AF447

[Jim Croche]

Woodvale, PJ2 and all the many posters (especially including the non-pilot experts on Satcoms etc) who have enlightened us all, thank you!

Woodvale, I sincerely hope that every young pilot who thinks he's untouchable reads your post but somehow I doubt it. So it's up to those of us who have survived to still fly, to ensure they're made fully aware of the dangers of not keeping their handling skills up to scratch and of the limitations of weather radar at high altitudes especially in tropical areas.

Now which airline in the middle east has forbidden their pilots to handfly the a/c?

[einhverfr]

PJ2:

Someone said a transport category aircraft loses control "gracefully" - very true, simply due to it's mass, and this is the very aspect which makes any actions and any recovery at high altitude, (as testified by those who have done high altitude stalls), dubious, especially in the circumstances this crew found themselves.

That might have come from misreading one of my posts. My point though was that the A330 is designed for the flight controls to degrade gracefully, not that the aircraft loses control gracefully. This is why one has 5 flight control laws (Normal, ALT1, ALT2, Abnormal Attitude, and Direct), so that when some protections are not available due to technical reasons, or are not applicable to the current aircraft state, whatever protections are applicable and technically available are used.

Of course gross upsets can happen very fast. I am hoping that folks did not take from my post that I was saying this couldn't happen....

[takata]

ARFOR:
takata Re: Your glide (complete airframe) theory:-
That depends on where the Brazilians found occupants (position, Lat long), verses the occupants found by the French (position, Lat long).

Absolutely not.
The body recovery (and most of the wreckage also) was maped and time stamped (French & Brazilian), I used the official documents released by the BEA showing the day by day recovery. The pattern is obvious: the drift between 6 and 10 June was to the North. Very few bodies (1 or 2) were out of this pattern but not very far away (considering 5+ days at sea), and it may be easily explained by the turbulence of this area.

Do you agree that the two groups were miles apart (minus drift) and could not reasonably have arrived on the surface in the same location?; and then (in the days following) drifted apart (in such dissimilar directions) in two distinctly separate groups?

No. Documents are not showing such a "fact".
Few maps from Brazilian presentations suggested this separation but, in fact, they matched totaly the BEA maps I reported. The explanation was that the Brazilian maps had no dates of recovery, then bodies recovered the 6th were not at the same places as bodies recovered the 9th, but were on the same pattern following the drift.

Following on, which group position (minus drift) are you basing your [pinger/ aft fuse wreckage] assumptions on?

See above, there is only a single group. I took each day the northern most recovered and made an estimation of the total drift that I reported for the previous five days (0.4 m/s average). It doesn't give an accurate estimate of the crash area but it is showing that the wreckage distance is much further South (and possibly South-West) from the actual area searched based on the close to 0214 impact hypothesis (40 NM circle around 0210 position).

Beside, the tailfin was in the middle of the body pattern, following the same drift, and was recovered June 7th. I discarded other wreckages due to size, density and winds effects.

S~
Olivier

[PJ2]

ARFOR;

PJ Have you a view on the SATCOM in EMER ELEC (RAT or NOT) config?

The AOM/FCOM does not show SATCOM or ACARS available in the EMER ELEC Config, RAT or no RAT QRH procedures.

If the engines are supplying hydraulic power for the emer gen, VHF1 and HF1 are available. HF1 is not available under any other configurations; VHF1 is.

Remember, the services which must be available are under emergency circumstances and which must contemplate using the emergency electrical (hydraulic) generator run either by the engines or the RAT (very bad circumstances) right down to the ship's batteries, are prioritized towards the safety of the aircraft, not communications. "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" is a bread-and-butter way of expressing these priorities. Ship's batteries are certified for about 30 minutes (if I recall), even under these severely reduced services.

The QRH indicates under Navigation equipment, that:

IR 1 & 3 are available until the batteries exhaust themselves - about 30 minutes;
IR 2 is available for 5 minutes;
ADR 1 is available until the batteries exhaust themselves
ADR 3 is available under engine hydraulic power (driving the emer gen) but is not available otherwise;
ADR2 is not available.

SATCOM/ACARS etc would be among the first services to be lost, by design, under the EMER ELEC Config.

The APU battery cannot be used for any other purpose other than starting the APU.

[PJ2]

einhverfr;

That might have come from misreading one of my posts. My point though was that the A330 is designed for the flight controls to degrade gracefully, not that the aircraft loses control gracefully. This is why one has 5 flight control laws (Normal, ALT1, ALT2, Abnormal Attitude, and Direct), so that when some protections are not available due to technical reasons, or are not applicable to the current aircraft state, whatever protections are applicable and technically available are used.

