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Airbus A320 crashed in Southern France

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Airbus A320 crashed in Southern France

Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:19
  #101 (permalink)  
 
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What smacks me as odd is that the aircraft left it's cruise alt and descended in a straight line towards the Alps for 10 minutes without communicating. I'm not yet clear as to when the Mayday was made, if it was a mayday or if it was from the crew nut they had a lot of time to stick 7700 or give a radio call during the descent.

Comparing this to the 4000' loss of alt due to icing doesn't wash and If it was an emergency descent due to decompression why didn't they turn off the airway and away from high ground?
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:22
  #102 (permalink)  
 
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According to a source from the Direction de la sécurité civile, there was no in-flight explosion.

EN DIRECT. Crash d?un avion A320 Germanwings: «Il n?y a aucun survivant»? Le roi d'Espagne écourte sa visite d'Etat en France... - 20minutes.fr
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:23
  #103 (permalink)  
 
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An Air France pilot flying over the area told France's BFM-TV that the German A-320 crew did not apprently declare an emergency to controllers. The "distress call" came from them setting the transponder to 7700
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:38
  #104 (permalink)  
 
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Lear - even if it were the pesky European pilots blocking up the unreliable airspeed procedure is well documents, summarised in the QRH and would likely have been practiced in the SIM. LH have a very strong record for training and operational excellence and cannot see that any Germanwings crew would repeat AF447. You have pitch and power and also BUSS on some newer planes (granted this one likely didn't have BUSS).
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:39
  #105 (permalink)  
 
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CNN is reporting a distress call made 44 minutes into the flight:

French Alps plane crash: 148 were aboard, official says - CNN.com

Not sure how that's possible. Just eyeballing the following chart would seem to put that after the crash.

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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:42
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In the A320 in order to fully deploy speedbrakes one has to disengage the autopilot.
If the crew did that and then eventually became unconscious the aircraft would not level up.
Just sayin'.
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:42
  #107 (permalink)  
 
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Incapacition?

Yes, Nice was far, but Marseille was just 5 minutes or so to the left when the aircraft started descending. It is difficult to envisage any circumstances under which anyone consciously would elect to continue flying straight ahead into the mountains for another 100 miles instead of diverting to Marseille. And at the same time not saying a word, either to enroute ATC or to Marseille Approach. Incapacitation of the crew is one of the very few scenarios consistent with these know facts. The question then would be what could cause such - apparently almost instantaneous incapacitation? Hypoxia? Possible, but how? Explosion in the cockpit or cockpit area? Possible. There are certainly other scenarios, but not many.

Last edited by marie paire; 24th Mar 2015 at 13:53.
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:44
  #108 (permalink)  
 
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I think the "distress call" they are referring to is ATC declaring DETRESFA. That, almost by definition, happens after impact.

Descent rate sure doesn't look like an emergency descent rate. Never flew the 320 but I'd expect 6000-8000fpm at minimum in an expedited autopilot coupled descent at MMO?

Plus, Marseille and Montpellier to the left both have flat terrain, long runways, definitely the diversion of choice, if able. There appears to be a 10 degree or so course change at TOD, indicative of a "let's get off the airway" move?
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:47
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Not if you suspected structural damage.
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:49
  #110 (permalink)  
 
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What would the French airforce be useing a Boeing C-135FR Stratotanker in the area for as now showing on FR24?
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:50
  #111 (permalink)  
 
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All this speculation about blocked probes et all seems very premature and unfounded up until now if you ask me.
Looking at the first data (flight path, descend speed) there is literally nothing that suggest probe failure whatsoever.
No erratic up and down motions, no stall, no excessive descend speed.

What is very strange is the straight path flown right up until impact, no attempt whatsoever to aim for one of the many possible airports nearby.

This looks more like the Helios 2005 crash (with the exception of the long flight up until fuel starvation) than anything else, loss of pressure (explosive decompression ???) and subsequently crew incapacitated.

They cannot rule out anything up until now, everything from equipment failure to accidental explosion or even sabotage/terrorism is on the table.
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:51
  #112 (permalink)  
 
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Re:Sky News

In a dire situation, no professional will utter "emergency.emergency"..
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:51
  #113 (permalink)  
 
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NO radio mesage issued

It has been just release that the crew did NOT issue any mayday message at 1047. (Source DGAC)
At 1047 Marseille control asked one or more aircraft to look in their flying sector if they could see something according to a missing aircraft.
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:52
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If someone wants to create/discount theories, suggest use FR24 data (speed, altitude, V/S, hdg/track) against OP DES. Might be of interest (to some) would be the automatics and M/IAS cutover v protections etc.
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:53
  #115 (permalink)  
 
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The primary driver for EMER DESC is to get to where the air becomes breathable. Questionable airframe integrity is mostly a speed consideration, not descent rate. You might elect to not descend at MMO in that case, but the FR24 data seems to suggest otherwise, they kept the speed pretty high.

Unless of course you simply are not in control. But in that case you might think there's enough time to at least place a mayday call, or set the 7700 XPDR (which some people seem to think has been set, but FR24 shows some 55xx code to the end).
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:54
  #116 (permalink)  
 
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Suspect reports of distress call are bogus.
The a/c would have been down by that time.

Whatever happened took place just after reaching FL380 near Toulon.

PlanePlotter data has been submitted to AAIB
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:54
  #117 (permalink)  
 
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I'm not a pilot and I am struggling to understand a few points.
Firstly from what I have seen and heard on here and the news the aircraft started a decent just over the coast with a number of major airports available for diversion how normal would it be for a pilot to continue on a heading to the Alps knowing there was some kind of problem no mater how small surely you would not head to a massive hazard knowing you had started some kind of a decent.

Also how normal is it not to squawk 7700 keeping in mind the aircraft had 10 minutes of continued decent heading to mountainous territory.

And I'm struggling to understand why would a pilot not contact ATC even just to say we have a small problem we are trying to fix it and we need to decend

Last but not least would ATC not have contacted the aircraft to ask why they were decending.

I know there might be reasons but it just doesn't make any sense to me and once again I'm not a pilot but as a professional driver I would not head into a situation where problems would or could get worse if I was on a A road with stopping options I would not commit to a motorway slip road knowing I had an engine warning light on in my cab or a puncture on my trailer.
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:55
  #118 (permalink)  
 
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What would the French airforce be useing a Boeing C-135FR Stratotanker in the area
It is a command and control aircraft (with in-air refueling capability), it would be the providing primary radar coverage and control for rescue aircraft.
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:56
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According to a source from the Direction de la sécurité civile, there was no in-flight explosion.

EN DIRECT. Crash d?un avion A320 Germanwings: «Il n?y a aucun survivant»? Le roi d'Espagne écourte sa visite d'Etat en France... - 20minutes.fr
I would tend to agree with that, although I'm far from an expert at these things.

Wouldn't an explosion probably have scattered the debris over a much bigger area and into much smaller pieces, just like with MH17, TWA800 and PanAm103 over Lockerbie?
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Old 24th Mar 2015, 13:56
  #120 (permalink)  
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No Maday from the crew. The French civil aviation authority have said to AAP Reuters. It was a general broadcast by ATC declaring emergency to other traffic in the region or FIR.
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