PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - BREAKING NEWS: airliner missing within Egyptian FIR
Old 6th Nov 2015, 16:42
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andrasz
 
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@AVR4000

On the first (and only) video screencap we have of the left HS it is very clearly visible that the upper composite skin failed after it was bent up 90 degrees against the fuselage. If the HS support structure failed first, the entire HS would have parted in one piece as it is a very strong component.

The fact that it did not indicates that the damage was due to aerodynamic loads after the tail separated.

The reason it had to happen after separation is that had the aircraft entered an attitude that would snap the HS off the wings would have snapped too. All this talk about whether the jackscrew is visible on the photo or not is pretty meaningless in this context.

This implies that the structural disintegration started in front of the tail, somewhere in the rear fuselage. A structural failure of a well placed bomb would produce EXACTLY the same symptoms. The only way to tell for certain is to find components with clear explosion damage. I'm sure IF there are any traces, the investigators now by now (as do the involved governments). However the lack of any formal announcement puts this into doubt, everyone is talking about 'possibly' or 'likely' which to me either means that they themselves have no clue, or the Egyptians who are leading the investigation do not want to admit it.
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