Air France Plane down

A Brazilian Plane flying in roughly the same area as the "vanished" plane has reported seeing what they describe as "A Fire on the Water"

They should be able to narrow down the search area as long as the pilots in question logged the coordinates at the time.

its more then 6h wheres postage of wrecage =?


this just remind me of flight 97,

no offence to anyone , but , they just dont dissapare

reply to post by sy.gunson


so would this be a high alt stall.. i will not sleep well, heart goes out to all

reply to post by larphillips


Right on about the positive lightning. During the summer months when storms are more regular, I deal with lightning strikes in aircraft on an almost weekly basis. After a plane has reported a strike it is required to have a special inspection to look for damage. And damage we find. Blown out rivets, static wicks completely destroyed(by the way, static wicks are meant to dissipate normal static electricity, not lightning) the tips of wings and the tips of the tail surfaces can be melted down. Those are just the metal surfaces. On composite surfaces it will potentially leave severe burn marks. Yes, navigation and communication equipment are protected from strikes but they are not invulnerable. The radio may not get cooked but the electrical supply to it may. The GPS may still be functioning but the antenna on top of the fuselage might be toast. Lightening is probably the most unpredictable force I've come across when it comes to aircraft damage.

Yes, it's very rare for lightning to bring a plane down, but it's certainly within reason for it to happen.

Sky News is reporting:

“Rescue pilots searching for a missing Air France passenger jet have seen what they believe to be a fire on the Atlantic Ocean near the plane's flight route.”

Sky News

Would it really burn that long? It’s been a long time since it went missing?

Mikey

Originally posted by Harlequin
A330-200

full electical failure would be hard since they have a RAT , cart start on the APU and batteries

RAT - Ram Air Turbine - emergency back up electric generator that uses a wind turbine hooked up to an electric generator.

Electrical failure doesn't necessarily means loss of electrical power. They could have the RAT running but with severed electrical connections or shorted CPU, electricity is useless. A330 is a fly-by-wire aircraft - they don't have physical connection from the flight controls to the control surfaces. Complete electrical failure = zero control Although that is hard to happen with multiple redundant systems (backups), unless a very powerful Electromagnetic Pulse went through the plane which can be caused by lightning, that could cause complete electrical failure.

it reminds of that story of the ww2 bomber that disappeared out of thin air and then 40 years later the pilot radiod to the tower to clear for landing, he later crashed.

I cant remember the name.....I am sure someone on this site has heard of this.

reply to post by Mikey84


Depends on when that pilot seen the fire, no time is given in that report, if it was within a short time after the plane was lost then it makes sense, I do not believe it would still be burning this long afterward. Though it could be possible if there was enough fuel, and perhaps some slow burning materials as well.

If it is true then they should be able to quickly locate the site.

Also the "black box" flight recorders will be "pinging" for up to 30 days and that can also confirm the location if it is deep in the ocean. They can and will find that, and there is where the most important information will come from, possibly showing exactly what happened to the aircraft in its last troubled moments.

If what this pilot seen is found then closure for the families of the victims is in sight.

If not this will be one hell of a mystery.

[edit on 1-6-2009 by Walkswithfish]

Is it possible for terrorist to have hacked into the computer on-board the aircraft that could have potentially messed up the electronics and sent it to it's destruction? I don't know if this is possible, but considering the FBI and US Marshall's computer databases were recently vulnerable to a computer virus, it does seem like there could be some kind of cyber war going on that the general public is unaware of.

reply to post by Walkswithfish


Just from Sky News..

Pilots from the Brazilian airline TAM have said they saw what they thought was a fire on the ocean near the missing plane's route. Their sighting was made between 0255GMT and 0320GMT on Monday morning - around the time the plane disappeared.

SkyNews


So, quite a while ago, and they still haven't found the wreckage? A piece of wreckage? Anything?

If the bird went under, it's anybody's guess where the currents could have dragged it.

[edit on 1-6-2009 by stealthyone]

well never mind lol

[edit on 1-6-2009 by Darthorious]

Originally posted by thomasblackraven
With MSM repeatedly saying the word "disappeared" in relation to this event as well as saying they have yet to find any wreckage, anyone else having flashes of the Webbot's line regarding people disappearing? Either it is a mysterious occurrence, or does the line really mean an increase in plane crashes (rationally related to poor maintenance due to $, weather occurrences, etc)?

I have been waiting for someone to mention this!