Of course gross upsets can happen very fast. I am hoping that folks did not take from my post that I was saying this couldn't happen....

Yes, I did mis-recall/misunderstand that statement, thank you. I was thinking more of "mass" of an airframe than I was of software design; to me, both outcomes, (degradation of control laws, LOC) are however, "graceful" in the sense that they happen relatively slowly and, in the case of loss of control of a large (widebody) airliner, insidiously, which is all I meant. Thanks again for correcting the impression.

[ARFOR]

PJ Thankyou, so we know that the aircraft had no thrust and/or stable (SATCOM aerial up) attitude after 02h 14

takata yes I followed that closely. My point, from the 'mapped positions' is:-

We cannot discount aircraft sections separating at altitude based on this drift theory (alone)?

In other words, even if (hypothetically only) the aircraft fuse separated into sections at FL350 or thereabouts, (or anywhere between FL350 and SL), what lateral dispersal could we expect on the surface (worse case)? 2,5,8 - 10nm?

Drift from those hypothetical (unknown) positions over days?

I am not saying a controlled descent was not possible, just pointing out that the dispersal does not definitively say one or the other!

The known wreckage, well that’s another story (previous post/s)!

[p51guy]

Just the evidence of high vertical G loads indicating it hit fairly flat on it's fuselage by itself doesn't mean it was in a flat spin. The Amsterdam recent incident crashed much like that landing flat but with a high sink rate. If they were in a spiral dive and saw the ocean coming towards them in the final seconds they would attempt to pull out wings level but if they couldn't they might hit flat or even nose up with a very high sink rate at impact. I hope somebody finds the black boxes to find out exactly what happened.

[BOAC]

Originally Posted by woodvale

6. I understand that airline managements are accepting that the pendulum has swung too far

- excuse me for plucking from your good post, but do you have good evidence of this? It would be welcome news if so.

[barit1]

rgbrock1 -

The aero loads during a spin are not destructive; a spin starts with the aircraft in a stalled (low-speed) condition, and even in a flat spin the aircraft should be expected to hold together. The rate of descent is of course high, and in an intentional spin a pilot will be planning his recovery (or escape) at a generous altitude.

In an airliner-size aircraft, though, the long fuselage means that things near the front or the aft of the ship are subjected to a lot of centrifugal force, perhaps enough to be incapacitating. (Think tilt-a-whirl at the carnival.)

[Cazman]

CVR/FDR

If the black boxes are recovered, which is starting to look unlikely, how much good would the FDR data be? Wouldn't the data recorded be unreliable if it is coming from the computers and flight directors?

Isn't the data recorded derived from the same computers that sent the ACARS messages indicating there were problems, or does the FDR get it's information from an independent source?

I'm starting to wonder if the FDR will be just as confusing (for lack of a better term) as the ACARS messages.

I think our best shot at answers would be the CVR.

[Will Fraser]

EMIT

Your post is noted. My point in focusing on the parts of the report that are not conclusive but purport to be and the potential for people to "misunderstand" is to show how unprofessional it is. In a long life I have worked as both an investigator and a technical writer. I will leave you with this.

'ligne de vol' - Line of flight. period. The French have a word for horizontal which would have been my choice to convey 'level'. The word is, 'horizontal'. Words have meaning, and subtly guide the reader.

The a/c was not 'flying', it was crashing. Minor? Depends on one's perspective. Here we casually trash the journalist who can't get things right and displays a vocabulary that is amateurish. Do we not hold the investigators to a higher standard? Why make note of bodies discovered that were 'apparently well preserved', but not mention there were others?
No explanation for a lack of Medical data? 'We hadn't received the results' does not wash, IMO.

The Chinese say, "A half truth is a whole lie."

[takata]

drift hypothesis

ARFOR:
takata yes I followed that closely. My point, from the 'mapped positions' is:-
We cannot discount aircraft sections separating at altitude based on this drift theory (alone)?
In other words, even if (hypothetically only) the aircraft fuse separated into sections at FL350 or thereabouts, (or anywhere between FL350 and SL), what lateral dispersal could we expect on the surface (worse case)? 2,5,8 - 10nm?

What the "drift" hypothesis is pointing is that the aircraft flew back at some point after 0210, turned and glided back before crashing at a distance of about 100-120 NM from where the first bodies were recovered.

