Air France Plane down

Originally posted by CloudySkye
reply to post by zorkthegreat

 

Oh planes carry all sorts of junk when passengers are on board, particularly now that they make you declare your hold baggage in advance.

The manifest isn't likely to be made public unless the BEA actually decides that one of the causes is due to something that was being transported. That could take a very long time..

Unless you know the Air France staff or the Sao Paolo airport staff...

It wouldn't be the first time this was a cause.

Most certainly not, but if there was a cause in the cargo hold, it wasnt in that barrel...

I remember that one plane crashed due to carrying a cargo of the emergency oxygen generators used in the passenger compartment, they generate oxygen through an exothermal chemical reaction, a load went off, generating an oxygen rich environment the heat caused a fire in the boxes they were in and that was that... A flying furnace

Originally posted by CloudySkye

Small mercys for the passengers I suppose if a bomb allowed them to blink out of existence instead of tumble at 500mph into the ocean or falling unconscious after falling out of the cabin and free-falling into it..

Well, hate to disrupt this particular line of thought, but if it were a bomb it would be just as bad as any other depressurisation. The bomb only has to be relatively small to puncture the pressure hull, after that the pressure change does the rest of the work. By the time the fractures have stopped, the plane will be in pieces, and unfortunately the passsengers will be attached to those pieces. A bomb is never a particularly merciful way to go, and if anything it is probably worse in the air than on the ground, since no one can help you and your environment is hostile.
Since on the ground the hypothetical (if only this were always the case, hypothetical) victims of the blast can be exposed to most of the energy of the explosion, as well as fragmentation, then yes, it is relatively fast. In a plane, most of the energy wil go to breaking the fuselage, and letting gravity do the rest.

perhaps it's far fetched... but is it possible for the lightning to strike the surrounding or inside of the actual cockpit injuring the pilots? i figure its about 1,000,000,000,000 to one chance, but it could explain a loss of control. and is it possible for heavy turbulance to physically break apart an airplane mid flight. sorry if these are "stupid questions", its not my area of expertise, but i am very interested and have been following this post... any thoughts?

reply to post by apex


good point, you can tel I've never seriously though about using a bomb to take out an aircraft.. I was hoping that in such a casse they would have tried to blow it to smithereens... forgive the pun but you really burst that bubble..

Originally posted by LosAngel
perhaps it's far fetched... but is it possible for the lightning to strike the surrounding or inside of the actual cockpit injuring the pilots? i figure its about 1,000,000,000,000 to one chance, but it could explain a loss of control. and is it possible for heavy turbulance to physically break apart an airplane mid flight. sorry if these are "stupid questions", its not my area of expertise, but i am very interested and have been following this post... any thoughts?

Doubt it but nothing is manufactured perfectly there could be a manufacturing flaw or design flaw which is even more important to find out or it just went beyond the limits and broke up. How far ahead does onboard weather radar look? Why on earth did they not turn back sooner.

reply to post by LosAngel


Its more than possible to strike the area around the cockpit, it is one of the most struck areas.. As far as I know there was one case where a pilot was touching the windshield and was unfortunate enough to have it struck at that precise moment, hye survived though and the aircraft suffered absolutely no damage..

As for injuring all three pilots, and the autopilot, they'd have to be holding hands with one touching the windscreen and another prodding things in the avionics bay..
That would basically be suicide..

reply to post by CloudySkye


If you want to see a bit more about how such an occurence works, the wikipedia article on Pan Am 103, the Lockerbie disaster, has a detailed series of pictures and text to show this sequence of events.
link
The link should take you to the relevant section.

Though to be fair I can understand if you don't want to pick through such events in fine detail.

reply to post by apex


I completely understand the physics and mechanics of it, I just never really thought about what is needed to bomb a plane in great detail, I leave that to the people who want to bomb planes.

If Im ever morbidly curious I'll take a look..

