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The Case of the Missing Airbus

drkenan

drkenan

anti-dentite
Oct 1, 2006
3,441
1
west asheville
So...an Airbus goes down over the Atlantic with 228 people on board and they find the debris in the middle of the ocean. But then today the Brazilian government announces that the debris was from something else. :shocked:

I don't know anything about aviation but did they fly thru the Bermuda Triangle or something? This is pretty crazy. I definitely feel sorry for the family members involved.

The search for clues into the crash of Air France flight 447 was thrown into confusion Thursday, after the Brazilian military said initially that it had recovered the first piece of floating debris from the plane, a structural support piece about eight feet long that might have come from the jet’s cargo hold. But by Thursday evening, the military said that information had been incorrect, and that the debris had probably come from a ship or another source.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/world/europe/06plane.html?em
 
drkenan

drkenan

anti-dentite
Oct 1, 2006
3,441
1
west asheville
vtjim said:
Um...

Perhaps it's just the conspiracy theorist in me, but are we not being told the whole story all of a sudden?
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A Spanish pilot did report seeing an "intense flash" in the area about the same time. Tinfoil hat time...

I have the feeling that we don't know the whole story either.
 
Inclag

Inclag

Turbo Monkey
Sep 9, 2001
2,752
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MA
Meh, there's lots of data from both mainland resources and from data acquired from the aircraft that some pretty crazy weather was going down and that the cloud tops reached 50,000ft.
 
Westy

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,408
20,197
Sleazattle
Inclag said:
Meh, there's lots of data from both mainland resources and from data acquired from the aircraft that some pretty crazy weather was going down and that the cloud tops reached 50,000ft.
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That is what they want you to think man.
 
IH8Rice

IH8Rice

I'm Mr. Negative! I Fail!
Aug 2, 2008
24,524
494
Im over here now
MMike

MMike

A fowl peckerwood.
Sep 5, 2001
18,207
105
just sittin' here drinkin' scotch
PARIS—After more than two weeks of analyzing flight records, cockpit radio transmissions, and floating ocean debris, investigators determined Thursday that the tragic events of Air France Flight 447 were in all likelihood caused by a "giant plane crash."
The shocking discovery, announced during a press conference Friday, finally sheds light on what took place in the early hours of June 1, and answers a number of puzzling questions about the mysterious mid-flight disaster.
"We can now say, with complete confidence, that Air France Flight 447 was brought down by an unscheduled and unforeseen plane crash," lead French investigator Michel Villon stated. "Indeed, a survey of all the evidence indicates that this terrible tragedy was the direct result of a large airliner falling suddenly from the sky, dropping 30,000 feet, and colliding with the Atlantic Ocean at extremely high speeds."
"This is devastating news, to say the least," Villon continued. "Hopefully our findings here will help bring some closure to the families most affected by this horrible event."
French and Brazilian authorities said their first hint that the tragedy was caused by a plane crash came last week, when divers recovered several large metal fragments from Air France Flight 447 that were not fused together in one solid mass, as is typical of a functioning aircraft. The fragments were then analyzed and found not to be airborne or otherwise soaring intact across the sky. The final clue, they said, was that certain key features of the crash site in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean seemed to be consistent with a huge commercial airliner having crashed there.
The discovery of deceased Flight 447 passengers further supported the so-called "plane crash" theory, as investigators claimed these men and women would most likely have already arrived in Paris had the Airbus jet not gone down.
While the aircraft's black box has yet to be recovered, officials speculated that the simple fact that they are currently searching for it corroborates their theory of a plane crash.
"It took us a long time to figure out exactly what led to this unspeakable event," said Brazilian aviation expert Federico Lobão, who spent countless hours carefully studying footage of the wreckage. "Never could we have imagined that something like a plane crash could be behind such a catastrophic plane crash."
Lobão is lead author of a 450-page report that cites a projectile of steel suddenly spiraling downward with incredible force as the main cause of the Air France tragedy. With his team's findings, a number of competing theories have been put to rest. Among them: that the disaster was triggered by a pack of wolves let loose aboard the aircraft; that all 228 people aboard died instantly from heart disease, natural causes, or possibly some form of diabetes; terrorism; that something went terribly wrong during a standard layover 3,000 feet below sea level; terrorism again; and pilot error.
According to the FAA, plane crashes are responsible for nearly 98 percent of all mid-flight catastrophes and an estimated 100 percent of all aircraft-related deaths. In response to these frightening statistics, airline officials have announced they will be instituting a number of preventive measures in hopes of avoiding future accidents. So far, these include requiring pilots to keep an aircraft up in the air at all times following takeoff, and not allowing an airliner carrying hundreds of travelers to plummet rapidly into the ground.
"We are currently doing everything we can to stop any unnecessary collisions with the ground from taking place during our flights,” Air France CEO Pierre Sturges said. “While we work to figure out this whole not-crashing-planes-and-killing-passengers thing, people should keep in mind that the chances of their flight crashing are almost incalculably small and incredibly unlikely."
"Unless, of course, it does,” he added
 
