@mm_flynn

Flightaware's log shows
Thu 03:29:31 33.6768 28.7912 137° Southeast 534 615 37,000 FlightAware ADS-B (GZP / LTFG)

that is actual ADSB from one or more LTFG receivers

so it seems ADSB quit at that time at FL370. 9 seconds later disappeared from radar. strange huh :confused:


00:26Z 3044 ANTI ICE R WINDOW
00:26Z 561200 R SLIDING WINDOW SENSOR
00:26Z 2600 SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE
00:27Z 2600 AVIONICS SMOKE
00:28Z 561100 R FIXED WINDOW SENSOR
00:29Z 2200 AUTO FLT FCU 2 FAULT
00:29Z 2700 F/CTL SEC 3 FAULT


so ACARS first, followed by ADSB failure followed by the radar. I wonder if there is any truth in that 'witness' report about seeing a fireball...

Just my opinion and certainly not zero probability. We will see

The first engineering CFDS messages that were transmitted were:

00:26Z 3044 ANTI ICE R WINDOW
00:26Z 561200 R SLIDING WINDOW SENSOR
00:26Z 2600 SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE

The first 2 are associated with a failure of WHC 2 in the avionics bay but only generate one ECAM warning between them which is:
ANTI ICE R WINDSHIELD. That's the first clue that all is not well as WHC2 fails in the avionics bay below the FO's feet.

The front part of the aircraft is not entirely segmented so smoke/fumes will not be confined to the avionics bay..... so the next bit of bad news is:

SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE (presumably toilet A). Remember the toilet smoke detectors are not only sensitive (to gentleman's hair spray amongst other stuff) but they are also single channel, unlike:-

SMOKE AVIONICS SMOKE which goes straight to the top of the ECAM warning list in red, but remember.... it requires both of the 2 detectors to be triggered before the warning latches on so it is slower that a toilet warning. All the Airbus professionals here know where this warning is leading, especially if you already have evidence that something is going wrong in the avionics bay. So in no time at all the Smoke checklist takes you into Emergency Electrical Configuration (EEC) and the workload goes through the roof.

It is difficult enough hand flying a big jet at high altitude with everything working normally but the Captain is now flying at high altitude, with only his basic instrumentation with the aircraft in Alternate Law. As the crew of Air Asia 8501 found out.... flying at altitude in Alternate Law is VERY demanding on a pilot, trying to do that in an environment of increasing smoke, maybe already on oxygen may have been too much for them.

I would have also made a turn to the left, towards Paphos, in order to land ASAP. I believe control was lost shortly thereafter.

Or those systems simply shutting down as a result of ELEC EMER config.

somethingbrite

Excellent checkpoint on facts vs supposition :ok:

The cause speculators often stretch their suppositions into factual support.

This is the main reason why we should wait for time stamped and correlated black box data and not rely on maintenance oriented signals as factual time stamps.

For many accidents even black box data is not sufficient to conclude the causes without corresponding examination of hardware.

We have a long way to go on this one

Initial reports of satellites seeing a heat flash have been walked back, so it's looking less likely that it was a sudden event (doesn't rule out incendiary device).

LA Times: EgyptAir Flight 804: No explosion detected by satellites - LA Times

"U.S. reconnaissance satellites did not detect evidence of a large flash or explosion aboard the EgyptAir A320 jetliner, U.S. officials said."

Having just done the scenario set out by Maplug above, this is a realistic outcome from a smoke incident which is not quickly curtailed. Frankly, it is unpleasant to do in the safety of the sim.
Having flown Airbus for years, I have always been a little puzzled by the lack of fire suppression in the avionics bay.

A normal radio call and then two minutes later nothing ? This has to be a sudden event

Could anyone comment on the ability of a single member of SLF to take out an aircraft using nothing other than items allowed onboard.

I know AC 797 was a discarded butt (ie not intentional), but if your intention was malice and you had a litre of duty free vodka + reams of available paper in the toilet + a single ignition source?

Night flight, would anyone be looking at who took what into the toilet?

