One thing strikes me about this.

Air France immediately claimed that they knew the initial cause for this accident, lightning. I find that as unusual, in most cases airlines remain non commital until they have retrieved the the flight recording devices and any wreckage, unless the pilot has managed to radio in the problem beforehand. But in this instance they immediately came out with the statement that it was lightning.

This gives rise to two options, one AF are guessing and making a claim that they can't substantiate, which could be embarrassing for them if it turns out to be something completely different (especially if it were a bomb, although I am not making any suggestion).

Secondly, they have received a lot more information/data from the airplane (maybe even from the pilots, through ACARS as has already been suggested) than they're letting on.

Message 442 above. This was posted over 2 hours ago, has anything more been confirmed?

I can't imagine ACARS transmitting over SATCOM if the ac was descending at a very high rate (and all that come with doing such things...)
Also, ACARS doesn't have any backup power does it? So if there was a total loss of power causing the flight control systems to even fail, you would assume ACARS would go down as well....
Even odder, why can't they find the ELT (it would be a 406MHz one... right?), did it not work?
It is all very very odd, not enough information.....
For all I know it could be CI611 with load factor protection.....

Folha de Sao Paulo reports Brazil SAR having had radar returns from metallic debris in the vicinity of St Peter & St Paul Rocks, same area the TAM flight saw flames. The article mentions an oil sheen as well, and that positive identification will only be possible when first ships reach the area. I believe they may be referring to first naval vessels, and that the Marfret Douce France may already be in the vicinity.

All of this fire and flames makes it sound almost like they had some sort of control when it hit, or rather not an uncontrolled from high altitude (very high velocity) impact... None of this adds up, although that could be why there was staggered messages from the ACARS, no SATCOM during dive or whatever, then once it manages to establish communications all the messages from during the dive are sent.... This really doesn't make much sense to me.....

Unless ofcourse the wreckage burns after floating back up...

What about a survivable ditching
 

I find that this incident was treated as a crash much too early. They may have ditched. There may be survivors in life rafts. If they had total electrical failure, they may have ditched hundred of miles from where the electrical failure occurred. The Atlantic Ocean is vast and when they are hundreds of miles from the coast, the rescue planes can only spend a very limited amount of time doing actual searching, having spent a good part of their fuel getting to the search area and needing to keep a large portion to get back to their base. There are very few long range SAR aircraft available. From what I read in the news, France dispatched two aircraft, one Atlantic 2 and one Falcon 50. Thats very few aircraft to be searching the South Atlantic.
What did Brazil send? Their Hercules has long range, but the SAR Embraers 120s and E-99 I saw on the news certainly don't have the range to even reach the mid Atlantic, let alone search it. What did Dakar dispatch, I have no idea.

I've had one very severe turbulence incident on an Airbus A300. In the twelve seconds during which we were out of control, the ECAM was producing a stream of messages for electrical and hydraulic failures, all induced by rapidly-fluctuating G forces. If we'd had datalink I assume these would have been transmitted too.

As I commented earlier, these cells are not uncommon in the ITCZ in my experience. I leave it to others to discuss at length the radar theory.:)

If the ACARS messages were sent on HF, there is a possibility they were logged by a hobbyist. I would guess the most likely ground squitter would be Albrook. ADS-B would be out of range of ground stations at 1090 MHz but the final track may have been recorded by airborne assets, many coastal areas are patroled by AWACS type aircraft. Some areas, like the western NOPAC, have you keep your squawk after normal radar contact is lost for this reason. Or, so I've been told. With ADS-B, the aircraft sends out a unique identifier regardless of the mode 4 setting.

give a thought to what TWA800 looked like on the ocean surface from the air.

There are multiple fuel cells on the aircraft, some of which can be opened in an inflight breakup while others are opened when striking the water. Fuel floats and the fire stays above water while the heavy stuff sinks. Lots of airplane bits still float however.

An awful lot is being made about about the 4 minutes of maintenance messages that were broadcast from the ac. But, would I be right in thinking that these mesaages alone won't provide an awful lot of valuable information, i.e. they won't tell the sequence of events that took place leading to the loss of the ac.

They might provide clues but on their own (without the ADR and CVR data) there is no context or chronological information.

