Air France jet vanishes

In ~750k miles of flying, it has happened once to me. From SHA to PEK I saw a drink cart and a stewardess hit the ceiling. 90% of the rest of the bad stuff has been at most moderate chop.

 

If you look through the NTSB's monthly lists of accidents, it's remarkable how often turbulence causes a flight attendant to break an ankle.

 

I never fly in the Big Tin Birds without my seat belt fastened and any trip to the head or the back to pee is quick as possible and then back to the belt. I have been airborne too many times inside airplanes and somehow escaped a broken neck or other injuries and the turbulence that can be encountered at high speeds are wicked. I always worry about the flight attendants.
I always laugh when I remember making my way from the waist to the flight deck on a B-24 when the pilot, who could look back and see where you where in the bomb bay, would push over and leave you hanging in mid air grabbing for anything that would anchor you to something. A wind shear isn't that much fun and the acceleration is damaging to everything and everybody.
Switches

 

well, you may be need more facts to make a decision, but the media doesn't.....

article from the times Online...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6493728.ece

 

Of course nothing has been proven but the statements below would be hard to refute if a couple hundred search & rescue personnel and numerous medical examiners were involved and they were making the same findings.

"THE Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic with 228 people on board broke apart before it hit the water, throwing out some passengers at high altitude, investigators believe.
Their conclusion is based on the discovery of two trails of bodies more than 50 miles apart, suggesting that the Airbus split in two after going out of control in bad weather and turbulence during its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1."

Public record?

"It has emerged that the same sequence of events occurred in six cockpit emergencies reported by Airbus pilots over a year beginning in February 2008. According to internal Air France documents leaked to the press, the incidents involved “a rather incoherent cocktail of alarms” and “severe breakdowns”. These appear to have originated with malfunctioning pitot tubes in stormy weather."

I wouldn't be surprised if this was true, especially if the vertical fin separated in flight. Hard to say at this point.

"Postmortem examinations on 16 of the bodies suggest they were dead when they hit the sea. No water was found in lungs, which would have indicated drowning. Passengers would have almost instantly fallen into a coma and died if there was a sudden depressurization of the cabin at high altitude, say experts. Despite the length of time the bodies were in the water, it seems unlikely that wind or currents separated them into two distinct groups 50 miles apart."

I hope they find the boxes.

 

Blaming all that on the pitot tubes is a bit much-- not that I expect any more from Airbus.

 

Agreed!

 

There will be a major food fight on what caused this tragedy. Everybody involved will be bloodied. Actual causes may be impossible to separate from propaganda. Too much at stake. US government has no ownership stake in Boeing. Not the same for France and Airbus. A400 and KC-30 programs may be affected with a really adverse finding like another separated vertical stablizer and rudder due to aircrew inputs or weather.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6120

 

Ralph- Sounds like it has already started. Anything to deflect blame from Airbus, Air France, or France itself. No way we will ever know what really happened. If the attack class sub finds the FDRs, and there is no doubt they have the technical ability to do so, you can bet the outputs will be carefully edited. Politics and air crashes. Who would have thought it would come to this?

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

I heard an interesting theory just now from an aerobatics pilot. A friend of his flies Airbuses, and his friend suggested that it was unlikely that all three pitot tubes failed. He thought that perhaps both of the flight crew may have fallen asleep. He commented that it happens all the time. Scary to think so. Anyway, the theory would be that they fell asleep, the autopilot flew into CBs at cruise speed, the crew failed to change to maneuvering speed, and the plane got torqued and broke apart.

While speculation isn't really that useful, the question remains: is this even possible and could something like this even happen?

CW

 

Terry,

Billions of dollars ++ are at stake, with the selection of the next tanker and follow on "electronic" airplane / Cobra Ball, JSTARS, AWACS, and Rivet Joint etc... A split buy (however uneconomic) between Grumman and Boeing is also possible.

 

Ralph- Gates has already said no split buy on KC-X, so you are correct. A lot at stake here. What killed 228 people will occupy a very minor role compared to the really big picture and the potential money involved. We shall see.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

I don't think the Pitot Tubes were the sole cause either. They may have contributed but there are so many other things that can go wrong with a flying video game in bad storm.

 

The politics of this issue are far reaching indeed. If it was a 767 I think the same issues would apply when it came to perception of the airplane as the next military tanker for the US, (of which there are already flying examples for Japan and Italy)

 

I was a small part of the initial 767 design crew and I helped on all the derivatives that followed up to an including the 777. I witnessed the dedication of the design staff to create not what was expedient or politically shrewd, but one that was safe, strong, reliable, and at the very top of the engineering game. The guys with whom I worked were uncompromising in their efforts to produce the best and begrudgingly gave ground when they had to. When I look at the B-52, the 707, 747 , and all the rest, there has never been a failure in service caused by poor design. The Hawaiian Airlines 737 that had the upper lobe blow off was caused by poor maintenance and the airplane was held together by the strength of the lower fuselage. The bulkhead failure on the 747 over Japan was caused by bad work by the mechanics of two countries and if the repair had been accomplished as designed there would not have been a problem. I hope that I never live to see the day when there is an Airbus tanker in the U.S. Air Force because of the ever present political chicanery.
Switches

 

Spasso- Our accident investigation system is too transparent for that kind of subterfuge. If a Boeing airliner had a major problem, it would be highlighted as soon as it surfaced. Has happened every time. As examples are lack of rudder centering on the 737, screw-jack problems on the MD-XX, empty center tank explosion on the 747, and anything else we learn that might keep people from getting killed. I do not have the same faith in the system at work now.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

There was heavy duty bouncing around for 15 minutes or more before the airpane went down. No way they were asleep at the switch for at least 15 minutes of that ride....

 

That is absolutely ridiculous when they reported that they were approaching thunderstorm activity.

 

Bob- Agreed. They had only been airborne 3-4 hours when the stuff hit the fan. Even my attention span is longer than that.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

I don't think that the non-flying public and the GA pilots can realize the terrible thrashing around that an airplane can be subjected to in the middle of a well developed thunderhead. I just remembered the incident where a NWA 707 got caught in the updraft of a CB in Florida and fed in huge amounts of nose down trim to control the increase in altitude. When they were finally spit out at the top the airplane the airplane quickly went into a dive that they couldn't stop and it ended up in the glades.There are gust loads that cannot be designed for.
Switches

 

I don't think that the pilots fell asleep, either. Seemed really far-fetched.

But, the Airbus pilot stated it happens pretty regularly. Scary to think it does.

CW

 

That has to be grasping at straws to the 32nd power. However, I am starting to think that we are going to see a concerted effort to blame pilot error, or at least claim that there was no mechanical root issue other than the (unlikely) pitot tubes. The parties at hand will likely want to keep these flying without an Airworthiness Directive even if they have to paint the town red.

Has NTSB been pretty much excluded from the investigation?

 

Out of their jurisdiction and the A/P is foreign made. I am thinking so.

 

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=33dac5a3-b814-4e31-b5a8-ad34ca030584


Basically, the NTSB has been invited to participate.

"NTSB Acting Chairman Mark V. Rosenker has designated senior air safety investigator Bill English as the U.S. Accredited Representative. The U.S. team will also include technical advisors from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), General Electric and Honeywell."


As invitees their status is somewhat indeterminate, and it is hard to say what their participation/influence will be. However, the NTSB will have people there. As they should, for they will be making 'a call' on potential A330 ADs.