Any updates on the Airbus lost in the Atlantic? | FerrariChat

Any updates on the Airbus lost in the Atlantic?

Discussion in 'Aviation Chat' started by James_Woods, Oct 2, 2009.

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  1. James_Woods

    James_Woods F1 World Champ

    May 17, 2006
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    Just wondering - it seems like it has been quite a long time.

    So - did they just write it off to the pitot tubes and leave it at that?

    Do they still insist that no in-flight breakup occurred?
     
  2. Bob Parks

    Bob Parks F1 Veteran
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    The last statement by AF was that they were going to spend several million to locate the wreckage. That was over a month ago and there has not been any other comments. My bet is that it will silently go away.
     
  3. Kds

    Kds F1 World Champ

    PPrune has been quiet insofar as genuine reports of substantiated progress goes..........I'm with Bob. It's going to get swept under the ocean floor on purpose.
     
  4. BigTex

    BigTex Seven Time F1 World Champ
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    It was a deep and rugged section of the Atlantic Floor, as I understand it.......

    Not like sweeping up seaweed, at the beach......:rolleyes:
     
  5. Kds

    Kds F1 World Champ

    Many a tiny thing has been found at said depths.........decades ago without the technology we have today.
     
  6. solofast

    solofast Formula 3

    Oct 8, 2007
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    All of the above comments are true, but if the bottom is really rugged and if the A/C broke up in flight the stuff is going to be scattered over a large area without any big chunks other than maybe the engines.

    It gets really hard to find something in that kind of environment if the pieces are small. If it is flat and smooth it's a lot easier.
     
  7. Kds

    Kds F1 World Champ

    #7 Kds, Oct 4, 2009
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2009
    http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Mundo/0,,MUL1328886-5602,00-RELATORIO+APONTA+SONDAS+COMO+CAUSA+DO+ACIDENTE+DO+VOO+DIZ+SINDICATO+FRANCES.html

    This just out yesterday......

    "Between May 2008 and March 2009 there have been 9 incidents reported on Air France aircraft (A330 and A340) by it's pilots in regard to pitot tube problems. The BEA believes that this was the only cause of the accident as per their initial report."

    In other words (IMHO this is one thing that what they want to downplay, along with the unusual vertical tail separation) Airbus aircraft have insufficient fail safe sytems to allow manual override and control of the aircraft due to the complex and overhwelming use of computerized flight control systems and associated software.

    "This is Captain HAL speaking from the flight deck........"

    Bob Parks........

    I'd be interested in hearing your opinions about a pilots ability to have manual control of a large aircraft (an older 707 or DC-8 type etc, not a computerized Airbus) in weather and at altitude such as was described as being in AF447's flightplan. The reason I ask is that I have read pretty much every written piece of paper, in every book that has been published concerning SAC operations. There have been some pretty unusual rides and aircraft issues over the decades concerning partialy missing verticial stabs (B-36 and numerous B-52) as well as other flight control surfaces or aerodynamic upset scenarios, the majority of which ended safely due to manaul control and pilot ability.
     
  8. 2NA

    2NA F1 World Champ
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    Dec 29, 2006
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    Tim Keseluk
    What's Bob Ballard been up to?
     
  9. thecarreaper

    thecarreaper F1 World Champ
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    agree. i still think the air data from the tubes was faulty, and allowed the rudder to travel too far relative to their actual airspeed. i was told / read they were in a left banking turn, (turning around to divert from the weather,) when the rest of the cascade failures occurred.


    whatever actually happened. i just hope they and the systems vendors and suppliers work out a way to help protect the lives of those on board. who knows what went wrong with the computers, but its safe to say there is room for improvement in the Airbus system.
     
  10. tazandjan

    tazandjan Three Time F1 World Champ
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    The last official report I saw said the aircraft was intact at impact with very low forward velocity and very high vertical velocity. Nothing since then to change the "official" position. Some evidence would seem to indicate otherwise. We will likely never know, and that undoubtedly greatly cheers up some people and organizations.