A Brazilian Air Force personnel just came out live on Brazilian television saying that search planes have found wreckage 650Km north-east from the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, and searches are now being carried out in that area, at 5 in the morning Brazilia time search planes found various types of wreckage 60Km apart from each-other including an aeroplane seat, some type of oil drum and oil. The Air Force is now working on collecting these items and looking at their serial numbers to be sure they belong to the AF A330.

jtr, if your source are spot on, you are refering at a very very sensitive ''weak'' system on the 330, a multiple faulty IR and ADIRU signal....very very very tricky one, who can easily bring you down!

Remember Quantas last year, they had quite a ride with that one!

DCate
 

The problem is the size off antena . In c band must be bigest and there are space limitation in the aircraft nose

One reason for using high frequencies for airborne radar is to reduce the antenna size. An I-band emitter with a 3 degree beam width will have a relatively small dish. This will require a smaller radar bay than lower frequency radars in the C-band. assuming you mean the IEEE C-bandYou also say that the C-band could 'see' through the cells. Could they actually see the cells at all? Clearly, for a weather avoidance radar, you need to see to avoid.

"flames on water = ditching"

I'm astonished by the stupidity of some of these comments. TWA 800 was blown to pieces in mid-air yet still covered the ocean with burning fuel from the wing tanks. This one known fact should prevent a comment as idiotic as the one above. But as with everything in modern life, facts and logic take second place to foreskin and sensation. We're still basically a horny Aristotelian society whose brains remain at flight idle most of the time.

-drl

from The Aviation Herald


"New information provided by sources within Air France suggests, that the ACARS messages of system failures started to arrive at 02:10Z indicating, that the autopilot had disengaged and the fly by wire system had changed to alternate law. Between 02:11Z and 02:13Z a flurry of messages regarding ADIRU and ISIS faults arrived, at 02:13Z PRIM 1 and SEC 1 faults were indicated, at 02:14Z the last message received was an advisory regarding cabin vertical speed. That sequence of messages could not be independently verified."

Replying to post #487. Ditching has already been discussed and dismissed due to several factors amongst them the weather, the dark and the sea conditions found on the open sea as opposed to somewhere like the Hudson.

I've never sailed across the South Atlantic, only the North and the swells can be awesome, enough to toss a 70,000grt vessel, designed for those conditions, about so I don't see an airframe standing a chance. I do stand to be corrected though.

Poison,

MSN660, in photos on airliners.net, would clearly appear to have the taller tail of the non-FBW A330. Also, the build date would suggest that it was produced before the FBW tails were added to the A330.

Have a look at the mod status in the front of your FCOM and confirm that MSN 660 was fitted with mod 49144. If it has, then I'll eat humble pie.

Just a thought.

JSHG made the following post:
What if the electronic systems responded erroneously to severe turbulence (source of ACARS messages) as JSHG experienced years earlier, and as a result backed themselves out of the control loop, to the point where the pilots could no longer control the aircraft? In other words, a cascade response of turbulence induced g-force "failures" that weren't really failures, but resulted in reduced flight surface control, in the middle of a severe turbulence encounter?

Rad Alt Alive
 

Didn't the taller fin start with the first A330-200? If so, all -200s have it.

Nobody has mentioned what might have broken loose in the hold during severe turbulance and what damage it might have done.

Agence France-Presse now saying "hold it" on débris.
 

15:30 (Paris time): "French army spokesmen, based at Dakar (Sénégal) and co-ordinating the search for the missing A330, have explained that they have found nothing for the moment; that the weather is atrocious; and that they are not in a position to confirm the findings of the Brazilian military, which claims to have seen 'small pieces of débris' near the Fernando de Noronha archipelago."

The Dutch news agency BNO is saying that an aircraft seat was seen floating 720 km away from the same island (not 650 km as previously reported), so there does seem to be some confusion as to precisely what has been observed where.

That is what happens in this world where media is in a race to get the most information out the fastest, they don't properly check it's truth/legitimacy.... TBH I wouldn't be surpised if certain current affairs shows over here would read this thread, read absolutely stupid ideas from idiots like me (sorry!) that are just ideas/thoughts, and then make an even more ridiculous and over dramatised story out of it...

According to the german link above the Brasilian Air Force confirmed radar returns and optical sightings of small objects floating. However they are not confirming yet that these are from the missing plane.

Brazilian airforce: floating aircraft parts located
 

NOTE TO PRESS 02/06/09 (09:20 Brasialia time)
REPORT OF THE SEARCHES OF AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 447

The Air Force Command says the aircraft that are in the mission's search flight AF 447 localized and small traces of aircraft wreckage in the ocean, however it is not possible to state that belong to the missing aircraft.

