Missing French jet hit thunderstorms

I so hate this kind of news....

Missing French jet hit thunderstorms over Atlantic - Yahoo! News

 

I too hate this sort of news. Thoughts and prayers go out to the families.

 

The passengers are said to be from several countries, mostly Brazalian and French , but also Germans , a few Danes, Lebanese and possibly a few British citizens, they ar still investigating what happened. Apparently (according to a mayday message) it got struck by lightning and got a major electrical failure. The pilot was very experienced (11.000+ hours ) and the A-320 almost new (2005)

A la une  -Disparition d'un avion Air France Rio-Paris avec 228 personnes à bord  - actualités Orange

 

A few more details. The aircraft is an A-330 (not A-320) it a two engine aluminium aircraft that is theoretically lightning proof and fitted with two radars (as requested on modern aircrafts) . Also the "mayday" was an automatic one (telling about electrical failure). So the lightning theory is not the only possible cause of the loss.

 

I,m not trying to be rude by saying so but thats french technology for you

 

Same here, I hate this kind of news. I just heard on one of our local News stations, that two Americans were known to be on that flight-both of whom it turns ot-recently moved from a home not too far from my house. May they all Rest in Peace. It would sure be nice to hear that the plane made a belly-landing on the surface of the water-amd that their are survivors.

 

its so sad to hear about missing airlines, just such a huge amount of lives possibly lost. I hope their families make it through the tough times

 

The Brazilians have spotted debris but there is no confirmation at this point. They are patrolling with aicrafts over the supposed crash zone. Same thing for the French who searching the zone with a ship, aircrafts that took off from their Senegal base and helicopters. The Spaniards are also sending aircraft , same for the U.S. who also provides help with their satelites to help spotting potential debris.

 

Yes, they found some debri. Looks like they found two seperate spots of debri some 35 mile apart. Not quite sure if that means that the plane broke up in mid-air or if Atlantic currents actually can move that fast. They mentioned that the wreakage was found decidedly to the right of the intended path of the plane possibly indicating that the plane tried turning around to make it back to Brazil, but it is only speculation at this point.

 

They still don't know what happened. There are two radars, so even if one fails the other one is supposed to work instead and even without electricity their is an emergency device that automatically supplies power to the key levels if needed. The sudden disapearance is quite puzzling.

 

Well, its very possible to go off course in a t-storm, esp if the pilot tried to skirt around the massive storm. The debris in different spots can easily be the current (people can drift miles in just a few short hours, and they crashed during a storm so the water would have been moving fast). Its also possible that one debris pile is a wing (could have fallen off shortly before rest of plane).

Either way, they've spotted some lifejackets and plane-seats, so chances of survivors is at 0%.

 

I believe the A330 is a fly by wire aircraft with computer oversight. Loss of the electrical system (as the last automated system message signal sent) might have prevented the crew from ever getting full control of the aircraft after loss of electrical power in a powerful thunderstorm.

Remember one of the early Airbus planes was doing a fly by at the Paris Air Show? It was in a landing configuration (low, slow, flaps, and gear down) when the crew and a few observers aboard tried to go around. The software decided "No, we are landing" not going around. About 12 people were killed. (The software was rewritten). I hope that this is not another s/w issue.

Prayers for the families!

 

I'm no aviation expert by any stretch, but scattered debris fields could mean (I think) that the plane broke up at altitude and came to sea level in pieces, not as a whole unit.

Does anyone know how much composite material is used in the Airbus? The reason I ask is lightning will (as all electricity) flow in the metal skin of a plane or car rather than throught the unit. But, again I don't know what the effect of non-conducting material would have on the system.

Here is a link to an ABC report:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=13776002&ch=4226720&src=news


Whatever the cause, my sympathy to the families of all victims.

 

Cheers Text. You must be thinking of the Basel-Mulhouse crash in the 1990s, but as you say it was a different model .

It's odd to hear on this forum how things are moving on before it's even on the news in this country. I don't trust the media anyway, they started this lightning thing and now we learn nothing was confirmed, then you hear millions different versions regarding the nationality of the passengers, then the Brazilians found something, but it was not confirmed. Also I hate how the paparazis harrass the poor relatives.

 

I thought it absolutly dispicable that some @$$ hole decided to phone in a bomb threat at the location where the grieving families had gathered.

As per the nationalities of those lost, the most common that I have seen is this

I also saw from a list of confirmed passengers, Croatia, South Africa, Canada, US, and Ireland are some of the 27 other countries

 

BTW her is an exert from A System Engineering Course describing the requirements for a fly by wire aircraft. Note the highlighted section:

Systems Engineering 2001/2002 Case: Airbus A330/A340 flight control system

Preliminary © University of Twente, 20011015 2

3.0 Requirements
3.1 System Definition
This type-A document describes the specifications for the design of a flight controlsystem for the Airbus A330/A340.
In the Airbus A320, which was introduced in 1988, digital techniques were used for the primary flight controls. Although this aircraft can be flown using mechanical backup systems, under normal circumstances it adopts a complete fly-by-wire approach, wherecrew commands are transmitted to the control surfaces through computers rather than by mechanical linkages. In the mid-1990s Airbus introduced the A330/A340 family of
aircraft. This also incorporates fly-by-wire techniques and makes extensive use of advanced computer systems. The A330 is a twin-engined aircraft, whereas the A340 has four engines. Due to the Fly-by-Wire concept, the ‘user interface’ for the pilot is the same for all A3xx types, which saves a considerable amount of flight training hours.
Although the A330 and A340 aircraft can be flown without the use of their electronic flight control system (EFCS), failure of this system would represent a considerable reduction in overall safety levels. The EFCS therefore requires a very high level of integrity and is designed and
produced to the stringent standards appropriate for such a system. Because the aircraft relies heavily on its computer system to operate
its various control surfaces, it is imperative that the control system remains operational at all times. Fault detection is therefore not sufficient to provide safety and the system must also provide effective fault tolerance to allow the unit to continue safe operation, perhaps
for several hours, in the presence of faults. In this case, we will concentrate on the architectural features to achieve a high level of fault tolerance, which is absolutely needed for this kind of mission-critical systems."

Without the RFCS operating, the backup hydraulic system might have been inadequate when 1) an electrical outage occurs, and 2) flies into intense air turbulence.

 

They were saying that they had found some floating debris but no signs of life...the American couple were a geologist and his wife who worked for Devon which is headquartered here in Oklahoma City, Ok..and I read where there was 5 British were on the plane..Our thoughts and prayers are with the families

 

Hi Mike, I didn't know about that hoax phone call. I hope that idiot will get busted and spend some time in jail.

 

One of those missing in the Air France flight was a Filipino seaman. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed it.
Lots of unknowns in this crash.
I sympathize with the families who have kin on the lost airliner.

 

The Parisien, a French paper, published identity pictures of some the victims with their nationalities. There is a Scot, an Englishman, an Irishman, Italians. May they all rest in peace.
The official passenger list is availabe on the news today.

The French have a robot sub that can get as deep as deep as 6000 m and try to get the black boxes, but it will take 8 days for it to get to the zone .