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."