Air France A330-200 missing

[Optimus-Prime]

Flight 447 crashed and there was a bomb threat days earlier somewhere on the same continent. How the do they put that together to 'Air France flight 447 delayed by bomb threat' ???

[BOAC]

Relevant?

- no. AF447 was NOT delayed for a bomb threat as far as we know.

[OVERTALK]

Sounds like Belgique was on the right track....

in his post #718

See the link in that post.

Investigators are saying the aircraft stalled into a loss of control at height (inference being too heavy too high too early)......

in this Timesonline link just released

[MartinM]

Air France flight 447 delayed by bomb threat

No really

Press is kind of dumb sometimes

[S.F.L.Y]

I think it is time to stop referring to the bomb issue which is basically incompatible with the ACARS messages: the pressurization fault was the last message and came 4 min after it all started.

The recurrence of control losses due to ADIRU faults and the lack of solutions from the manufacturer is a serious issue still valid today. If this is not the cause of this accident I'm still wondering how these aircrafts are still flying under such circumstances. The sequence of faults generated by ADIRU faults is a major risk of upset aircraft situations, especially at night, in turbulences and IMC. What are we doing about it?

[theamrad]

Posting the b*m* story AGAIN might have been relevant - if it hadn't been posted about a dozen times in the last 20 pages. Same as the link to the meteorological data.
Then again - might not happen if people were A**ed to actually READ the thread.

BOAC - agree with your comments re ACARS messages.

[Safety Concerns]

just for those who are undoubtedly going to run a million miles in the wrong direction with the acars information.

Autopilot disconnect will show on the data regardless of how it was disconnected. So although we know it disconnected we still don't know if the disconnect was manual or automatic.

However considering the multiple ADIRU fault messages less than a minute later one could be forgiven for assuming it disconnected automatically due to the increasing amount of failures for whatever reason.

But this then leads to another issue. Multiple ADIRU faults are unheard of. It doesn't happen unless the aircraft has suffered some extroardinary event.

Make what you will of this FACTUAL information.

[wileydog3]

I will ask this differently...

from the posts, it seems the string of events is
a/c slowed to penetration airspeed in severe/extreme turbulence
loss of pitot input due to icing
failure of ADIRU1 due to lack of input
disconnect of autopilot and reversion to ALT law (no stall protection)
failure of PRIM1 and SEC1 and ISIS
loss of control, possible stall
ACARS message about cabin pressure due to inflight breakup.


(no attribution!)

[skywreck]

"Pues nada, lo prometido es deuda. Aquí os dejo esta primicia mundial recien sacada del horno.
He hablado con el comandante del vuelo de IB que iba junto al AF. Os resumo lo que me ha dicho.
Estuvieron hablando con la tripulación del AF en el aeropuerto de Rio, en la cola del control de pasaportes. Dice que eran muy simpáticos y que se estuvo riendo con la sobrecargo. Eso ha sido más palo todavía para él. Ya en el despacho de vuelos vió que la zona en cuestión estaba complicada por el mal tiempo y decidió echar 2000 kilos más de combustible previendo que tendría que desviarse bastante. Despegaron unos minutos detrás del AF, como casi siempre y ellos subieron un poco más, hasta 350. El AF se quedó a 330. El vuelo iba como siempre sin problemas. Al llegar cerca de esa zona ellos ya estaban a 370 y el AF a 350. Entre INTOL y TASIL había un area muy grande de cumulonimbos que subian hasta 50000 pies, es decir tormentas muy potentes. Él se desvió muchas millas de su ruta para evitar la zona y no sabe lo que hizo el AF porque no lo tenía en el radar, pero cree que se metió en el berenjenal. Su vuelo fué tranquilo y sin turbulencias resaltables. Al pasar TASIL, que ya entras en espacio controlado por Dakkar, todo el mundo estaba llamando al AF por la radio y pensó que se habrían despistado, en nigún momento se imaginó lo que había pasado, por que su vuelo no había sido complicado. No hubo ningún mensaje por radio del AF.
Ha sido un palo para él, haber conocido a la tripulación. Yo le entiendo porque me pasó lo mismo hace años. Estaba en BCN cenando y entraron dos guapas pilotos rubias que conocía. Todos volabamos el avion Fairchild Metro con carga aerea, ellas en una compañía y yo en otra y despues de cenar saliamos a volar, ellas a Bruselas y yo a MAD. Despegaron unos minutos antes que nosotros y cuando despegamos nosotros nos enviaron por un sitio que no era el normal, por lo que pensé que algo ocurria. Al llegar a MAD me enteré que se les había parado un motor y que volviendo a BCN se estrellaron a dos kilometros de la pista."


