Originally Posted by jcjeant
Methink it's some emergency eletrical power sources in those planes ... like batteries ..
I can be wrong .. but seem's I read it somewhere ......
I suppose they are not only for the passengers courtesy lights
Edited:
Yes indeed .. I forget the RAT (the green power
)
But of course, failure of power doesn't mean that this aicraft would crash, but unability to restart the engines will certainly do the job pretty well. An A330, out of fuel, already glided about 100 NM and landed. But from this place and direction of flight, there was no other option than to try and restart the engines, and certainly to do so while turning back.
Moreover, the attitude of the aircraft at impact might be related to an attempt at restarting the engines that failed due to proximity of the sea. Water was hit unexpectedly. It looks like the aircraft was either stalled or either at the botom of a ressource and nobody seems to have been prepared for a ditching attempt.
The other point is that ice may also damage the engine. It never happened that such a case was recorded but from the number of failures already documented, it looks like all the perequesites for such an incident might have been present for this flight (even the period of the year: Spring-Summer).
S~
Olivier