If CFMU data I'm looking at is correct (an assumption) then the last reporting point reached was LUSOL and it reported at FL380. The town of Digne is only about 20nm away from LUSOL so an extreme descent rate of -14000fpm might sound silly but would be in line with something catastrophic

Because 374kts groundspeed and 3,300 fpm descent rate at 7,000' indicate they would have been using some if not all Speedbrake.

Probably extrapolated from the altitude/speed charts above. Over 400kts (presumably ground speed) at <7000ft would suggest a high KIAS. Keeping that up as well as a high ROD would probably need speed brakes.

I thought 24 knots was a very strange number so I went to the source and clicked the play button. It rapidly became apparent that 24 knots is at the very start of the flight, while the aircraft is taxiing.

"Because 374kts groundspeed and 3,300 fpm descent rate at 7,000' indicate they would have been using some if not all Speedbrake."

....or some other problem that we don't know about, like a reverser deployed, structural damage, etc, etc.
The descent rate quoted is an averaged one.

Sheesh, everyones an expert...including "Neil Hansford - Aviation EXPERT" currently blabbing on BBC world.

http://avherald.com/h?article=483a5651&opt=0

Worth to read. May take a while to load the page as the site is congested because of this

I don't think that is based on any evidence. Probably more by inverse deduction. I.e. the lack of many other conceivable ways how an airliner can fly a rather stable and moderately steep more or less straight trajectory from Cruise level into ground with airspeed in the terminal phase >300kts and constant heading. Lack of communication compounding to this Thesis.


For any solid Facts we will have to wait rather weeks than hours although some pieces of the puzzle might come to light earlier.

Did it make a position report? Very unusual these days especially over an intersection

Looking at the time stamps (the mtime column), I'm guessing the minimum 'tick' is 10ms (assuming the time from the glitch to the last data point is about 10 minutes).

So looking at that -14,144 @ time 1427189420 and altitude 37900 @ 1427189470 the aircraft looks have lost ~100m in 5 seconds. However, the error bars on that are somewhat unknown, at least to me, although from other entries, ~25m seems to be the resolution

So the glitch may just be an extrapolation of a short duration event to the projected loss over a minute.

Aviation journalist Anthony Davis on Sky News raising the question of why airlines don't have live data feeds to satellites.

Aircraft delivered to Lufthansa in January 1991 and transferred to Germanwings in January 2014 (most of the Germanwings fleet are A319s).

I think it was intended to transfer some or most of this fleet to EuroWings later this year.

Photo: D-AIPX (CN: 147) Lufthansa Airbus A320-211 by John Fitzpatrick Photoid: 7120355 - JetPhotos.Net

Is 400 knots GS and 3000fpm ROD (4.1 degree slope) consistent with a stall?

I know that part of the world. It's extremely rugged, and a lot of the roads, such as they are, will still be impassable for a couple of months because of the depth of snow. I doubt it'll be possible to get anybody near the crash site other than by helicopter.

I agree that French television is awful. I've just seen an interview with an individual, described as a former "airline captain," saying that a multiple birdstrike might have been one of the causes.

Old Haltonian.


I would think the time of useful consciousness at FL400 would be 15-20 seconds after the time the oxygen supply had been interrupted. If it was a "explosive decompression" the time available would be nominal.

Yes but Barcelonette, near where the plane actually came down, is another 40 nm from Digne which reduces the assumed descent rate by two thirds.

Alain Vidalies, Minister of Transport, says that "several bodies" had been seen around the wreckage of the aircraft. Presumably this suggests an impact with limited forward speed. Europe 1 also reports that the aircraft is "almost entirely in one piece."

Vidalies : le survol "a permis de voir la carcasse de l'avion et quelques corps autour'" - Vidéo Dailymotion

https://twitter.com/Europe1/status/580330987235704832

Germanwings Airbus Crashes in France; Survivors Unlikely (1)
By Benedikt Kammel and Andrea Rothman
(Bloomberg) -- An Airbus A320 crash in southern France may have claimed the lives of all 154 people on board, in what would be the worst air accident on French soil in decades.
Germanwings Flight 9525 operated by the low-cost subsidiary of Deutsche Lufthansa AG went down in the Digne region about an hour north of Marseille en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, Germany, according to German air-traffic control authorities. Wreckage has been sighted, and French President Francois Hollande said there are unlikely to be any survivors.
“This is a tragedy that has happened on French soil,” Hollande said in Paris. “We need to show all support in the face of this drama.”
The crash is likely to be the most fatal in at least three decades in France and is the first for Germanwings. The A320 single-aisle jet is Airbus’s most popular model, and is an industry workhorse used on shorter distances. The planes are generally operated with about 150 passengers or slightly more in low-cost variants. There were 154 people on board the plane, including crew, according to German air-traffic authorities, which said the plane went down around 10:37 a.m. local time.
Germanwings operates Deutsche Lufthansa’s European routes outside of the German carrier’s main Frankfurt and Munich hubs. The move was designed for Lufthansa to better compete against budget carriers in Europe. Lufthansa, like its European peers, has come under pressure to lower costs as more people opt for no-frills airlines on shorter distances.
Rugged Terrain
The plane went down in rugged terrain, according to Hollande, who is coordinating a crisis response with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The actual crash site is at a higher altitude in the Le Vernet, near Prads-Haute-Bleone. Firemen and rescue teams are reaching the area, which is is about 58 miles northwest of Nice and 25 miles west of the Italian border, in a region of Provence popular with hikers and campers in the summer.
Radar images from Meteo-France showed no showers in the area at 10:30 a.m., minutes before the reported crash time. A weather station in Seyne, less than 10 kilometers north of reported crash site, measured winds of 3 kilometers per hour at the time with gusts up to 9.7 kilometers per hour, a light breeze on the Beaufort scale.
Dark Hour
Airbus said it’s focusing “all efforts” on assessing the situation, and that it’s been informed about an accident that involves one of the Toulouse, France-based products. The A320 aircraft is by far Airbus’s most widely flown model, and the aircraft has been popular with carriers around the world because it serves a key segment of the market and is equipped with advanced technologies such as fly-by-wire controls.
Germanwings plans to hold a press conference at about 3 p.m. in Cologne to provide an update. At Dusseldorf airport, where the plane was due to land shortly before noon, local crisis-response teams were on standby to assist relatives.
“As soon as definite information is available, we shall inform the media immediately,” the airline said.
Airbus dropped as much as 3.1 percent in Paris trading, while Lufthansa fell as much as 6 percent in Frankfurt.
Lufthansa Chief Executive Officer Carsten Spohr said in a message that the company doesn’t yet know what happened, though that “if our fears are confirmed, this is a dark day for Lufthansa.”

Here are engine-out ceilings from the manual:
https://i.imgur.com/99vPwAH.png

So similar to the 75/76, mid-to-low 20-thousands at medium gross weights, depending on ISA, packs, anti-ice, etc.

Why would you want to head to the Alps when few miles right you have NCE?

Drift Down EO, even from FL380, will be only a few hundred fpm, and done at slow(er) speed. I would suggest a single engine failure is not worth much more discussion?