In a actual aircraft explosive decompression if the aircraft is more then a few years old you will often get a lot of dust flying which will set off a particulate style detector.

Sorry, poor choice of words. In reply to the earlier post, I meant sudden event as in "explosion resulting in fireball seen from the ground, or detected by satellite."

I sincerely hope that if anyone could comment with authority born of expertise on this subject, that they would have the wit not to do so on a publicly available forum.

It's off topic but you've hit a nail I've been banging for years.

We forbid all kinds of items through security.

Then once they're airside we let the pax buy bottles of high-proof rum in duty-free. Stick a napkin in the neck and you have a moderately effective improvised Molotov cocktail. Break the bottle over the seat in front of you and you have an improvised weapon no less deadly than a boxcutter. A coordinated attack along those lines by multiple individuals is possible and it might even be effective - but damn few people seem to be willing to even consider the possible vulnerabilities there.

The official report of AC 797 says the ignition source was undetermined.

PROBABLE CAUSE: "A fire of undetermined origin

Electrical fire, just not sure exactly which circuit was the first to start arcing. Not caused by passenger.

Rear bulkhead failure repair 4 years previous is likely linked.

Again, the NTSB report does not say electrical fire. It says "undetermined origin".

http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online...s/AAR86-02.pdf

Though the fuselage was nearly destroyed by the intensity of the fire, the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) for flight 797 were still in good condition and produced vital data for the NTSB investigation.[3] On the CVR, NTSB investigators heard eight sounds of electrical arcing—likely inaudible to the crew—beginning at 18:48 CDT. Three minutes later, at 18:51, the popping sounds that Cameron and Ouimet would later identify as the left toilet circuit breaker tripping are audible on the CVR; Cameron attempts to reset the circuits twice over the next 60 seconds, but the CVR records the breakers immediately popping again after each reset attempt.[4] Cameron would attempt once more to reset the breakers at 18:59, but the CVR records arcing sounds followed by the popping sound of the breakers continuing to trip again after each reset over the next 60 seconds.[4] At 19:02, the CVR records flight attendant Judi Davidson entering the cockpit to deliver the first report of a possible fire in the lavatory.[4] Though a number of wires in the lavatory section were later found with insulation stripped away, NTSB investigators were unable to determine whether this insulation damage was the cause of the fire or was caused by the fire.

This from the NTSB report. Cause "undetermined" ? More like can't tell which wire bundle went first. And continual resetting of the tripped circuit breaker was not unrelated, either.

Reading through the posts of last night, I see everyone is still chewing on the same old gum. There is one item in particular which seems to be completely misunderstood, and that is one of the few FACTUAL information we know:

The lost radar contact referred to is SECONDARY RADAR, ATC does not use primary radar any more. The timing almost perfectly matches the loss of data from FR24, etc. indicating that the loss of contact happened while the aircraft was still cruising at FL370. From the statement it is clear that Greek AF primary AD radar did not track the flight, so any subsequent statements made by the minister of defence were likely the result of analysis of stored recordings.

We have zero information on the time it took to FL100, and the taken course itself has not been verified, it is just based on a politician's press statement, and we all know what that's worth. As the last ACARS messages were received very close to this time, it is fair to assume that all communications systems lost power at this point.

As for the ACARS messages, keep in mind that they could:
A) indicate valid faults, the system functioning as designed
B) be generated in error, due to some components of the ECAM system being compromised

In absence of FDR/CVR data, it will take a very lengthy and complicated fault path analysis to establish whether the messages reflect scenario A) or B), until this is known it is meaningless to draw any conclusions based on assumption A).

