no tankers, no container ships, no fishing vessels, no Navy ships, no cruise ships in that fairly large chunk of the Atlantic? I don't know a ton about shipping lanes (I do realize the Suez Canal is a lot shorter), but don't a good number of ships still go around Africa while traveling between Asia and the Atlantic? Or is this really sort of a very low traffic no man's land? The closest Brazilian Navy vessels still won't arrive in the assumed debris area until tomorrow.
Another factor to keep in mind... the treacherous weather in that area which probably brought the A330 down gets worse over the summer, which will make it even more challenging and dangerous for recovery forces to make progress.
It's been pretty certain, but it's more or less official as of a few minutes ago...
Quote:
Wreckage spotted in the Atlantic Ocean is "without a doubt" from the Air France jet that disappeared en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro with 228 people on board, Brazil's defense minister said on Tuesday.
A Brazilian Hercules plane on a search mission for the missing passenger jet saw a band of wreckage along a 5-km (3-mile) strip, Nelson Jobim told a news conference.
"It confirms that the plane fell in this area," he said. (Reporting by Maria Pia Palermo; writing by Brian Ellsworth; editing by Stuart Grudgings and John O'Callaghan)
As I saw reported somewhere else - the race is now on for the black boxes - they only emit their signal for 30 days. That's, if they can be found, going to be the tell-tale story if what happened.
Anyone know the capabilities of modern diving vessels in water as deep at 7000 meters? More importantly...cant the CVR and FDR even survive in water that deep?
I was thinking that and according to what they are saying the area where they suspect the impact took place is a very ridge filled area.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil D.
7,000 meters would be nearly impossible...Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil D.
* The beacons on the boxes only operate down to 14,000 feet, about 4,300 meters
* A report from the US Navy says, in theory, they could retrieve one from 6,000 meters
* The deepest ever retrieved was from 4,200 meters, after the crash of South African 295 in the Indian Ocean
:arrow: Retrieving Air France black box will be epic task [Reuters]
Yikes. I hope that 7000 meters depth is wrong.
Tomorrow's giant, pointless headline: Bomb threat reported against Air France flight in Buenos Aires four days earlier.
I don't think authorities should rule out terrorism just yet, but it seems unlikely these events would be related. I'm sure airlines as large as Air France receive bomb threats pretty frequently.
An interesting note that was brought to my attention by a friend in conversation that would make sense though totally tossing any other ideas out the window I had thought of is this. The TAM crew that initially spotted the wreckage reportedly spotted several "points of orange light" I.E. fire on the water below. If the airplane broke up in flight as many are suspecting and there was fire on the water. This would lead to suspicion of of a possible bomb or explosion in flight.
I don't see how fire on the water would lead to that.
Right now, my personal hypothesis that I've developed with some people I've spoken with is that the aircraft went into the severe storm and encountered very severe turbulence, hitting a pocket of air that caused a hard drop and loss of control. Maybe the cockpit crew was very relaxed with the "seats back" and the Captain in the bathroom during this time, and they simply were not able to recover, and the plane broke apart due to overspeed.
That would still cause a fire as it broke up and flames would still be present among the pieces and liquids floating after splash.
I glanced over at A-net for an answer to this question. "If ACARS can transmit info back to AF headquarters,Why cant voice be sent the same way?'' I understand that most voice communications is VHF and it has a limited range. Can someone give me an answer.