If things happened like that, and in order to glide that far, the aircraft can't have broken at 35,000 ft or below, and the airframe would have to be fairly well preserved until the crash happened (with most of her control surfaces still there). I have no theory how she finaly crashed but a configuration where the pilots may have lost control of the aircraft at some point (like battery exhaustion) is much easily understandable than just because of an unreliable speed event (especially when this same company A340/330 division experienced 9 of this events during the previous 2 years - this problem was know by the pilots flying those aircraft).

Next, the "breaking appart" hypothesiss is based on "severe (forte) to extreme turbulences" which are unproven at the first place. At 0210, the turbulence level of this flight would have ranged from no turbulence to moderate (auto thrust setting). There was no communications about any turbulences from this flight ever contrary to the tale raported by Air France (1st June) at the same time as the lightning story (none or very few lightning activity reported by meteorologists in the area).

I am not saying a controlled descent was not possible, just pointing out that the dispersal does not definitively say one or the other!

The impact zone, if discovered, will reveal where and when (aproximately) this aircraft crashed and will tell us a lot about how the aircraft managed to end there. This will rule out many hypothesis by this simple fact. No impact zone discovered so far 40 NM around 0210 position is telling us also that the chance that it crashed in this already searched area are not as much probable, but not totally impossible if the pingers are not working for whatever reason.

On this map below, I reported the sea current forecast made 5th June by the French Navy Hydrographical Service (SHOM). Using the vectors and the currents strength level boundaries (up to 0.6 m/s at some points, blue values) , this give this curved line where I reported back the daily positions from d06 to 01 (crash time). Sea surface currents are only one part of the drift vector and the winds are predominently from South-East, which, depending of the weather can build this northern drift vector.
The search area is also reported and is still short of the crash area predicted (about 80 NM South-South-West of Last report).

[MATELO]

Can i surmise that a flat spin is possible, but highly unlikely.

So, what are the chances that there was a multiple instrument failure on board 447. if this was going on, what are the chances the pilots forgot the most important thing...... Fly the plane.

Did they get carried away with progressive faults and didnt notice the aircraft was in a steady descent for a number of mins, only for it to become more critical at lower altitudes. Did they only realise how low they were when they heard the "terrain, pull up" alarm (various accidents have been attributed to pilots worrying about minor faults, and fogetting to fly the plane). Would this result in them pulling as hard as they could on the stick, resulting in the plane trying to climb out, only to hit the ocean at a worrying speed and angle.

Not passing judgement on the aircrew, just offering up another suggestion.

[fyrefli]

Originally Posted by Will Fraser

The impact's description is confusing. It may or may not be purposely so. Vertical impact without forward movement extinguishes the need to even mention a 'direction', any direction would be irrelevent. If they meant 'in the direction of flight' I challenge them to support their conclusion. How in God's name can a heading be determined at impact? Even if it was 'important'. To prove the a/c fell 7 miles not experiencing a heading deviation? There is something more here than 'misunderstanding'.

Unfortunately, "en ligne de vol" happens to be one of those phrases that, when translated, is apt to subtly change meaning, whichever of the various English alternatives is used.

A someone whose French was close to fluent at one time and having just refreshed it with a week's flying and chatting to French pilots in the Alps, I agree with EMIT, a few posts ago, that its use in the original French is almost certainly intended simply to convey that the BEA believe the aircraft hit the water with its horizontal motion in the usual direction and not to imply anything about its heading.

I was tempted just to send this as a PM but the English translation seems to be causing more than localised confusion. Apologies to the mods in advance if you find this post unnecessary.

[SaturnV]

takata, with respect to drift, and possible point of impact, and whether there was a controlled glide or not.

First image is of the search grids for June 1 as flown by the Brazilian Air Force.



Second and third images charts the recoveries of bodies and wreckage on June 6. Top image numbers the wreckage items, but gives no coordinates. Bottom image gives no item numbers, but gives coordinates. I know of only one item that has so far been described as being recovered this day from this area, and that was a seat cushion with a serial number. From an eyeball glance, I believe that if the bodies and wreckage had been where they were on June 6th, these would have been within the Brazilian Air Force search grid for June 1. (Red dots represent a body(ies).





The plot of the recoveries on June 7. The VS is marked in yellow.



June 8.



June 9. (These and all subsequent recoveries are now north of the latitude of Tasil).



The surface current between June 1 and June 6 centered on 3N and 30.5W, as prepared by the French Ministry of Defense.



The surface current between May 31 and June 4, centered on June 2


The surface current between June 5 and June 9, centered on June 7 (NOAA/NASA charts).


