BREAKING NEWS: airliner missing within Egyptian FIR

[oleostrut]

"Are there pok marks over some of the lining where the fire bottle is ( which also seems to be dintted ) ? Plus some of the struts seem to be hit by something ? The door that has holes in it , is that a rear door ? If a bomb was placed on board could there been more than one ?"

Yes.

Go to the original image and double the size. Increase brightness and contrast, and the marks are more visible. NOT normal wear and tear, esp the dents on the fire bottle.

[Foxxster]

Re the satellite heat spike.

All I can find is a report on NBC that indicates it was a mid air explosion, not on the ground. Also says that the same satellite would be able to detect the heat signature from a missile which it did not. But I don't think anybody is still pointing to that as a possible cause anyway.

Even if it was a mid air explosion, it clearly does not get us any closer as to what caused it (bomb or fuel tank) or if the explosion was the primary cause or a result of a structural or control surface failure that then caused a structural failure of some kind that consequently ruptured and ignited the fuel tanks

All it does is confirm what many have already alluded to and that is there was a major fire (explosion) mid air and what the autopsies seem to confirm with fire being a major cause of death (as posted above).

[oleostrut]

"The curious part is that the skin of the tail cone is badly sooted, but corresponding skin in the second image is clean."

Not soot. It is staining from long time hydraulic fluid leak. Not unusual.

[AVNTech]

Picture of door assembly seems to have a "Remove Before Flight Flag" installed in some component. Where did that come from? No one on the ground response
crew would possess an Airbus safety/maintenance device. Sorry,the image linked in post #511.

[Intruder]

How do you get such a clean break all the way around that tail cone? Is that seam an engineered weak point?

[oleostrut]

"How do you get such a clean break all the way around that tail cone? Is that seam an engineered weak point?"

The structure failed due to overload. The frame creates a stress riser, so failure at that point is nor un-expected. In normal loading, there is not enough stress at the frame to cause a problem.

Think of a balloon. Wrap a steel band around the balloon and inflate till it is tight. Then overinflate the balloon till it pops. It will likely fail at the steel band (stress riser).

Stressed skin (monocoque construction) needs ribs, frames,stringers, and longerons to form the shape of the structure, the strength is largely in the skin.

[oldoberon]

if there was RPB failure (regardless to cause) wouldn't the immediate blast backwards hit the APU firewall, debris from RPB causing the mentioned hole and denting, and would that blast it be strong enough to brake the cone free at that nearest frame point.

With such a scenario would it logically lead to the HS departing shortly afterwards followed by the whole tail section snapping off in the vicinity of the rear door.

[oleostrut]

I have never worked with explosives or done destructive testing, but there is an earlier mention here of how an internal explosion can bring down a plane.

Supposedly the explosive that brought down the Lockerbie plane was only about the volume of 3 golfballs. It didn't explosively destroy the plane directly, but the shockwave from the high explosive detonation overloaded airframe components to failure. Then cascading failures of the pressure hull did the rest.

A small explosion near the tail might have the same effect on the RPB. If so, loss of the tail would quickly destroy the aircraft.

[TylerMonkey]

Maybe this was a fitting on the other side that pulled away from the skin.
It looks a bit neater than a ragged entrance hole . . .

[fdr]

Door 4R

damage is not post impact, those are high velocity penetrations, not from outside, and a relatively small device. Not good.

[G0ULI]

Clearly a dramatic failure of some sort caused the aircraft to disintegrate in the air. Given that the aircraft was still climbing with engines operating at high power, what effect would an uncontained turbine failure have?

Perhaps cover panels thrown back into the tail plane, turbine blades through the fuselage or wings separating fuel and control lines. Some shrapnel damage perhaps?

With the remaining engine still at full power, a massive fuel leak and ailerons or flaps fully deployed on one wing only, it would take only seconds for the aircraft to tear itself apart.

Most engine failures are relatively undramatic due to careful design, but if the containment system fails, extreme damage can be caused.

So no need for a bomb or some hidden structural failure, just a relatively common engine failure where the safety mechanisms didn't work. It seems more plausible than some of the theories being put forward.

[Toruk Macto]

Do the pictures of the engines look like they have exploded? Are there missing blades ?

[GunpowderPlod]

Same airframe tail strike info

Has anyone been able to find the actual investigation/damage report for the tail strike at Cairo on 16Nov01/

Accident description: ASN Aircraft accident Airbus A321-231 F-OHMP Cairo International Airport (CAI)

Operator History: https://www.planespotters.net/airfra...etrojet-Russia

[hamster3null]

Originally Posted by A0283

Hamster, you suggest we have the whole tail apart from the HS/THS?

As far as i have seen in the available pictures, we only have the bottom half or so of the 'leading edge' of the vertical tail, and part of the lower structure.
The top of the leading edge, the top of the tail, the complete 'box' structure, and the rudder are still missing.

You realize that the VS in tail wreckage pics is bent at a 90 degree angle, right?

So, we're missing the rudder, back one third or so of the VS (the section that was closest to the rudder), and horizontal stabilizers, like so: (edited)

[oleostrut]

A number of years ago, explosive tests were done on pressurized airplanes.

Supposedly the amount of explosive was small, similar to the Lockerbie bombing.

Video seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DNmZlewPhA


Imagine at cruise altitude and full of fuel.

[peabrain]

Fuse fail

Originally Posted by hamster3null

You realize that the VS in tail wreckage pics is bent at a 90 degree angle, right?

So, we're missing the rudder, back one third or so of the VS (the section that was closest to the rudder), and horizontal stabilizers, like so:

As a new poster I have a post held in moderation... but wish I had responded to this image in the first place. How come the fracture on the rivet/bond line at the top of the fuse - supposedly stronger than skin?

[cockpitvisit]

Originally Posted by Stabilo31

IED on board has to be considered in case of a "mid-air heat spike".

But how much of a heat spike would an IED produce? If the bomb had like 3kg of TNT - its heat corresponded to 1 kg of jet fuel at most, with most of the heat being dissipated inside the fuselage (thus invisible to satellites).

Is it certain that the "heat spike" wasn't simply jet fuel exploding after the plane hit the ground?

[oleostrut]

250 grams of explosive is more than enough, Would that show as a heat spike?

[rcsa]

Effect of missing empennage

This video gives a good indication of how an aircraft falls when the empennage is separated:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOnsIGcZS-M

(2011 incident following a mid-air collision at an air-show in Iran, filmed from another aircraft in the show)

[chuks]

It's interesting that the various news services seem to have taken what the airline said about this at face value, when, really, we'll have to wait for the report to find out what happened. So far, all we have to go on is images of a big pile of junk out in the desert, with that fueling the usual pages and pages of speculation here, much of it from armchair aviators.

It's also interesting that what often happens when an aircraft loses its horizontal tail is that it flips over to crash inverted, when some of the damage seen seems to show that large parts of the aircraft hit inverted.