I have a hard time with this. If dog-sled teams here in Alaska for the Ididarod race can use GPS transponders to relay in real-time their location every few minutes ... how can we not know the the location of this plane?

How can other planes with their own radar not see it vanish?

TO MANY QUESTIONS.

Hell, we can see what type of screw is on the wing of a moving 747 from top-secret military satellites...

Another "oh well, the people will trust what we tell em, just like Osama..."

No, this is a cover-up ... and It PAINS me that innocent people had to be involved.

Realistically, it is a problem w/the design of the plane -- and AirFrance and Airbus are trying to spin media.

I'll call up my old scoutmaster ... he's a PILOT (not co/engineer) for NWA doing runs from Alaska to SE Asia ... he'll have some thoughts. He flies "fly by wire" big time airbus planes.

reply to post by akoviem


Hi Avokim,

Yeah or often it's called "high speed stall". Pilots also call it "falling out of Mach Box"

It's very rare. I know of a Boeing 727 where pilots were fiddling with flaps to select 5 degree flaps at very high altitude (contrary to the flight manual) and they lost the aircraft but recovered after a huge tumble from altitude.

There was also a China Airlines 747SP which did this through pilot mishandling when an engine lost power.

I don't accuse these pilots on Air France 447 of mishandling. They likely slammed into turbulence at 470knots and suffered structural failures which killed electrics and depressurised the aircraft.

It's not something you need to fear in a well managed flight, but this time something went very wrong. Usually any single factor like structural damage, depressurisation, or electrical failure on their own would not be enough to down an aircraft.

Add in the factor of darkness and losing the autopilot at high altitude and all the problems compound in seconds.

reply to post by epete22


This is a ridiculous posting. This is way out there.

Okay give us some facts ... oh sorry that's right. You can't remember

Deny ignorance

reply to post by Unit541


I believe they call this the South Atlantic Anomaly. I saw the same documentary and immediately thought of it when I heard about the plane. I'm sure this is what caused it, or at least played a part.

Originally posted by ModestThought
reply to post by Unit541

 

I believe they call this the South Atlantic Anomaly. I saw the same documentary and immediately thought of it when I heard about the plane. I'm sure this is what caused it, or at least played a part.

Can you explain further please.

My heart goes out to the victims and their families.

I just read this in the paper today, it worries me a bit, especially since I don't know much about planes.

reply to post by mr-lizard

Can you explain further please.

I too had never heard of this....so upon a quick search I find this:

en.wikipedia.org...
The South Atlantic Anomaly (or SAA) is the region where Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt makes its closest approach to the planet's surface. Thus, for a given altitude, the radiation intensity is greater within this region than elsewhere. The Van Allen radiation belts are symmetric with the Earth's magnetic axis, which is tilted with respect to the Earth's rotational axis by an angle of ~11 degrees. Additionally, the magnetic axis is offset from the rotational axis by ~450 kilometers (280 miles). Because of the tilt and offset, the inner Van Allen belt is closest to the Earth's surface over the south Atlantic ocean, and farthest from the Earth's surface over the north Pacific ocean.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/7eab82a27f98.png[/atsimg]

Some other links:

www.astronomycafe.net...
Satellites and other spacecraft passing through this region of space actually enter the Van Allen radiation belt and are bombarded by protons exceeding energies of 10 million electron volts at a rate of 3000 'hits' per square centimeter per second. This can produce 'glitches' in astronomical data, problems with the operation of on-board electronic systems, and premature aging of computer, detector and other spacecraft components.

The Hubble Space Telescope passes through the 'SAA' for 10 successive orbits each day, and spends nearly 15 percent of its time in this hostile region. Astronauts are also affected by this region which is said to be the cause of peculiar 'shooting stars' seen in the visual field of astronauts

Very interesting. Learn something new at ATS every day

Makes you really wonder how on we could have landed on the moon - how did our astronauts get past this belt and survive. Hmmm.

[edit on 6/1/2009 by greeneyedleo]

You can try to prepare for every possible catastrophic event but there is also room for things to go wrong, especially when dealing with forces of nature like lightning. Hopefully they will be able to recover enough wreckage to piece together and figure out what went wrong. I've been reading that pilots have reported seeing fires.

I can't even imagine what it must have been like for the passengers, if the failure was a bad as it is believed then damn. I don't see how there could be any survivors and if there are hopefully the fires will guide the rescue crews in quick.

The webbots predicted people disappearing and mysterious islands appearing. I cant link the link for this yet but I will try and dig around.