At the dawn of Tuesday (02/06), the R-99 6751 aircraft that took off from Fernando de Noronha-PE at 22h35 (Brasília time) to perform scans using the synthetic aperture radar, identified around 01:00 (Brasília time) some "return" in the radar indicated that non-metallic and metallic materials floating in the ocean. The positions of these "returns" were marked by geographical coordinates and led to the search rescheduled, focusing now, approximately 650 kilometers north of Fernando de Noronha-PE.

Aircraft C-130 saw, around 06h49 (Brasília time), material at two points about 60 km distant. Among them, a plane seat, small white pieces, an orange ball, a drum, and traces of oil and kerosene.

Finally, the Air Command reports that it maintains 10 aircraft available on the actions of search and rescue aircraft.

See the location of sightings:


Veja o local dos avistamentos:
http://www.fab.mil.br/sis/enoticias/...9235651087.jpg

Like others have said, it seems odd that AF came out straight away with there opinions on the cause unless they have more information then they are letting on.

For fellow non-professional pilots commenting on this thread, pleas be careful what you post, news stations and reporters monitor this site and it just helps fuel there overactive imaginations and need to get "The scoop" so they will newsflash all sorts of madness.

These professionals commenting on the likes of Sky news are bad enough. I can only assume they've given up the profession some time ago and taken up the mindset of armchair pilots on MS FS.

Those informed, please keep posting.

Yes, that is what ELT/EPIRBs do (but not sat phone). The newer 406 MHz units include a GPS and can transmit lat-long and have higher accuracy than the 121/406 beacons but in this case a beacon would be "good enough" to find the a/c I'd imagine. If the ELT had been activated and received we would have heard about it early on.

The issue is building something that can survive an impact and not be dragged to the bottom.

PS the postings about A319 electrical issues and A300 rudder breaking off aren't really as relevant as the ADIRU/pitch-up, WX and terrorism discussions.

Someone asked this and I didn't see an answer, does the AF A330-200 have the same make/version ADIRU as the QF A330-300?

Lightning Strike Protection For Composite Structure
 

Here is an example patent:

Lightning strike protection method and apparatus - Patent # 7525785 - PatentGenius

One thing immediately evident here is the mistaken notion that simply conducting the current through the composite is sufficient to protect it. Again, the main thing that protects an aluminum airframe is the fact that conduction currents MUST occur on the OUTER SURFACE of a metal conductor - the electric field cannot penetrate more than a few thousandths of an inch into metal because the internal free electrons rearrange themselves to cancel out the applied field - thus a conduction current can only exist very near the surface of any metal. However, if this metal is itself encased in some other material - for example, an insulated wire - that material can still become extremely hot from the kinetic action of the conduction electrons. No matter what ground testing has been performed, I very much doubt that an embedded metal mesh could deal with the megaJoules of current coming from a large lightning strike without blasting away the surrounding matrix in which it is embedded. Such a mesh would necessarily have to exist on the outer surface of the composite to be really effective. The only realistic test of such things is to fly around in a thunderstorm with a drone, and try to have it take a strike, and look at the results. Has anything like this been done?

-drl

I guess this A330 have a 406Mhz ELT..

The ELT activates with G-force.
No ELT signal had been tracked (SAR doesnt have the exact location)

so no impact (G-force) or an explosion/fire of the ELT.

I'm absolutely in favor of INTELLIGENT speculation - that is often how the causes of airplane accidents are uncovered. But just throwing up every possible scenario is less than pointless.

-drl

area of alleged crash
 

Nobody so far (even now it occurs with wreckage spotted) has brought up the possibility that the aircraft may have actually tried to return due to WX + malfunctions and made a turn. Someone in the forum mentioned that that would be his first option in a situation with heavy WX and trouble on board - to get down in a controlled fashion at the closest runway asap. And this would have been behind them. That would mean that everybody seems to be concentrating at the wrong area and the actual plane might be many many miles away...?
Just a thought.

Diclosure: not working in the airline industry (but a scientist/physician)

Whats a RAT please?

