How did the crew report turbulence? Was there an ACARS message to company or a report to other aircraft?

Lost in Saigon
 

I think the assumption would have to be that contact was made with AF via ACARS regarding severe turbulence at 0200 GMT as -

a) last contact by AF 447 with Brazilian ATC was at 0133 GMT,

b) no other a/c reported getting any comms from AF 447 that night, and

c) it is AF themselves who stated the captain reported the turbulence

from BBC
 

Prime Minister Francois Fillon told the French parliament that the cause of the plane's loss had still to be established.
"Our only certainty is that the plane did not send out any distress call but regular automatic alerts for three minutes indicating the Failure of all systems ," he said.

This is the first I have seen saying all systems. Previous reports listed several faults, not all systems. Granted, he is not an engineer but he must have been briefed by such.

The speculation now turns to the QF incident:

This is from the Sydney Morning Herald:



Full article hereSMH Air France Debris

A few thoughts:

1) Could the poor weather conditions in the area be related to the lack of communication from the aircraft? How sensitive are aircraft communication systems to severe weather related interference, taking the location specific communication characteristics into consideration as well.

2) In the case of an aircraft entering severe and sudden / unexpected weather conditions, requiring full on and dedicated "lets keep this plane in the air" action, where does this place the action to report back to AF, both in terms of operating hierarchy as well as human nature?

3) Do we have any more information about the most recent maintenance / repairs carried out on the aircraft? Under this point, I am considering how repair work may have failed when exposed to severe turbulence.

Thanks.

Patrick (non pilot / aviation industry)

It would appear that there is more information regarding the last 4 minutes of flight than has been discussed. I am not familiar with the systems of the Air Bus airplane, thus cannot comment with any authority on the alerts transmitted to AF maintenance. But I do have questions relative to them.

Taking each transmission on its own merit, what would likely have had to occur to trigger the first automatic ACARS alert.

Then, would each subsequent alert be a result, or a contributing factor, of a failure reported by the preceeding transmission.

Following the transmission trail and analysing the fault(s) should provide somewhat of a picture of the work load being placed on the crew, and the potential conditions which existed in the cockpit at the time.

If you are in severe turbulance, you would be dealing with the situation not typing out an Acars report to inform your airline that you are in turbulance.
Note in severe turbulance you probably will not be able to read the flight displays.

While you are considering sea currents...also add in winds that would scatter debris as well. As the break up (if that is what happened) occurred at a fairly high altitude then the lighter bits would drift much farther downwind than the more dense pieces. If there were thunderstorms about and strong vertical movement was involved it gets even far more complex to plot the dispersal pattern(s).

Add into this equation....the same effect as the wreckage settles to the sea bottom....and the debris field(s) that will generate. As the water is pushing 20,000 feet deep in that area....this is going to be a very difficult recovery operation and probably will not amount to much in percentage of wreckage being recovered.

Google a bit and read up on the research it took to discover the missing H-bombs from the B-52/KC-135 collision off the Spanish Coast many years ago.

protectthehornet.

It was in my notes and in my brain but there was a disconnect. Failure in Primary Brain/Talk computer. Chalk it up to pilot error. (truth is I remembered light, moderate and severe but had forgotten about extreme and also wanted to check on the actual definitions. What we often call moderate in the States does not fit the definition)

So yes, I read the boards. And I may get toasted for using this and other boards as a resource but the paradox is that this board and a few others are where the real EXPERTS are. The second paradox is the constant railing against know-nothings in the media and that they would read the boards.

I have been very fortunate to have been in almost 100 different cockpits and flown with some really great aviators. I flew with Nick Warner at Toulouse on the 330 and 321 prior to the accident. My first focus is on Man Machine Environment and what we know. I try to stay away from spectacular speculation and stick with what we know as it develops.

But this thread, as others on accidents, is where the real knowledge lies. It can be like mining in that a lot of stuff has to be tossed out but I know that and that is why I read and participate this site.

And thanks for the critique. I can't get better if I am not shown where I failed.

Quick comment regarding CF on aircraft. On delivery of Harrier GR5 some 20 years ago, 2 flying in close formation for a photo shoot. One was struck by lightening, which conducted, exited and struck the other aircraft. Wings suffered de-lamination of CF, though both recovered successfully.
That's from memory - but its evidence of CF not being the worlds most lightening resilient material.

