AF 447 Search to resume
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Perhaps journo/drivel, but very early on, an "AF" person was quoted as "saying" that as well as lightning reports, they had received a comm from 447 that the Pilot had reported "Turbulences Forte".
This came in staccato fashion, as the Press was white hot, and reporting a blizzard of "Information".
Then again, it may have been "real", as the Public Face of AF was grasping for ways to immediately blame anything but themselves or the Bus. Gourgeon is in there somewhere.
Perhaps the time is right to introduce one of my new words. In honor of the French........ "Jourdrivelle"
bearfoil
This came in staccato fashion, as the Press was white hot, and reporting a blizzard of "Information".
Then again, it may have been "real", as the Public Face of AF was grasping for ways to immediately blame anything but themselves or the Bus. Gourgeon is in there somewhere.
Perhaps the time is right to introduce one of my new words. In honor of the French........ "Jourdrivelle"
bearfoil
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AF447 search to resume Feb 2011
O ministério francês dos Transportes anunciou nesta quinta-feira (25) que realizará uma nova etapa de busca, no fundo do mar, dos restos do voo da Air France AF447, que caiu no dia 1º de junho de 2009 no oceano Atlântico, com 228 pessoas a bordo, no percurso entre o Rio de Janeiro e Paris.
"A quarta fase da investigação no mar deverá começar em fevereiro de 2011, segundo as hipóteses apresentadas no dia 5 de outubro durante a última reunião do comitê de informação das famílias", informou o ministério do Transporte em comunicado.
Deficiências na manutenção do Airbus-A330 podem ter contribuído para o acidente. A informação consta de um relatório preliminar elaborado por peritos judiciais franceses, cujo teor parcial foi divulgado pelo jornal parisiense "Libération". Segundo o jornal, os sensores pitot, que ajudavam o piloto a saber a velocidade da aeronave, podem ter falhado porque não estavam sendo limpos com a devida frequência.
França lançará nova busca dos restos do voo AF447 Rio-Paris - 25/11/2010 - UOL Notícias
I am leaving it in Portuguese because it is the first time in following this incident that I have seen poor maintenance of the Pitot tubes as a factor rather than the design..
"A quarta fase da investigação no mar deverá começar em fevereiro de 2011, segundo as hipóteses apresentadas no dia 5 de outubro durante a última reunião do comitê de informação das famílias", informou o ministério do Transporte em comunicado.
Deficiências na manutenção do Airbus-A330 podem ter contribuído para o acidente. A informação consta de um relatório preliminar elaborado por peritos judiciais franceses, cujo teor parcial foi divulgado pelo jornal parisiense "Libération". Segundo o jornal, os sensores pitot, que ajudavam o piloto a saber a velocidade da aeronave, podem ter falhado porque não estavam sendo limpos com a devida frequência.
França lançará nova busca dos restos do voo AF447 Rio-Paris - 25/11/2010 - UOL Notícias
I am leaving it in Portuguese because it is the first time in following this incident that I have seen poor maintenance of the Pitot tubes as a factor rather than the design..
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New Search
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French BEA needs to improve their website
I searched the BEA website for info on this. Compared with the Australian ATSB site, it's about as user unfriendly as can be.
Probably designed by a stagiaire while the others were en grève. I understand some frog language, but this site is poor, poor.
Probably designed by a stagiaire while the others were en grève. I understand some frog language, but this site is poor, poor.
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Well, I looked at the BEA site for corroboration but saw nothing.
A Babelfish translation of the foregoing Portuguese follows-rough but readable.
A Babelfish translation of the foregoing Portuguese follows-rough but readable.
The French ministry of the Transports announced in this thursday (25) that it will carry through a new stage of search, in the deep one of the sea, the remaining portions of the flight of the Air France AF447, that fell in the day 1º of June of 2009 in the Atlantic Ocean, with 228 people on board, in the passage between Rio De Janeiro and Paris. " The fourth phase of the inquiry in the sea will have to start in February of 2011, according to hypotheses presented in day 5 of October during the last meeting of the committee of information of famílias" , it informed the ministry of the Transport in official notice. Deficiencies in the maintenance of the Airbus-A330 can have contributed for the accident. The information consists of a preliminary report elaborated by French appraisers appointed by court, whose partial text was divulged by the parisiense periodical " Libération". According to periodical, the sensors pitot, that namely helped to the pilot the speed of the aircraft, can have failed because they were not being clean with the had frequency.
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It made todays French TV news.
More by chance (already in the programming at least a couple of weeks ago), the BBC/NOVA documentary was on French TV as well.
I've seen a lot worse...