Is it that little generator that drops through the fuselage as in the Air Transat glide incident?:confused:

Cheers

Donnlass

Ram Air Turbine

I respect your opinion, and will provide my reasons for not agreeing with you;
If this was terrorism, isn't the point of terrorism to cause fear of you for your cause... In the past when there has been a bombing there has (generally) been multiple terrorist groups claiming that they did it, this is because they want to be associated with the death of many people... No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for this as of yet, and the responsible one surely would want to be associated with their dirtywork. However, on the other side, it might not have been terrorism as such, there is a innumerable amount of possible people and causes for someone to put a bomb on that plane, or any plane. As simple as someone (somehow) doing it as a lone agent, as complex as anything (logical) you can imagine really...
However it is less likely that one of those happened in the opinion of many people here (including me) than the likelihood of a failure in the aircraft, human error, or weather...
The arcane concepts are just concepts that in some cases (not always though) make sense with the information that is available now, in all likelihood many (almost certainly including mine! :)) will be proven wrong when more facts are found/revealed over time...
I thought my idea wasn't stupid, now I realise that I am a complete idiot for not realising that fuel and other bits might float without surface tension, and completely forgetting that it could have broken up in midair... But, what are you supposed to do about ideas you want to share, you shouldn't be scared that you will be ridiculed... The media if they are following this thread should know after what has been said over these pages on this topic that what is here is speculation, and it can be very well-informed speculation, or not, but no speculation *should* be reported by the media, if they still do it, it is them that is at fault, not the people who shared an idea, as nothing more than an idea....
I do not own this forum, and if whoever does own it disagrees with my views, then they can do whatever they want with what I have written.

And to something on the topic, does anyone know what is with the ELT?

The 24-hour news cycle is more demanding than the available news. So they go casting about.

Here there really isn't any information, so they read off what they find elsewhere. Then those sites start citing the media, and we get a feedback effect that amplifies the non-information. So, this nonsense about people sending cellphone messages. BS.

When members of the news media starts reading off posts on a website, whatever claim to authority that website has disappears very quickly, as the site becomes the focus of attention and of people with all kinds of weird motivations. It's far easier for someone to make a post that sounds authoritative and factual than for someone to make one from authority or containing facts. So, after every recent accident of note, the PPRuNe thread gets inundated with noise for the first 72 hours or so, as verisimilar jockeys try to put up every unimaginable combination to sound important. And I'm sure the moderators are deleting thousands of posts, including some pertinent ones that only seem superfluous.

So, I must clarify something. When in answering a post asking what Richard Quest's PPRuNe username might be, I speculated "Speedbird Yoke Peter". My rationale was that such a username would be homage to the hand-in-hand work that the European press and the safety organizations did to improve safety in the aftermath of the tragic loss of the BOAC Comet (YP) off of Elba at the dawn of the Jet Age. I did not mean in any way to refer to the tabloid reports of the lurid circumstances surrounding the alleged arrest of Mr. Quest in Central Park, and I apologise if my speculation was taken in that way.

Today on BBC Radio 2, Jeremy Vine interviewed Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography, London University. the broadcast was at approx. 12.20 BST,2nd. June.

A non-sensationalist, accurate explanation of the area's weather conditions, Cu-Nims' Etc. and the potential for destructive energy therein. A very rational and balanced piece....the BBC website has a "listen again" feature,for those interested. BBC news still reporting sighting of some debris , as before.

to my knowledge all civil ELTs need to a) maintain connectivity to their antenna (which may be built in), b) not be destroyed by impact or fire, c) most importantly - remain on the surface of the water.

No ELT signal means very low likelihood of rafts being deployed - which by now means no survivors. It says nothing else about this accident.

Land in Rio!!! Not 'in the river'....
 

I spoke with passengers who were on the flight prior to the AF 447, the AF 444, which came from Paris and landed in Rio airport at five o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday. Two hours later, the same aircraft took off with the flight AF 447.

They told me that the plane suffered a strange turbulence in the region where missing. That the plane 'trepidou'e the pilot made a sudden maneuver.

There was also a breakdown in the electric system of those screens that show a map of Orta flight for each passenger - and for watching movies where too. They surprise because the sky was clear, without clouds, even with sunlight.

Can I see you know much about airplanes. Someone can explain what would have happened with the Airbus A330?

François Fillon (French PM) just finished a press conference...
 

He said: "The only thing we know for certain is that no distress call was sent by the aircraft, but the normal automatic alerts, for a three-minute period, indicated the shutdown of all the systems."

Admittedly, politicians are not technicians, but I don't know how he can know either of these things. Certainly, no distress call was received, but does that mean none was sent? And I'm not sure he knows what he's saying when he speaks of a complete "systems shutdown."