AF447

[Starter Crew]

if a pilot gets (yes it shows on ECAM) a failure of pitot heat...

Would a pitot heat failure produce any associated ACARS message or is the relevant message likely to be tied to those downstream components (e.g. ADIRU) as a start point for maintenance activity after flight?

[DorianB]

Here is a shot a day before the crash...showing the missing paint on the leading edge:

Photos: Airbus A330-203 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

[A33Zab]

Engines

Dazdaz:
Anyone know the engine manufacturer on this a/c?

GE CF6-80-E1A3

But will it make any difference?

[DADDY-OH!]

Starter Crew

Yes, an ECAM message relating to the Capts/F/O's PHC (Probe Heat Computer) would be flashed via ACARS in sequential order with other detected failiures.

[Lost in Saigon]

Originally Posted by DorianB

Here is a shot a day before the crash...showing the missing paint on the leading edge:

Photos: Airbus A330-203 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

Here is a crop of that photo:

[lomapaseo]

scriabh

I'm sure that the oceans are being monitored (and not by plastic water bottes) to collect data -- there is a lot of monitoring stations that give real-time data on ocean currents -- probably not in this area, and there are a lot of computer models. I am sure that data is being collected by the ships as they trawl for debris to get real-time data -- depth and surface information. again, something I know a fair bit about. my posts keep being deleted

OK, so even without rubber ducks do you agree that they should now have a better idea where the big heavy stuff should be? Assuming of course that the location of some of the pieces of the found debris probably came from the aircraft when it hit the water in a free fall trajectory.

I'll check back more often for a reply lest you get deleted again

[Mike-Bracknell]

Why haven't the French Navy found the CVR/FDR's? Won't their batteries be getting exhausted by now?

Just what I was thinking - surely a towed array sonar can detect deliberate sonar pings from hundreds of miles away, so given the deployment time surely they'd at least have detected the pings by now, even if they've not pinpointed it?

[Sawbones62]

Considering the effects of average current or winds alone won't explain the dispersal of the floating wreckage. The pieces will move at different rates and directions depending on their size and shape - what sort of "sail" and "keel" is presented to the wind, waves and current will determine what will move in which direction. Each piece floating aircraft wreckage piece is uniquely asymmetric as compared to "Floaties" and likely less predictable in current or original location.

Nature gives an example in Vellela vellela - the By-the-Wind Sailor jellyfish. The are hatched far out to sea, half with "left-handed" sails and half with "right-handed" sails. In the Pacific, those with right-handed sails wash ashore in California, those with left-handed sails in Asia.

[BreezyDC]

Wreckage

For a forum that offers items that "may be of interest to interest to professional pilots" those on this thread certainly have a lot of interest in less pertinent details like the state of bodies, wreckage and parsing failure modes with incomplete information. I'd expect more interest in some of the lessons learned that effect us all, such as:

1. Use of radar for storm detection, especially above the radar top where ice crystals are less visible (touched on early in thread);
2. SOPs and issues when dealing with inconsistent flight data readings (covered by some more astute participants in this thread);
3. Potential and current technologies (and issues) associated with data and position reporting.

But hey, there's always hope, and some have posted great info on No. 2.

(and yes, I've read all the posts, but think it's time to stop on this one)

[HarryMann]

Re: Galley/kitchen unit

It may well have been robust enough to resist fragmentation while falling (free, on its own), but probably not strong enough to resist high speed air mass.

But being light and very stiff (sandwich construction, sic!) it'd slow down very quickly perhaps without significant damage... drastically & rapidly reducing airloads to minor free-fall conditions i.e.. it would be blown backwards very fast negating air-load build-up from total Q

Alternatively, if happened to be at the open end of broken fuselage and sinking, buoyancy might well release it to the surface.