In some way this accident remembers me the one with Austral Flight 2553, which encountered bad weather en route with Cumulonimbus clouds (reportedly topping at 15,000m) an outside air temperature of -59deg.
FYI:
ASN Aircraft accident McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 LV-WEG Nuevo Berlin

Extracted from Air France 447 - AFR447 - A detailed meteorological analysis - Satellite and weather data:
Tim Fantastic analisys you performed here. Let me just feed you a couple of thoughts. I'm a A310 pilot, and flown UN873 at night dozens of times, and deviations up to 80 nautical miles off track have been frequent. With tha A310 I don´t fly through any well shaped GREEN radar return at that altitude and in that area. Cb's are too tall in that area, and FL350 is well within the unacceptably active altitude, and will produce EXTREME turbulence (not severe), something aircraft structure can't cope with. The images you posted show an isolated cell right on UN873, between INTOL and the MCS, one that would probably favour a deviation of at least 25nm left of track. This deviation would put the aircraft facing the worse MCS zone, and would require further deviation. The thing that puzzles me is that such deviations would require ATC coordination, and even if unable to contact the control, pilots will broadcast their deviation on interpilot 123.45 frequency. How come in a fairly busy area as that one at that hour, no one heard about AF447 deviating, nor ATC, nor other pilots? This is very strange, you don't fly trough such a storm...

It is official, apparently ...
 

According to portuguese site "diario.iol.pt", that is quoting "Folha Online" (a brasilien newspaper), brasilien Defense Minister Nelson Jobim has officially announced that the debris found is indeed of AF's A332.

According to the cited source:
Quick and dirty translation:
"There is no doubt" that the debris found floating in the Atlantic Ocean by the Brasilien Air Force belong to the AF's Aircraft gone missing during Sunday to Monday night with 228 souls on board.
The announcement was made in a press conference by Jobim, after paying a visit to the families of the victims at a Rio de Janeiro's hotel, and stating that the aircraft crashed on brasilien waters".
Here's the link to the portuguese site.
./J

wiley
 

no charge for the professional courtesy...we've spoken before...we even know that runway 23 at clt slopes downhill

you might want to google cumberland maryland B52 for the inflight breakup of a B52 back in 64.

you did mention that if all electrics were lost the plane would still be controllable...I hope you will expand on that here...and I mean all electrics....even the standby gyro not powered etc.

Graybeard - Final Four Minutes of Reports

Active tracking Antenna's have been replaced by phase scanned microstrip patch arrays or similar for communication via the Inmarsat Satellite Network, and stub helical for LEO's such as Iridium and low speed Inmarsat.
So there is no need for any "tracking" or "pointing" of the antenna.
There are a multitude of data speeds offered, from 600bps up to 64kbps.

Air France may well have their own proprietary system for ACARS, but if using the Inmarsat System, then as you say, they will have been pretty much right below the AOR-E Satellite at 15 West (I believe the Aero service at this time is on the I-3 satellites not the newer I-4), so will have had a good "view" of the Satellite.

With the Satellite pretty much overhead, the signals would only be obscured if the antenna were to move out of its (pretty much) 150 degree (+/- 75) view of the sky. For those "Four Minutes" the aircraft (I'm presuming), could have been at any attitude just so long as the antenna's were within their field of view for the satellite.

I totally agree - reverse engineering a fault tree would be one of the few reasonable approaches to speculating about what has actually happened as opposed to seeing whether circumstances fit a particular external event...

So, if I recall correctly a/p disengage and alternate law are claimed to be the first messages, so using occam's razor, what could have triggered that?

On a parallel note, PRIM/SEC 1 are on the same DC bus, right?

Lightning - history
 

I can find only one accident (PAA 707, 1963) in which a jet transport aircraft was brought down by lightning. Better tank vent design seems to have overcome this problem since that time.

SAR Effort
 

Gentlemen,
Although the Brazil's Minister of Defence is claiming that the debris field found this afternoon contains the wreckage of AF447 (although I'll grant that it probably is), personally I feel his statement is rather premature. I would rather wait until Friday, by which time the first Brazilian Navy vessel will have reached the area, collected the first items and relayed to Airbus and AF the pertinent data. However, since politicians are politicians, I suppose that this is to be expected

Cheers

In May 1976 Iranian Air Force B747-100 was hit by lightning with fatal consequences.

ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 747-131F 5-8104 Madrid

@Eagle21
Remotely possible, but the outflow valves even if driven fully
open would not depressurize the cabin very rapidly as long as there
was bleed air and at least one pack operating.