Pesqueeb

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,300
16,740
Riding the baggage carousel.
Son of a bitch....... Wonder if the thing still works. How many PSI 13000 feet under water?
PARIS — Investigators have located and recovered the missing memory unit of the flight data recorder of a 2009 Air France flight — a remarkable deep-sea discovery they hope will explain why the aircraft went down in a remote area of the mid-Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board.

France's air accident investigation agency BEA said a search by a submarine probing 3,900 meters (12,800 feet) below the ocean's surface located and recovered the unit Sunday morning. The unit is now aboard the Ile de Sein, a ship that's helping conduct the probe, the statement said.

The statement also included photos of the recorder — a red cylinder partially buried in sand on the sea floor. Judging from the photos, the unit appeared to be in good condition.
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Story continues here.

 
rockofullr

rockofullr

confused
Jun 11, 2009
7,342
924
East Bay, Cali
vtjim said:
Um...

Perhaps it's just the conspiracy theorist in me, but are we not being told the whole story all of a sudden?
Click to expand...
drkenan said:
A Spanish pilot did report seeing an "intense flash" in the area about the same time. Tinfoil hat time...

I have the feeling that we don't know the whole story either.
Click to expand...
Pesqueeb said:
Agreed. How does one mistake a wooden pallet, for any aircraft structure. They weren't crossing the Atlantic in the Spruce Goose. Something stinks.
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Guess it was a big cover up after all!
 
Pesqueeb

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,300
16,740
Riding the baggage carousel.
Investigators of the Air France Flight 447 crash in 2009 said they successfully recovered the full contents of the black-box flight data and voice recorders.

The flight parameters and cockpit audio from the black boxes, recovered this month from the bottom of the Atlantic, will be analyzed for an interim report to be published in “several weeks,” France’s BEA air-accident investigation bureau said today in an e-mailed statement.

Investigators retrieved “all the data from the flight data recorder as well as the whole recording of the last two hours of the flight from the cockpit voice recorder,” BEA said. The black boxes were immersed for two years in 3,900 meters (12,800 feet) of seawater.

The breakthrough comes two weeks before the second anniversary of the Airbus A330’s unexplained plunge into the Atlantic en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, which killed all 228 people on board. According to the plane’s last automated radio transmissions, faulty airspeed readings caused the autopilot to shut down in bad weather, a situation pilots are trained to cope with.

The voice recording alone is expected to help explain why the crew flew into a storm that other planes deliberately avoided, and whether flight Captain Marc Dubois was at the controls or had handed over to his co-pilots.

The BEA had no comment on the recording or any of the other recovered data, spokeswoman Martine Del Bono said today.

BEA chief Jean-Paul Troadec said May 12 the cockpit recording would first be heard by two BEA investigators, a police officer and a court-appointed expert. He said the agency aimed to complete its investigation and issue a final report early in 2012.