[Dutch Bru]

DorianB

Great job with the pics. Perhaps you would like to add this one as well ?

http://www.eurocockpit.com/images/ACARS.php

[Dutch Bru]

einhverfr

Paint and it can be a lot worse:

Photos: Airbus A321-211 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

[EGMA]

Re the comments on weather radar. It shouldn't be forgotten that radar cannot see through cells.

It may be that AF avoided a cell only to find a massive cell hiding behind it.

[Dutch Bru]

hmmmm

Interesting report also of severe turbulence encounter of Dragonair A330, albeit with a less dramatic ending:

http://www.cad.gov.hk/reports/main3.pdf

[Phatesse]

What's that?

Nice animation.

Look carefully just under and to the left of letter "T" in "Tasel" around 2:30 UTC. Goes away at 3:00 UTC. Do you see it?

[Will Fraser]

30-40 degrees shaft..... warm??? Quite the up elevator?

[barstow]

"Nice animation.

Look carefully just under and to the left of letter "T" in "Tasel" around 2:30 UTC. Goes away at 3:00 UTC. Do you see it? "

Yep, it goes away at 3:00 UTC because that's when the loop of the GIF finishes......

[Hyperveloce]

yes, the Air Caraïbe safety report is a must read: it describes a similar sequence of fault reports and the loss of any protection (expt. load factor) in alternate law 2, without any possibility to revert to normal law. It also reports that some parts of the "unreliable speed" procedures are difficult to implement in real time, that GPS altitude & ground speed were used, that the icing of the Pitot probes goes hand in hand with an augmentation of the TAT (which then reflects the ice accretion), and several undue alarms.
The following EASA airworthiness directive is about the Quantas A330 which plunged due to a faulty ADR of the ADIRU1 which generated a NAV IR1 fault... and a nose down
http://www.securiteaerienne.com/ill/...9-0012-E_1.pdf
the failing ADIRU couldn't be switched off and prevented from contaminating the other (reliable) data. Isn't it strange that one faulty ADIRU (only faulty in its ADR part), even if it did not declared itself faulty, could bring down a plane whereas you had two other functional ADIRUs to cross-check data and detect outliers/unconsistant measures (AoA): I don't understand where is redundancy here ?
Anybody knows whether laser velocimetry (already used by Airbus on planes to study the turbulences in the wake of their airliners) is envisionned in the future to augment the anemometric chain ?
Time is running, hope the many people at sea will succeed into the recovery of the black box.
Jeff

PS) from eurocockpit (based on the A330 troubleshooting manual):
34 11 15 EFCS2 : PROBE-PITOT 1+2 / 2+3 / 1+3
triggered the real time warning (WRN) "F/CTL ALTN LAW"
27 93 34 EFCS1 : FCPC1 or FCPC2 with many subsequent possibilities(the message is truncated after EFCS2X
34 22 00 ISIS : should read here ISIS (22FN- 10FC) ALTITUDE FUNCTION or ISIS (22FN- 10FC) ATTITUDE FUNCTION or (22FN- 10FC) SPEED OR MACH FUNCTION. truncated message again
34 12 34 IR2 : ADIRU1 (1FP1) / ADIRU2 (1FP2) or bien ADIRU2 (1FP2) or ADIRU2 (1FP2) / ADR BUS 1 or ADIRU3 (1FP3) / ADIRU2 (1FP2). message truncated, no way to say which of the 4 subsystems is failing
22 83 34 AFS : this is about the FMGEC1 (1CA1) but message trucated after (1CA1), beyond the failure of FMGEC1 itself, the TSM suggests 38 failure modes.

[quaeler]

barstow-

Yep, it goes away at 3:00 UTC because that's when the loop of the GIF finishes

That's illogical: there's a frame at 3.00 UTC which contains data; the data it contains is [presumably] valid -- it doesn't matter whether it's the last or the first frame, it is presenting information for the state at the timestamp given.

[ClippedCub]

Paint and it can be a lot worse:

We can say they didn't encounter significant hail from the condition of 447's VS. We can also rule out a high energy impact with the water.