Catastrophic break up
 

I accept that speculation can be dangerous, but there is a great pool of knowledge on this forum, especially from experienced crew.
An overall look at the posts tends towards:
* A catastrophic lightning strike is beyond reality.
* Given the stress testing on A330 (and other) airframes, turbulence would have had to have been unprecedented to bring about a mid-air break up.
* The lack of pilot comms suggest sudden and total loss.
* The apparent size of the debris field tends to indicate a catastrophic break up at considerable altitude.
So do we not have an explosion here? Either by some bizarre confluence of events (aka the TWA Atlantic explosion some years ago), or by malice?
The fact no terror group has claimed responsibility does not rule out mental instability of an individual - either against themselves or against others.
I am very interested - and crew who fly there regularly would be able to tell us - in the level of pre-flight security, including baggage checking, in Rio.

IIAF B747 Spain comes to mind and I'm sure that IGH will have a page full of details on others :)

however you comment about better tank design and add in grounding of joints, flash arrestors etc. has made this cause even scarcer since these very old reports.

Good info on violent thunderstorms and where they form:

NASA Satellite Finds The World's Most Intense Thunderstorms

I'm curious if we have any type of confirmation that the 1st automatic report was in fact the AP disconnect and the shift to alternate logic? If so based on my limited understanding that would indicate that an upset of some type preceded the following cascade of electrical and system failure warnings. If the initial domino in the chain had been a lightening strike (positive or standard) wouldn't the electrical warnings be either 1st or in close sequence?

It appears that the initial upset was 1-3 minutes prior to the burst of follow up system failure warnings. Has AF clarified or released the order, "time stamp" and content of the warnings as of yet?

rudder...one more time please
 

capn bloggs

it would have been so simple to just answer the question. I had read the previous posts and am confused.

It would seem SOME airbus 330/200 series planes have mechanical links via hydraulics to the rudder

and that latter models have electrical controls of the rudder without mechanical links.

But electrical controls are different than electronic controls...at least in my world and understanding of the words.

So, someone other than capn bloggs, would you please clue me in?

Electrical implies no computer, but electrical control.

It may also interest some to know that the Airbus 330/300 has a smaller rudder and vertical stabilizer than the A330/200

PaleBlueDot wrote . . . . This is what has really surprised me the most out of all this tragedy. I flew helicopters for a bottom feeder company in the Gulf of Mexico, 5 seat, 400K USD crappy helicopters, BUT these helicopters had a Blue Sky Network tracking via Iridium satelites, and the company knew my position almost every minute! They had a girls sitting in a room looking at a computer screen looking at all the aircraft moving around all the time, and if I had a problem, all I had to do was to push a yellow button and her screen would turn red and my position be updated every few seconds.

I find it incredible that AirFrance didint know exactly where they lost contact with the plane, I heard several times that there were searching this huge 1000 mile radius area!! That is absurd from my point of view, how can a company operating a 20 year old 5 person helicopter know where there helicopter is at all times, and AF not know EXACTLY where they lost contact with their 200+ person plane!!!???

Sorry if this is a repeat, but to answer Valkyrie

According to Steve Creedy in this morning's Australian, the make on AF is different to that used by QF. I believe he said this was from a 'reputable source', but did not name them/it.

EDIT: Link to Steeve Creedy's article... the text is slightly altered to the hard copy I read. Disaster focus on Qantas A330 incident over WA | The Australian

Also, sorry if I missed it (but a lot of posts are getting moved/deleted) in regard to my earlier question about ELTs...

The fixed ones in the a/c, do they activate on contact with water or only due to a high impact force? E.g., if an aircraft broke up mid-air does that mean the ELT would not activate?

Someone mentioned EK aircraft having a manual switch in the flight deck. Is this in addition to any mechanism which activates the ELT (that is, an extra option)? Does anyone know if AF also have this feature? If so, no mention of ELT signals so far would suggest that whatever happened, there was not time to hit that switch, or that the crew were focused on something else.

Finally, as CC, I am somewhat familiar with the portable 406 beacons carried onboard, but do not profess to know HOW they work. All we are told is in a ditching if you throw them in the water they will activate on their own. Surely these 2 beacons (as usually carried) would have activated whether they were separated at some point form the a/c, or attached to bulkheads, when coming in contact with water (as they would have at some point). Or is this subject to surving impact/fall/fire/high G's?

From comments earlier about fixed ELT, I'm assuming portables won't work once fully submmerged? Not trying to start anything, just looking to expand my knowledge in the hope I'll never have to use it first hand...

