jcjeant
From the English version of the BEA report:
The part B meteorological charts were printed in black and white with the route traced by computer. The following charts were handed over to the crew:
• the TEMSI chart valid on 1st June at 00 h 00 between FL 250 and FL 630,
• the wind and temperature charts valid on 1st June at 00 h 00 at FL100, FL180, FL300, FL340 and FL390,
• the CAT charts valid on 1st June at 00 h 00 at FL340 and FL390 (no clear air turbulence was forecast).
Part C of the flight dossier contained the TAF and METAR of the departure, destination and alternate airfields and relevant airfields on the route, including the ETOPS support airfields along with the SIGMET.
A dossier thus constituted meets the regulatory requirements.
The criteria for selecting a SIGMET in a flight dossier via EOLE are:
1. the FIR involved with regard to the planned route,
2. the validity at the time of printing of the set of documents.
Note: ICAO Annex 3 does not impose any requirements related to the selection of the SIGMETs
According to testimony, the request for the printing of part C of the flight dossier was made after the printing of parts A and B of the dossier and shortly before the arrival of the crew, i.e. between 19 h 00 and 20 h 00. The time of this transaction was not recorded. In this interval, the SIGMETs that satisfied the selection criteria were:
• SIGMET 5 SBRE (RECIFE) of 31 May from 18 h 00 to 22 h 00
• SIGMET 7 SBAO (ATLANTICO) of 31 May from 18 h 00 to 22 h 00
• SIGMET 7 GOOO (Oceanic DAKAR) of 31 May from 16 h 35 to 20 h 35. The route of flight AF447 did not enter into the area of this SIGMET.
The crew also had the option of using a computer application (EOLE) to consult a colour screen showing other meteorological charts (particularly the tropopause and icing chart) and satellite photos and printing them in black and white.
Note: on the crew's OCTAVE flight plan there was additional turbulence information (SHEAR RATE) calculated according to the estimated wind gradient, between 0/1/2, weak and 7/8/9, strong. Between the NTL and CVS reporting points the highest value was 2, around point INTOL. This value did not take into account turbulence of convective origin.
The SIGMETs cited above were subsequently superseded by several other SIGMETs:
SIGMET 10 was then issued for the ATLANTICO FIR for the period from 31 May at 22 h 00 to 1st June at 2 h 00, reporting a forecast of stationary storms in the layer, with tops at FL400 [I've omitted the chart that shows the coordinates for this SIGMET.]
SIGMET 1 issued on 1st June for the ATLANTICO FIR, valid between 2 h 00 and 6 h 00, reported forecast stationary storms in the layer, with tops at FL380
If your point is that there is nothing in the BEA report indicating that the crew of AF447 were aware of SIGMETs 10 and 1, and their knowledge of significant weather enroute was apparently based to a large extent on SIGMET 7 which had expired at 2200 hours on May 31, then I would agree with your point in part.
I will note that there was the alerting message from dispatch at 0031 hours of convection between SALPU and TASIL. And this BEA report does not include any communications between flights preceding or immediately following AF 447 on this route and the ATLANTICO controller from 0133 hours to 0200 hours that AF447
might have overheard while it was on that frequency. (AF447 contacts with ATLANTICO lasted all of two minutes, from 0133 to 0135 hours, and without the CVR, we will not know whether they unsuccessfully tried to contact ATLANTICO after 0135, or switched frequencies to DAKAR early.)