Oh well, what was promised is a debt. Here a I leave you a world exclusive just taken out of the oven. I have spoken with the captain of the Iberia
flight that was flying near the Air France flight. I will give you a resume of
what he told me.

They spoke to the Air France crew at Rio airport, while in the passport contro queue. They said they were very likeable and were laughing with the "sobrecargo"?, which made this more of a shock for him. While in flight
despatch he saw that the area in question was very complicated due to
bad weather and decided to 2000 extra Kgs of fuel, foreseeing that
he would have to deviate quite a lot. They took off some minutes after
Air France, as usual, but they climbed a little further to FL350. Air France
remained at FL330. The flight went as usual without any problems. When
reaching the zone in question they were already at FL370 and Air France at FL350. Between INTOL and TASIL the was a huge area of cumulunimbus that reached up to FL50, that is to say very potent storms.
He deviated many miles away from the route to avoid the zone but didn't
know what happened to AF because he didn't have it on his radar, but
believes it went into the storms. His flight was quiet and without much
turbulence. After passing TASIL and just entering into Dakar airspace, everyone was calling the Air France flight on the radio and he thought
that perhaps they had lost their bearings, but never for a moment did he
imagine what had actually happened, because his own flight had not been
complicated. There were never any radio messages from Air France.
It has a been a real shock to him having met the crew.
I can understand it, for something similar happened to me some years ago.
I was in BCN having dinner when two very attractive blonde female pilots that I knew arrived. All of us flew cargo on Fairchild Metros but for
different companies.After dinner we went flying our separate ways, they to Brussels and I to MAD. They took off some minutes before us. After our take off ATC sent us on an unusual route and I thought something was
happening. On arrival at MAD I found out that they women pilots had one engine failure and while returning to BCN crashed 2Km short of the
runway.

[Gary Brown]

Overtalk wrote:

Sounds like Belgique was on the right track....
in his post #718

See the link in that post.

Investigators are saying the aircraft stalled into a loss of control at height (inference being too heavy too high too early)......

in this Timesonline link just released

That's not really what the Times story to which you link says; and nor does the Le Monde story on which the Times report is based. In both cases the newspapers are stating that Airbus, with the support of BEA, will issue a recommendation regarding speed. But they don't quote anyone from either Airbus or BEA (except to say that Aibus had "no comment").

Here's the Le Monde original:

L'Airbus d'Air France volait à une vitesse "erronée" et s'est désintégré en vol, selon les messages captés au sol - Société - Le Monde.fr

Airbus devrait publier une "recommandation" validée par le Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses (BEA), jeudi 4 juin, destinée à toutes les compagnies utilisant des biréacteurs A330 et rappelant que, en cas de conditions météorologiques difficiles, leurs équipages doivent conserver la poussée des réacteurs et l'assiette correctes pour garder l'avion en ligne.

"Airbus is to publish a "recommendation" approved by BEA, on Thursday 4th June, aimed at all airlines that use the twin-jet A330, reminding them that, in difficult weather conditions, their aircraft must maintain proper engine thrust and attitude to keep the aircraft under control."

Note: I'm no expert in aviation French, so I'm not certain whether "assiette" and "en ligne" are the usual aviation terms for "attitude" and "under control", or whether the journalist is "interpreting" what he or she heard.....

AGB

[ste1ste]

acars reports

i know about the warnings for the failures of electric's and also the pressure issues what other warning where given by the acars system. how about warnings to the AOC or the AAC?

[protectthehornet]

wileydog


now that scenario I believe...

sometimes you just have to set the power to a known setting(to maintain turb pen speed) and try to keep the wings level and the nose somewhere near the horizon and accept the changes in altitude.

riding the waves as we call it out west.

[TripleBravo]

Lost in Saigon:

You would have "caught the cabin" in descent resulting in a very high descent rate for the cabin.

I admit I did not check the maximum cabin pressure descent rate compared to emergency descent. So - right.

torquebox:

Radomes seem to cop a lot which is why they have such massive lightning diverter strips.