    Taz
    Terry Phillips
     
  11. Gatorrari

    Gatorrari F1 World Champ
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    Sounds like the aircraft may have been in a flat spin, similar to the BOAC 707 that crashed near Mount Fuji back in the '60s after losing its fin.
     
  12. thecarreaper

    thecarreaper F1 World Champ
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    perhaps the larger bits were in a flat spin, but the numbers i saw ran by Engineers way smarter than me showed it breaking up into three sections shortly after the tail failed. they were also adamant it rolled over on its roof as it broke up.

    moot point now. lives lost. the Aerospace community needs the data to learn from its mistakes, and protect the lives of future crews and customers.
     
  13. garybobileff

    garybobileff Formula 3
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    October 4, 2009 Air France Pilot Union releases a report blaming defective air speed probes for the crash of AF 447, over the Atlantic.
    Gary Bobileff
     
  14. Chupacabra

    Chupacabra F1 Rookie
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    Anyone else see the discussion of the AF disaster in Popular Mechanics this month?
     
  15. BigTex

    BigTex Seven Time F1 World Champ
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    This makes more sense...it's odd (to me) they have not come up with more "big parts"???
     
  16. Bob Parks

    Bob Parks F1 Veteran
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    When the vertical tail departs from a swept wing aircraft that also has ample dihedral, the yaw axis is no longer stabile and the airplane will yaw in either direction and the dihedral angle of the advancing wing will act like a lever to overturn the aircraft. Then really bad things happen.
    Switches
     
  17. Uomo360F1

    Uomo360F1 Formula Junior

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    #18 Uomo360F1, Nov 26, 2009
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2009
    Although so many theories and speculation, I'm throwing one which is a fact:

    -Manufacturers try to buid lighter, more efficient aircraft. One way to reduce weight is to replace aluminum components with the likes made of composite material (aka carbon fiber).
    Great part of the empennage section (tail) as well as some wing componnents on the Airbus are made of composite.
    The new Boeing 787 carries even more. The weight and fuel savings are considerable.
    However, years ago an interesting test was conducted with carbon fiber: Several pieces were repeatedly exposed to severe temperarture changes within minutes (ie 120F to -40F and viceversa). These are exactly the same conditions an aircraft is exposed while on the ramp on a hot summer day, and 30 minutes later at cruise level.
    After simulating thousands of similar cycles, the lab technicians discovered the material slowly but steadily began to loose its flexibility and strength properties. Microscopical cracks were found on many pieces, undetectable by even today's heavy C and D checks.

    So, with this theory well researched, I go back to November 2001 when an AA Airbus 300-600 crashed shortly after take off from JFK. According to the NTSB report, the cause was as a result of "encountering wake turbulence" and the F/O kicking the rudder too hard. This scenario caused the entire tail section to separate from the fuselage.
    Note: That same aircraft had gone through severe turbulence a year earlier or so, on a flight from San Juan PR.

    Draw your own theory.
     
  18. JCR

    JCR F1 Veteran
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  19. Uomo360F1

    Uomo360F1 Formula Junior

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    Very interesting, JCR. That supports my theory. Thank you.
     
  20. Kds

    Kds F1 World Champ

    FWIW the entire Canadian Air Force CF-18 Hornet fleet was grounded for a while a few years ago because a couple of the carbon fibre composite vertical stabs failed, and the aircraft were found to be having a whole bunch of issues that needed to be rectified with them. The aircraft were 20 years old +/-..........
     
  21. James_Woods

    James_Woods F1 World Champ

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    Still hanging onto the pitot tubes as root cause, it looks like.
     
  22. Spasso

    Spasso F1 World Champ

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    #24 Spasso, Dec 18, 2009
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2009
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6960721.ece
    Charles Bremner in Paris

    Report into Flight 447 crash shows passengers had not been told of emergency.

    Death came without warning for the 216 passengers aboard the Air France Airbus that crashed into the Atlantic off Brazil last June, according to the investigators’ account published yesterday.

    The latest report on Flight 447, a landmark disaster for aviation, said that no cause could yet be attributed but it confirmed that faulty speed sensors were partly to blame and once again implied possible errors by the crew.