All the above charts and plots strongly suggest that AF 447 deviated to the west. How far west and on what heading it flew remains conjecture.

[takata]

SaturnV:
takata, with respect to drift, and possible point of impact, and whether there was a controlled glide or not.

Yes thank you, but, what is the point for reposting that?
It was already posted. The sea surface current maps that you are showing are not detailed enough and possibly build from seasonal averages. The SHOM map is much more usefull and the level of precision 10 times higher than that, and, as you may have noticed, I included it.

Nevertheless, sea surface currents are only a vector of the actual drift and the actual drift is mostly a function of the object drifted which will include plenty of other parameters, including weather. We just don't know them for building a more detailed model including all the wreckages. My point is just a rough estimation and I hope that they will cover this area soon and before the pingers will stop emitting.

[Hyperveloce]

to assess the possible drift of the bodies/debris, shouldn't surface winds (E->W) and even wave trains (SW->NE) be taken into account along with surface currents (SW->NE) being considered here ? knowing the distribution of the recovered debris in space and time, knowing all the history of the metocean data, it should be possible to rewind the movie to the 1st of June with a numerical code to get more accurate results ? typically in the realm of expertise of the IFREMER and the SHOM, and the kind of analysis I expected in the BEA report, the kind of analysis one could make to establish an underwater search area. Now, maybe a numerical code is available or some goodwilling expert in the relevant oceanic lab could help.
Jeff
PS) if it is not the case for all the debris, we know pretty well human bodies characteristics.

[singpilot]

We all forget one additional 'factor' in the sea surface search. The immediate area has every afternoon, evening and night, been subject to massive thunderstorm activity, with rain, localized downdrafts and wave-creating winds impacting the surface. Location of the storms are as variable as the winds they create as they 'migrate' across the region.

[mm43]

Squawk_ident

You got the point.
I knew the mp3 snippet release by the FAB . It's the only official information that TASIL was estimated at 0220. And the controller speaking to Dakar states "Mach 82" But this estimation is not correct at 0.82. It should have been 0211 something like this.

I got the point alright, but I inadvertently used an incorrect ETO ORARO.

The BY INTOL 0133z with ETO SALPU 0148 and ETO ORARO 0200z places a new aspect on what took place during the last exchange with ATLANTICO. The following are the extracted distances and speeds from the BEA report on the track of AF447 with auto SATCOM positions. The mean GS through the period of interest was 467KT, which equates to M0.82 at FL350 OAT -46°C.

0130Z
..........78.9NM 473KT
0140Z
..........78.0NM 468KT
0150Z
..........77.4NM 464KT
0200Z
..........77.2NM 463KT
0210Z

Looking at the ETO SALPU & ORARO given at INTOL, the reason for ATLANTICO's request for the TASIL estimate becomes clearer. The reason for no response may be a little more sinister.

INTOL 0133
.................122.5NM 490KT
SALPU 0148
.................122.4NM 612KT
ORARO 0200

ATLANTICO have woken up the the large discrepancy, but for some strange reason did nothing more than call the aircraft 3 times on HF with no reported use of SELCAL.

The ETO SALPU & ORARO should have been -

INTOL 0133
.................122.5NM 467KT
SALPU 0149
.................122.4NM 467KT
ORARO 0204
.................119.4NM 467KT
TASIL 0220 (364.3/467) * 60 = 46.8 minutes.

The question I wish to raise is, "What was happening on the Flight Deck?" On the basis of the established facts there definitely seems to be no known reason why they would come up with estimates that are grossly wrong.

mm43

[takata]

Hyperveloce:
...typically in the realm of expertise of the IFREMER and the SHOM, and the kind of analysis I expected in the BEA report, the kind of analysis one could make to establish an underwater search area. Now, maybe a numerical code is available or some goodwilling expert in the relevant oceanic lab could help.

Hi Jeff,

Sure. But as far as I understand from the interim report. This area of the Ocean was not the most documented of the whole, then the Pourquoi Pas? and the SHOM team was tasked with the mission of filling the many gaps in knowledge.

The first "carroyage" was made by the Navy and, being an ex member of this establishment, I understand it like a "systematic search (very École Navale and Cartesian)" starting from the reference point (0210 last report), and not a SHOM best guess based on sea currents and drifts. Moreover, this matched the most obvious hypothesis: plane crashed at 0214, then no more than 40 NM from 0210.

Now, if the search fails to find the recorders, they will switch to SHOM method in order to locate the wreck and to reduce the perimeter (and cost/time considering the hard work it will be).

S~
Olivier