Sorry, I had to be more precise: For sure the radome is subject to lightning (didn't want to say that), but I never came across evidence that this part is more prone than others. The reinforcements of conductors present in the radome is because it is made of glass fibre, which is an insulator. (Would it be conducting, the radar beam would be immediately reflected by the radome.) Similarly the vertical tail leading edge is partly glass fibre, because of the antennas behind.

Phalanger:

It's interesting that spoilers are reported as failing in the last set of messages.

This must be overinterpretation by media with a sound half knowledge. The cited ACARS did report SEC1 to be failed, which controls the spoilers. But: SEC2 is just as cabaple and not reported to have quit. Similarly, I read that the plane would have run by "alternate power" - which they simply mixed up with "alternate law".

blueloo:

Absolutely - but I would tell Air Traffic Control this. Not operations/my company.

If you get through, that is. We only know that there was no chatter recieved. At least I don't know whether they attempted and weren't heard. Perhaps the message - if true - was typed by the third pilot just when they changed shifts?

[One Outsider]

AGBagb

I think you should see the posts by OVERTALK and Belgique, as more of a plug for a certain organisation than anything else.

[wileydog3]

safety concerns

wileydog you sum up why pilots shouldn't be making technical decisions.

That is why I ask questions. Not a technical decision but rather a question about the sequence of events.

At PPRUNE we have THE EXPERTs including from pilots with vast experience and experts in other fields related to aviation ( meteorologists, engineers, etc). We also have lots of a lot of wild speculation and that comes with the territory.

But the often made critique of the media is they don't know **** about airplanes. But when questions are asked, they are also berated as some type of goon searching for quick answers. I hope I don't fall into either category but just trying to learn.

I fully respect the sequence of an accident investigation and acknowledge that without the FDR this 24 page thread and other forums will be just speculation and theory but here it can be informed theory.

Thanks for the correction. I appreciate the input.

[Safety Concerns]

wileydog I apologise unreservedly

[wileydog3]

no apology necessary.

But if I remember my A320 and from reading on ADIRUs, there are 3 and one input to the ADIRU is from the pitot/static system. Losing that input would cause a fault and require selecting ADIRU3 to regain information IF ADIRU3 had good info. Correct?

I realize all accidents are the exception to the rule and I have no axe to grind about any manufacturer. I have flown Boeings, Airbus, Fokkers, McDougs along with a number of businessjets. I understand that engineers at one company may have a different philosophy and approach to building an airplane. Not necessarily better but different. I also have yet to find one that fits the scaremongering some offer as to Airplane X is a flying death trap. I also recognize there are personal preferences and parochial biases. But I also remember the two caveats... all airplanes are compromises and all airplanes have strengths and weaknesses. Play to the strength. Respect the weakness.

yes, now maybe a bit trite but ancora imparo

[XB70_Valkyrie]

The recurrence of control losses due to ADIRU faults and the lack of solutions from the manufacturer is a serious issue still valid today. If this is not the cause of this accident I'm still wondering how these aircrafts are still flying under such circumstances. The sequence of faults generated by ADIRU faults is a major risk of upset aircraft situations, especially at night, in turbulences and IMC. What are we doing about it?

Best post of the day.

If conditions (ice, CAT, whatever) overwhelm the ADIRU and upstream systems and cause a reversion to alternate law (and distract the cockpit with error messages) and remove the very protections (overspeed, stall) you really need in those conditions, isn't that a pretty bad situation to deal with?

There are going to be two big questions for the investigation to answer:
1) why did the crew get so close to a CB (wx radar etc)
2) why was the crew unable to prevent the a/c from entering an aerodynamic condition (overspeed?) where it broke apart

[Safety Concerns]

One should be clear on what an ADIRU actually does.
The air data part does not directly affect flight controls.
The Qantas scenario was cause by the IR part.

3 completely separate and independent ADIRU's and 3 completely separate and independent pitot probes and 6
(3 pairs) of completely and independent static ports.

Under normal circumstances a complete failure of one air data system in flight would be of no significance whatsoever.

Furthermore the air data part is completely independent from the IR part. So losing all air data on one system has no effect on control and stability as far as the flight controls are concerned. In fact you can even switch off the IR part or the Air data part independently.

The reason for it being called an ADIRU is that both independent parts are in the same physical housing.

[Wader2]

Severe turbulence can be experienced 10 miles from the Cb either to the side or above. To assure safe ITCZ penetration and keep 10 miles clear of the severe turbulence would require a corridor in the region of 30 miles wide.

As you enter the valley between Cb who knows what may happen as you get further into the system?