Air France flight missing over the Atlantic
- Thread starter mr.peany
- Start date
A plane "that size" is still pretty insignificant compared to thousands of miles of Atlantic Ocean.
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
I hope they find survivors but it's look unlikely. The plane was out of radar contact so they don't know where it was exactly or what it was doing. There was no radio communications with the crew. Only automated messages about a short circuit and loss of air pressure.
The plane should be able to survive lightening strikes. They happen fairly often on commercial planes. The plane should also be able to fly with massive electrical problems. The weather by itself should not have crashed the plane.
There's something more going on here. Some flukey sort of thing. Or maybe a combination of things. The mystery won't be solved until they can (hopefully) find the black box. An onboard fire has been mentioned as a possibility. Many areas don't have smoke detectors. I'm wondering if the electrical problem that the automated system reported might've been a symptom of the plane breaking up rather than the cause of the crash? In other words, if the plane broke up for other reasons, you'd expect electrical faults and the loss of pressure to result from that. Hard to say now.
This is very sad.
Mr Awe
The plane should be able to survive lightening strikes. They happen fairly often on commercial planes. The plane should also be able to fly with massive electrical problems. The weather by itself should not have crashed the plane.
There's something more going on here. Some flukey sort of thing. Or maybe a combination of things. The mystery won't be solved until they can (hopefully) find the black box. An onboard fire has been mentioned as a possibility. Many areas don't have smoke detectors. I'm wondering if the electrical problem that the automated system reported might've been a symptom of the plane breaking up rather than the cause of the crash? In other words, if the plane broke up for other reasons, you'd expect electrical faults and the loss of pressure to result from that. Hard to say now.
This is very sad.
Mr Awe
TheLonelySquire
Vice Admiral
What's the differecnce bro? Either way you're done. This really sucks.
A
Amaris
Guest
^ Not necessarily. Nothing is impossible. If, worst case scenario, even one person survived, it would be worth it to look for them and find them alive.
J.
J.
Apparently the military aircraft conducting the search have an area larger than the continent of Europe to look over. They could be at this a while.
Just another reason I hate flying. I hope all is safe, but I am not very optimistic.
I refuse to fly anywhere and my friends think I am nuts and quote the "It is safer to fly than drive" statistic to me all the time in which I counter with, "Yeah, but in a car crash I have airbags and a restraining belt and I am not smashing into another car at 500mph from 37000 feet" They shut up after this.
I refuse to fly anywhere and my friends think I am nuts and quote the "It is safer to fly than drive" statistic to me all the time in which I counter with, "Yeah, but in a car crash I have airbags and a restraining belt and I am not smashing into another car at 500mph from 37000 feet" They shut up after this.
Difference is that (assuming the worst) families have a body, have closure.
I think he means ocean vs. not-ocean flying...
They do have built in backups in the form of isolated batteries or even the windmilling generator that automatically pops out from wherever it is on A330s (I only assume they built that in to this late model).
I would think handhelds are too weak. It's not liking flying a Cessna over Pennsylvania where the nearest RCO is less than 60 miles away.
ETA: But my guess is things went to hell much more rapidly. Among the series of failures sent by the maintenance computer, apparently pressurization loss was one of them.
Still no word. Sounds like something very strange happened. It does not look good. 
Maybe pilot suicide? Apparently happens more often than they like to say.
Right now the speculation is the thunderstorm (lightning strike? strikes?) caused a cascading series of electrical failures that ended up with the aircraft being overstressed and breaking up. This can happen because the Airbus 330 has fly-by-wire control systems, and each redundant system allows the pilot more and more ungoverned control of the aircraft's control surfaces.
This can allow the flight crew to overstress the airplane, particularly in the turbulence of a thunderstorm.
But it's all speculation at this point. One thing is for sure it was a horrible last few minutes on that flight.
This can allow the flight crew to overstress the airplane, particularly in the turbulence of a thunderstorm.
But it's all speculation at this point. One thing is for sure it was a horrible last few minutes on that flight.
A TAM flight has reported "glowing orange dots in the water" about 800NM away from Fernando de Noronha..the US is using marine surveillance satellite data at a request from the French government to help locate the aircraft..and the Brazilian Air Force and Navy are conducting a search of the area along with the USAF and French Navy.. I hope the location can be locked in soon..if only to find out exactly what happened..
Apparently, searching for those spots in the water didn't turn up anything. Still no answers.
There was a South African plane that disappeared over water some years back. In that case the pilots reported there was smoke on board. It took quite a while to locate the plane and the investigation into the cause of the accident was hampered by how deep the plane was.
EDITED TO ADD - link to Wikipedia article on the South African flight
EDITED TO ADD - link to Wikipedia article on the South African flight
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