A turbulence/load factor-induced jet upset and loss of aerodynamic control with possible engine-flameout is a far, far more likely scenario given conditions at the time and place. Data showing autopilot disengagement and reversion to Alternate Law would also lend credence to that scenario, and possibly exacerbate the situation given the altitude, weight, and q-corner buffet boundaries. No crew would be thinking about (or possibly capable of) radio communication during attempts at recovering from such an event while still experiencing those outside, severe conditions.

Your theory would be the very last thing I'd suspect and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest it, and promoting it smacks of speculative sensationalism. The aircraft wasn't cuising in a benign environement when it was lost. In fact, the enviroment just prior and during the time frame was extremely dynamic in a potentially dangerous (convective) way. Check the met summary and you'll find actual evidence of that.

Time to look also at what was in the cargo hold. Severe turbulence could have upset something that wasn't supposed to be there. A hull breach caused by even a small chemical explosion at FL350 would cause an explosive decompression, which is what I think the ACARS information adds up to.

Whether the crew could recover would depend on what had been damaged during the initial event, but assuming they lost control there and then, the aircraft would break up on the way down due to g forces. Anything in contact with sparks and aviation fuel would catch fire, hence reports of spot fires on the ocean surface.

To SunInMyEyes,


"Pan Am 214 was brought down by a lightning strike in 1963 only 4 years after the Boeing 707 was introduced. Boeing redesigned the fuel vent outlets so it could not happen again. It is not really appropriate to use that accident which happened 46 years ago to substantiate your argument of how dangerous lightning strikes can be."


Yes, but if you read my post, I'm talking about positive lightning. The re-designing of fuel vent outlets will have made absolutely no difference to the outcome of a positive lightning strike to any aircraft as positive lightning was only discovered in the 70's.
Data from the National Transportation Safety Board on lightning-related incidents in the US from 1967-93 recorded 40 lightning-related aircraft accidents. There were 10 commercial airplane accidents reported, 4 of which were associated with 260 fatalities and 28 serious injuries.
I don't believe lightning applies to Air France here, but it is not as benign as folks make out.

@jauh -both hot bus 1 and dc ess. bus probably, I agree with your idea...

SLF/PPL here, so forgive the question, but if there was a hull breach in sev turb and bearing in mind the Qantas 747 where the hull was breached by the crew 02 tank, could a similar event have happened to this aircraft. i.e. bottle detached and provoked to explode.

In sev turb, could an otherwise survivable breach cuase a break up.

Apologies if the A330 system/02 bottle design renders this a non starter.

I fly as a pax on the A330 a lot and am therefore concerned about this incident.

While many people keep going on about how this was explosive, the initial messages sent by the aircraft were not about de-pressurisation. They were about electrical/systems failures. Unless there is other evidence, the de-pressurisation should be viewed as a result, not a cause of the failures (eg. bombs, cargo, holes formed in the hull by lightening etc). Even now the initial quotes of depresserisation has now moved to more important vertical speed warnings as the last messages. This would suggest that the aircraft was in trouble then out of control. 5kms length wise spread of pieces found over a day later would easy be done by currents, and the fact it's in length wise, not area would help add to this. From an separation at 35,000 feet you would expect a much larger area with larger pieces in different areas that had air resistance on them.



As for the lack of radio contact, if all the systems were going dead around you at once in the middle of the Atlantic, I would be a lot more worried about the aircraft and lives then sending out a dooms day message for arm chair experts.

One thing that does that does interest me is if the statement of the aircraft experiencing turbulence by Air France was from the aircraft, or by their own guesses (as they have not stated any contact made to them after the ATC messages). Maps here also suggest that at that time they were not in the main storm and AF gave a very round figure for the time. This would not be the first time AF blamed lightening and turbulence straight away. Doing so in the past moved the blame away from them in the media, and right now they have very little blame on them from the media again (seems like a very effective method, but at the cost of the whole industry).

I very much doubt that it is any more susceptible than other comparable aeroplane.

When the A330 was under consideration for the UK's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft programme, one of my first queries was whether the susceptibility of the FBW system to EMI, for example caused by a receiver aircraft in close formation leaving its intercept radar on by mistake, had been considered. "Yes", I was told, "there is no issue".

Personally, I consider the EMI accident theory to be a roseate herring.

Flight in CB has leaded to crash in history
 

Back in 1981 in the netherlands a fokker F28 fellowship (later developped through to F100) crashed due heavy turbulence caused by flight through a CB.

The right hand wing separated.

So people stating turbulence can not cause a crash are wrong.

