PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - AF 447 Search to resume (part2)
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Old 8th May 2011, 09:04
  #903 (permalink)  
JD-EE
 
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Chris Scott, I just caught myself about to say the heading would have been about NNE with engine 1 being port engine coming off just a few ms after engine two. But, indications seemed to be left wing low. So it would some off earliest. That would put the orientation more like ???? I'm not REAL sure one can say much of anything about orientation. One can say that the engines came off within a couple dozen milliseconds of each other, I think. Lemme check here. Call it 113 MPH. That's coincidentally (actually with malice aforethought) 10000'/m or about 167'/s or 6ms/foot. Referencing the thread above the engines are normally about 18 meters too far apart, or about 3/8s of a second at 113 MPH.

Hm, at that rate I'd not think they would come off the plane far enough apart in time to "reverse" the positions of the engines. Presuming left wing down let's see what we get. It appears to be nonsense or an engine that stayed on the better part of a second.

So even taking the presumption that the heavy engines went straight down once broken loose doesn't tell us anything other than maybe it was really right wing low? Then it could have been headed NNE or SSW. I think the MLG will suffer the same problem.

edit: Oops - I didn't visualize very well. It COULD have been heading SE or NW to give roughly that orientation. I still sit by by confusion below.

I'm inclined to say the debris field really is jumbled randomness.
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