The flight data unit and audio recorder, made by Honeywell International Inc. (HON), were recovered from the seabed and transported to Paris this month. An undersea search in April located the plane’s wreckage, after three previous operations had failed.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-16/air-france-crash-data-audio-retrieved-from-black-boxes.html
 
valve bouncer

valve bouncer

Master Dildoist
Feb 11, 2002
7,843
114
Japan
A cascading series of events? Damn you National Geographic Channel.
Edit- it was of course a "critical chain of events". My bad.
 
Last edited:
-BB-

-BB-

I broke all the rules, but somehow still became mo
Sep 6, 2001
4,254
28
Livin it up in the O.C.
drkenan said:
A Spanish pilot did report seeing an "intense flash" in the area about the same time. Tinfoil hat time...

I have the feeling that we don't know the whole story either.
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LOL....
You mean there was an intense flash in the middle of a thunderstorm? Who woulda thought!!
 
$tinkle

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
Pesqueeb said:
Son of a bitch, 11000 ft per minute? Structure must have been peeling of that aircraft on the way down
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that's only about 125 mph
stall/flat spin?
Andyman_1970 said:
Hopefully most, if not all, lost consciousness if they decended that fast and there was a rapid decompresssion.
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assuming loss of compression is nearly instantaneous, would not loss of consciousness also happen almost instantaneously? if you can get a head rush standing up, this would appear to inflict the passenger about as quickly, but w/o the recovery. can't really valsalva your way out of that
 
Pesqueeb

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,300
16,740
Riding the baggage carousel.
$tinkle said:
that's only about 125 mph
stall/flat spin?
assuming loss of compression is nearly instantaneous, would not loss of consciousness also happen almost instantaneously? if you can get a head rush standing up, this would appear to inflict the passenger about as quickly, but w/o the recovery. can't really valsalva your way out of that
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Stall. According to one article I read, lots of them, or one really long one. 125 mph isn't fast if you assume the airplane is traveling in a fwd facing direction. 11000 ft per minute is a very rapid change in altitude however, especially for a passenger aircraft. To me this says the aircraft fell out of the sky, no "flying" was happening during the last 3 minutes these people were alive. It does not seem, according to what I've read, that the aircraft broke up before impact. I would assume no loss of cabin pressure. :(
 
$tinkle

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
i was really hoping to find some way to think they didn't suffer for more than a second or 2, but that does not appear to be the case.
 
Andyman_1970

Andyman_1970

Turbo Monkey
Apr 4, 2003
3,105
5
The Natural State
$tinkle said:
that's only about 125 mph
stall/flat spin?
assuming loss of compression is nearly instantaneous, would not loss of consciousness also happen almost instantaneously? if you can get a head rush standing up, this would appear to inflict the passenger about as quickly, but w/o the recovery.
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If (big IF), there was a loss of cabin pressure at FL380 LOC would have been almost instantaneous.

$tinkle said:
can't really valsalva your way out of that
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Isn't the valsalva for clearing your eustation tubes (ears) not maintaining adequate O2'd blood to the noggin?? anyway..........
 
Andyman_1970

Andyman_1970

Turbo Monkey
Apr 4, 2003
3,105
5
The Natural State
Pesqueeb said:
Stall. According to one article I read, lots of them, or one really long one. 125 mph isn't fast if you assume the airplane is traveling in a fwd facing direction. 11000 ft per minute is a very rapid change in altitude however, especially for a passenger aircraft. To me this says the aircraft fell out of the sky, no "flying" was happening during the last 3 minutes these people were alive. It does not seem, according to what I've read, that the aircraft broke up before impact. I would assume no loss of cabin pressure. :(
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I'm sure that was a horrible 3 minutes, but I think I'd prefer that (instant death by massive blunt force trauma) to drowning or burning to death........but that's just me.........
 
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