LINK

1°) Electric failure to heat external sensors =>
2°) Iced external sensors =>
3°) Without sensors informations, autopilot disengaged, fly by wire system changed to alternate law =>
4°) flurry of messages regarding ADIRU and ISIS faults
5°) PRIM 1 and SEC 1 faults (again electric failures)
6°) Stall (last message received was an advisory regarding cabin vertical
speed.)

Excellent point, Phalanger, I've been thinking along the same lines. It's 'promising' (if you can use such a word in the current context) in that they'll be able to fix the likely point of impact with a little more accuracy than the earlier reports suggested; which in turn gives them a ghost of a chance of recovering the FDR/CVR. Not good odds on that though, it will probably only make the difference of the radius of search being in tens of miles rather than hundreds.

I have to second that -whatever happened, the available evidence suggests that it happened very quickly. On a related note, suggestions that some sort of worldwide tracking system should be set up to cover all the world's oceans, this would cost literally billions to set up and run (whether it was satellite-based or ship-based); and, again on what little evidence is available, knowing where the aeroplane was would have contributed nothing to prevent the accident, and (now that the wreckage has been located) very little to the task of searching for the FDR/CVR.

Booomerang-Butt, I checked this out and it appears simply to be a difference in standard equipment between the two models (A332/A333) rather than any difference between airline preferences. And, as I'm sure you'll know, the idea that electronic interference may have contributed to the Qantas incident came up mainly because there is a big naval signalling station near Learmonth, where it occurred.

I have read the 32 pages or so of this thread with interest. Some good info,some drivel & a few good theories expressed. I am an A/C Engineer so I am not going to speculate on the exact ins & outs of how to / or not fly an A330, but consider this as a possibility of what happened.

The 3 pilots study there WX briefing in RIO prior to Departure and decide that the WX enroute for the proposed flight plan is not expected to be outside Normal operating limits for the A/C ( It is another conversation to ask how accurate the WX forecast actually was but time will tell when the FDR is downloaded)
The A/C departs & flies on the sheduled route for approx 3 hours uneventfully at night.

I have heard of a case where severe Lightening Bolt punctured the Radome & Disabled the WX Radar antannae thus disabling both radar systems on the A/C - maybe this happened in this case also.

So the crew are now flying with no WX Radar at nite using a WX forecast at least 4 hours old. During that time the storm intensitys & Locations may have increased & changed location. Maybe the crew decided to turn back & hit one of these large storms head on & the extreme wind Forces inside the storm tore the A/C apart.

Does this sound like a realistic possibility to any of you guys who actually fly in that part of the world?

I would like to remark that the latest news reports say: BBC NEWS

Considering it took 24 hours to locate the area, and taking into account the drift from wind and currents , I don't see why we could discard that the aircraft was in one piece until it hit the water.

Although the initial failure report in the automatic message seems to have been about electrical problems (I do not know which) and the "tree" of possibilities of systems degrading from there is a vast one, I have kept in mind since the sad news ot the accident the following facts:
the A330 is a beautiful aircraft but it has shown, again and again , very susceptible to probes icing, with the deicing system on auto (numerous reports). This leads to very rapidly presenting the crew with a very lame aircraft to say the least (I give you a factual example below, recent, on an A330, without comments). This has happened at high cruise altitudes, with no ICE alarm, with the heating on AUTO, and out of clouds in some cases...
"Light tutbulence. The speed indication on the right PFD falls suddenly from 280 to 100 knots in red tape for a few seconds Almost immediately the speed on the left PFD falls to green dot minus 15 knots with a speed trend of minus 50 knots. Red alarm A/P OFF ADR
DISAGREE, IAS DISCREPENCY, ALTN LAW PROT LOST, REAC W/S DET FAULT.
Then amber alarm RUD TRV LIM FAULT.
Then STALL STALL STALL with Toga Lock indication.""
The crew changes flight level, the captain pilots with the stand by instruments,
The speeds become normal again.
The status after that:
amber crosses on PFDs
W/S DET FAULT, ALT LAW PROT LOST, ADR DISAGREE et F/CTL RUD TRV LIM FAULT (2
NOGO).Plane in Alternate law
This shows how an unconfortable event (loss of airspeed indication) that would have been minor in, say , an A300, becomes a major headache in those very sophisticated cockpits. Just for information and not saying that is
a possible explanation...but lose electrics, and apart from dealing with retrieving the generators, you may have that kind of thing loaded on top...
My thoughts go to them all...