Remember watching this programme here in the UK on Airbus crashes. They had this idea that Airbus planes were flawed due to the tail being made from plastic or carbon or something and this had caused crashes as it was flawed technology, scared the hell out of me at the time and every time I get on an Airbus I don't feel safe, give me Russian and American planes anytime, Airbus make me scared

reply to post by ufoorbhunter


Well that sounds like a load of BS if you ask me, If "plastic" tail fins were dangerous why would Boeng make an almost entirelt "plastic" 787? Why are so many Military planes riddled with advanced plastics?

I'm afraid you were duped. There have been at most one or two accidents pertaining to A320 tail fins, but at the same time, there are about 4000 of them flying...

did anyone tell you that the engines on a Boeing 747 can (and have a few times) fall off mid flight?

reply to post by CloudySkye
The programme was aired on TV for sure. Anyway give me a USA plane any day over a European one, the Yanks make things better, they over engineer things while Euro's make them out of tin foil. You know the joke about French cars being good apart from the joke electrics? Now where was this plane made?

reply to post by ufoorbhunter


There was speculation that some delamination of the composite components (the rudder and/or vertical fin) on American 587, in 2001, caused the accident. It was an Airbus A300-600. AND fairly old. AND had been involved in an incident, with another crew, who allowed it to get a little too slow at altitude, and stalled...which would impose a great deal of stress, especially at the tail. Of course, it was inspected, and deemed safe.

As to the use of composites....hate to break (no pun intended) it to you, but it is quite prevalent, nowadays....even in Boeings. of course, they are non-structural components. They are lighter, stiffer and easier to manufacture than traditional aluminum pieces. AND well tested, to destruction, to determine their strength and durability, and suggested lifespan.

The A330 is quite new, and latest airframe technology. I would doubt structural failure of the kind you mentioned.

As to American 587...there was also side speculation of an over-use of the rudder by the First Officer. It was taught as a 'technique' in their simulator training, at the time (not now) and may have contributed IF the rudder or attachment points of the vertical fin had unnoticed damaged from the earlier incident....Airbus pointed fingers at American, and vice versa....lawyers, unfortunately, then get to decide.....

reply to post by ufoorbhunter


guess you won`t be flying on a 787 then since its mostly chinese.....

reply to post by ufoorbhunter


Germany, England, Spain and France.. whats your point..

Airbus and Boeing are manufactured to the same standards as eachother and sicne Airbus has the leading market share of the civil aviation area you'd have to say that they are at least as good or better. So don't bring your unfounded accusations into this.. go to Toulouse and take a sight tourof the final assembly lines if you want. Tell those people to their face that you think that their workmanship is shoddy.

reply to post by weedwhacker

OK you make some well informed points there. You know your stuff. At the same time I have a tool box. By the thankfullness of God I have in that tool box some equipment manufactured by Snap On and also some by Facom. Now the difference between the US and French tools is night and day, the US makes things to the point of super fantastic engineering and it's made to last a life time, the European Facom is shoddy in comparison. When it comes to engineering give me 'Made in USA' every time and that's coming from a Brit.

Originally posted by ufoorbhunter
reply to post by weedwhacker

 

OK you make some well informed points there. You know your stuff. At the same time I have a tool box. By the thankfullness of God I have in that tool box some equipment manufactured by Snap On and also some by Facom. Now the difference between the US and French tools is night and day, the US makes things to the point of super fantastic engineering and it's made to last a life time, the European Facom is shoddy in comparison. When it comes to engineering give me 'Made in USA' every time and that's coming from a Brit.

Unfortunately you are also a simpleton, coming from a Brit.

You simply can't compare spanners worth at most $50 each and an aircraft that spends about 15 years being designed and 50 days in manufacturing and costs $110 million..

reply to post by ufoorbhunter


snap on have been making there tools in china since 2007.....

reply to post by CloudySkye
Well from a simpleton Brit I declare I'd rather jump on a Boeing which has a history of aero engineering excellence and also Made in USA, than be forced onboard an Airbus, a company forged from a collective of independent producers to give the EU a prestigious industrial giant to compete with the super powers

reply to post by ufoorbhunter


lol the 787 is made in japan , sweden , italy , russia , france , china with the nose , tail and flaps `made in the usa`.....