    Study of debris and 51 salvaged bodies showed that passengers had not been told of an emergency as Flight 447, with 228 aboard, hurtled towards the ocean while the pilots fought to regain control.

    The cabin crew were not in their seats, no oxygen masks had deployed and life jackets were still in their wrappers. The aircraft did not lose cabin pressure, as previously thought, and it was not configured for ditching when it smashed belly-down into the water, said the report from the BEA (Bureau of Investigation and Analysis). This made clear that the crew had not prepared passengers for an emergency, pilots said.
    Related Links

    * A disaster waiting in the wings

    * Pilots blame safety watchdogs for Flight 447 crash

    * Flight 447 crashed belly-first into the Atlantic

    Adding new detail to previous findings, the investigators said that 43 of the 51 bodies, which were from all parts of the cabin, showed severe fractures to spinal columns, pelvises and chests. These injuries reflected the upward shock to seated passengers of an aircraft hitting the water belly first, it said.

    The investigators touched on an assumption that the two co-pilots may have been flying the aircraft rather than the veteran captain. “The captain may have been taking a rest or may have been at the controls, something that the investigation has not yet been able to determine,” they said. Long-haul captains usually rest for a period during the night-time cruise. The captain’s body was the only one of the three to have been recovered, which suggested that he was not on the flight deck, experts said.

    The BEA, which is under fire from victims’ families for the slow pace of its work, said that no cause could be assigned without the “black box” flight recorders. A new deep-sea search is to start in the new year in the area where the regular Rio-Paris flight fell out of the sky.

    The report partly blamed the speed sensors, known as Pitot tubes. Automatic data messages from the stricken aircraft showed within hours of the June 1 crash that the airliner had lost Pitot data while flying in a storm. This in turn led to a loss of automated flight controls. “It was an inconsistency in the measurements that initiated the disconnection of the various control systems: autopilot, autothrust and flight director,” the BEA said.

    The consensus among Air France pilots and aviation experts is that the technology failure led to the airliner entering a high-altitude aerodynamic stall from which the crew were unable to recover.

    The BEA recommended international measures to raise standards for speed data systems at high altitude. Also, not enough is known about the weather at high cruising levels, it said. It also called for better flight data recorders and new links to report parameters in “real time” by satellite.

    The investigators angered the unions by implying again that the pilots of the A330 Airbus may have failed to follow standard procedures for retaining control of an aircraft with a faulty flight system. The agency studied 32 incidents of pitot failure since 2003 and noted that the crew in each of them had kept control by following Airbus methods. It also said that the three pilots on AF 447 had just completed refresher training in handling speed anomalies and that there had been no failure in the attitude instruments — modern artificial horizons — which are vital to piloting airliners.

    Air France’s main union said that the BEA was seeking to help Airbus and the airline by shifting blame to dead pilots rather than questioning the systems of the highly automated airliner. “The only established fact in this investigation is the false speed data,” said Eric Derivry, an Air France captain and official with the National Airline Pilots’ Union (SNPL). “We are not saying that pilots never make mistakes, but the BEA is pointing the finger to create the impression that the pilots were not up to handling the plane,” he told The Times.

    Gerard Arnoux, head of the Union of Air France Pilots (SPAF), told The Times that the pilots do not understand why the investigators are reluctant to conclude that the aircraft was in a deep aerodynamic stall "which it was obviously in". The Bureau was trying to implicate the pilots without any evidence, he said. "There is nothing to justify saying that our colleagues did not behave correctly." It suits everyone to point the finger at them.

    He also questioned why the investigators had not highlighted the lack of reliable weather information on the flight decks of modern airliners. With satellite pictures that are freely available, the crew would never have become entangled in severe weather, he said.
     
  23. Spasso

    Spasso F1 World Champ

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    Okay, I'll go first.

    HOW COULD THEY NOT KNOW?!

    How could they not know that something was wrong?
    From cruise altitude all the way to ocean?

    The flight attendants were not in their seats and passengers not braced for impact? Because ....................the plane was gently gliding down to the ocean to pancake on it's belly?

    No deployed Oxy masks?

    Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
     

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