From known/published FACTS, this is what we know till now:
- Flight progressed on course at FL370 till moment of loss of contact. Last voice communication happened 42 minutes earlier when all appeared normal.
- Flight at LKP was in cruise phase, TOD would have been another 10-15 minutes, approaching the Egyptian coastline.
- ACARS data indicate a series of faults commencing at 3-4 minutes prior to loss of contact. Some of the transmitted ECAM messages suggest smoke in FWD lavatory/avionics bay, however it is yet to be established whether these are valid warnings or have been generated in error.
- Simultaneous loss of ADS-B and ACARS data suggests loss of power to both systems.
- Three minutes prior to loss of contact, crew did not respond to Greek ATC calls, however the area is known to be a blind spot confirmed by several knowledgeable posters, so this by itself would not indicate any problems.
- SUPPOSEDLY some time after loss of contact aircraft entered into a steep descent with some lateral maneuvres (based on analysis of Greek primary AD radar returns), however this is based on Greek MoD press statement made very soon after the accident, may not be verified and needs to be treated with caution.
- Aircraft crashed into the Mediterranean with high energy very close to LKP. This suggests aircraft was still structurally intact at time of impact with the sea (compare wreckage of Metrojet to the very mangled and fragmented pieces recovered so far - the seat-back piece is particularly telling - with Metroject whore rows survived the free-fall practically intact)

ANDRAZ, you have made the best statement so far..

There are a lot of speculations about what happened, based on very very few information, some of them not even reliable...
To make an investigation, for crime or accident, the process has to be followed carefully, following a protocol, step by step, and by PROFESSIONALS..
First is to gather information, then built different scenario and confront them to probability of happening... I know it is a forum, and everyone can express
but I do think that there a lot to much speculations here..

I do work for many years in aviation, as engineer, and I do fly, and one thing I learned is not to go to fast in diagnostic...

So I do not have an idea of what happened, and if someone ask me he or she will be very disappointed to hear me saying "better to wait for the Cvr and DFDR to get an idea"

I have a couple questions regarding the possibility of fire given the ACARS messages.

1. Are there measures in place to mitigate a fire taking out redundant electronic components?

2. Are there any cases of a fly-by-wire airliner (or even a military jet) having a fire in the cargo hold or electronics bay at cruise which maintained control long enough to land? I ask about fly-by-wire particularly because I suspect that the implications of an electrical fire on an electronics-controlled aircraft are somewhat different than on an aircraft with conventional hydrolics (not saying better or worse but wondering about close analogues).

3. What sorts of higher amperage circuits are connected to either the electronics bay or lavatory besides heating elements? Not interested in voltage, but amperage.

I am aware that smoke detectors, particularly ionization ones, can be set off by many things other than smoke (humidity, condensation, even overpressurization), but naturally the first question when one gets messages like this seem to my mind to be "was there a fire?"

I don't see how this can be looked at without finding close analogues. I looked and I could not find any quickly.

One A320 incident which may or may not have any bearing on this accident:

http://www.smartcockpit.com/safety-r...ing_Climb.html

Question to 'bus drivers out there:
Am I correct in observing that a simultaneous loss of transponder signal and ACARS(VHF3) is consistent with electrical power set to emergency under smoke condition ?
(incidentally same would remove power to CVR too)

I agree Macdo-
It may have already been said but night time would make the EEC especially difficult

Today's papers strongly suggest a fire in the avionics bay with a rapid shut down of all the system
They also suggest that the oxygen supply could have been breached further fuelling the fire while depriving crew of oxygen
Smoke was detected in the cockpit and toilet area
So really the question now is whether the fire was a result of an electrical fault or incendiary device fitted in the front portion of the aircraft

I know it might go against the grain here but from:

EgyptAir flight MS804: smoke detected in 'multiple locations' before crash | World news | The Guardian



Similar has been said by the BEA overnight.....

Forget the papers - they're filling space and checking on here every 5 minutes to steal ideas (the crazier the better as faras they are concerned)

Andrasz's summary above is correct - if there is anything else it's not in the public domain yet

I'd only quibble with " based on Greek MoD press statement made very soon after the accident, may not be verified and needs to be treated with suspicion."

I'd replace "suspicion" with "caution" - the Greeks have aboslutely no reason for bias/spin in this one. but in any accident you find initial impressions have to be verified in detail

I've sometimes looked over at my First Officers Ipad plugged into the charger sitting just to the right of his chest and below the window and wondered how nasty it would get if the charging process went awry.
Do Egypt Air have iPads mounted in their aircraft?

ACARS BASHING
 

Some of you don't like ACARS who told the AF447 drama in real time !
Patent ? Money ? Private conception of public science ?:}

Other video of recovered items on a hangar(?) floor show 2 items of interest.
A torn blue carpet,presumably from the aisle with apparent puncture marks and a very badly damaged white handbag.
I'm finding it difficult to visualise how such damage could be caused if these items were just ejected at altitude.
Could airflow effect alone cause such damage to the white handbag.
Hopefully the CVR be located soon to give some closure.

In case someone missed it, overnight Simon updated AHV with the following information:

With this information, as well as others we know to be factual, it s possible to state several things that DID NOT HAPPEN:

- The ACARS messages indicate a development of events over a period of 3-4 minutes, while the aircraft remained straight and level. This is not consistent with any sudden catastrophic event, and the faults indicate that there was something wrong with aircraft systems, whatever led to the catastrophe was not initiated by human input only (ie. no hijack/suicide type scenario).
- The damage from recovered parts/objects so far confirm a high energy impact, which in turn indicates a structurally intact aircraft, suggesting that the descent began in a controlled manner with subsequent incapacitation or loss of control (uncontrolled descent from FL370 would lead to structural breakup, with individual parts subsequently slowed down by aerodynamic drag, the sea impact creating relatively little further damage). Thus there was no high level disintegration due to any bomb or mechanical failure.
- Loss of transponder and ACARS communications is consistent with a crew doing their avionics smoke checklist and switching to emergency power, shredding all non-essential load. This is also consistent with the descent having been initiated by a crew still in control.


@HH, right you are, word replaced.

I'm curious about the incendiary device, Pace. Is there any history of using such devices to bring down planes? Why would a terrorist organization go for an incendiary rather than a bomb with a more certain effect? Why would a terrorist organization want to leave any ambiguity about its role in the disaster?

Comcomtech I think there's a number of people on here, Pace included, who are confirmationally biased to push the terrorism angle even now when all evidence is indicating to the contrary.

Saw that damage to white hand bag and took me straight back to the picture of the rear bulkhead and door trim of the Russian a/c that was blown up .

I think terrorism is looking less and less likely but a planted incendiary device cannot be ruled out.
There is a complete lack of terrorist claims so in all probability something went wrong where a fire started in the avionics bay or near there
Having experienced dense smoke at night in the cockpit of a business jet 12 years ago I really feel for those guys. Smoke of that type is acrid and awful to breath if they also had flames it would have been a nightmare.
Add rapid decompression and a possible failure of the oxygen system? A horrendous situation. My thoughts go to them and their PAX

Smoke sensor for avionics is located inside extract duct which is common for both waste air from the avionics and cockpit panel.

https://plus.google.com/wm/1/+Aviati...ts/b4KGS4xNpDz

The smoke sensors in avionics and lavatories are optical that means they act in case of aerosol and/or solid particles in the air.

Given the current idea of fire, I am wondering if Framer might be raising a rather valid question. If an Ipad battery went berserk in the cockpit, what would the crew be able to do?

They should use hand extinguisher for the little LiON batery in case of their thermal runaway

We have procedures in place and train for exactly such an event either in the cockpit or the cabin.

I thought it might worth re-posting this statement that I made earlier in this thread.

The galley oven will be able to contain the fire:
https://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/ppt/syst...FireTests.pptx

Not at all. ACARS is not designed as an accident investigation tool, but as an advance warning system for maintenance issues that may need to be dealt with by engineering on arrival. Because of this it has some inherent limitations in circumstances such as these. You say ACARS told the story of AF447 in real time. No - it told some of the story, didn't tell crucial parts of it (because it was not designed so to do - stall-inducing pilot control inputs, for example), and also reported incidents somewhat out of order of occurrence, and in bursts (again, quite "correctly" from its design and purpose).

Which leads to a question. How confident are we that the present ACARS reflects the actual timing of the events it was transmitting? Or that it will necessarily have transmitted prior events (perhaps decompression) before losing power? As I recall, much of the AF447 ACARS discussion focused on similar issues, until all (or most....) was eventually clarified by the FDR and CVR.