A bit more affirmative than we are about the 'probable cause', but at least a plausible discussion rather than a 'conspiracy theory" !
BTW, there were some 'shots' in that documentary of what looked like pages from one of the BEA reports about similar-sounding occurrences, but with now over 2400 posts here, I might well have missed it.
CJ
More by chance (already in the programming at least a couple of weeks ago), the BBC/NOVA documentary was on French TV as well.
I've seen a lot worse...
A bit more affirmative than we are about the 'probable cause', but at least a plausible discussion rather than a 'conspiracy theory" !
BTW, there were some 'shots' in that documentary of what looked like pages from one of the BEA reports about similar-sounding occurrences, but with now over 2400 posts here, I might well have missed it.
CJ
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Originally Posted by mms43
Total time for each message was approximately 6 seconds, which comprised synchronization, message header, data and receipt confirmation.
I note the gap at 2:11:33-2:11:42 did not raise signal loss concerns with BEA while the roughly equal size gap at 2:13:20-2:13:45 did and was referred to as 2:13:16-2:13:41. They must have access to aspects of the ACARS satellite signal diagnostics that are not shown. It may be that there are indications something was trying to transmit during their indicated window and could not. Although, at a 6 second periodicity either they are indicating that the transaction at 2:13:14 did not complete by its scheduled time of 2:13:16 and that 2:13:41 is when the message labeled 2:13:45 started transmission OR that there are indications something was trying to transmit during that period but was garbled.
(Note: my times were built in the assumption of a 6 second maximum rate and the time stamp being the time the transmission reception started. That assumption is fragile.)
I hesitate to make assumptions beyond what BEA made about the message transmission gaps. HN39's data is interesting. But, as usual, too much data is missing to make firm assumptions about what time gaps might mean.
Let's loop at the periodicity that shows in the plot using your data in message 2411.
Times: 2:11:00 2:11:27 2:11:55 2:12:16 2:12:51 2:13:14 2:13:51
TBG: 27s 28s 21s 35s 23s 37s
(TBG - Time Between Gaps)
With a plane violently gyrating at that kind of rate what would life be like in the cockpit? Presume no antenna aim aiding that means an attitude perturbation in some direction of about 40 to 60 degrees depending on normal communications margins. (Note, that's a Scientific Wild Assed Guess. I'd have to research antenna gain and convert that to approximate beamwidth. They are generally simply related because you cannot get more power out of an antenna than you put into it. All you can do is redistribute it in the sphere around the antenna. More gain means less of the sphere is covered. I remember a low gain of maybe 6dB, which is where the SWAG came from.)
Would the plane vary its gyrations in that kind of a pattern, medium, medium, short, long, short, long? That variability bothers me as does the BEA only calling out the one gap as being one that indicated possible signal loss in some manner.
Note that if I "presume" ASR33 speeds, 10 characters per second BAUDOT, the longest ACARS message indicated would take about 10 seconds plus plane identifier overhead to transmit. (That's adding in a few figures shift characters to get numbers and the punctuation into the messages, a characteristic of BAUDOT. If ASCII was used that would trim out the overhead. The 10 cps was a hardware limitation of the punch and teleprinter.) That was "about" the state of the art in the early 70s for things that actually printed out. That's probably about where the "6 seconds" figure comes from for "average" ACARS messages, shorter than the 94 characters longest message.
(Phew, I'm getting too long winded. I plead an effort to make things clear to non-experts in my field.)
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Sam, I am willing to suspect that government agencies with highly classified sensors won't help BEA until there is a long enough time for it to seem plausible for BEA to massage the data they have in unspecified (and never released) ways. They'd not want to release too much data about the capabilities of those sensors.
Of course, as a person who worked at a seismology lab one summer at Univ of Michigan, being able to pick an aircraft engine hitting the bottom of the ocean out of the ambient seismic noise would take REAL effort. I was involved in some field work. Explosives were being fired off Delaware in the water. I was scheduled into sites in the Ohio and West Virgina areas. Picking nice quiet sites took some effort. (Simple streams are killers if there is much water flow, for example.) One of the other team members was barely able to feel what memory declares was a depth charge like explosion of about 100# to 1000# from a site in Northern Michigan. (This was some 45 or so years ago so I'm hazy on details.) So I am somewhat skeptical about detecting bits of the plane hitting the bottom at similar distances.
(Neoflt: please note my "justification" for the 6 second figure in my previous message. The ASR33 was pretty fast for its day at 10 characters per second - 100 WPM. This is circumstantial, of course. It all depends on how the messages were stored and forwarded. Telephone lines typically ran at 75 to 300 baud, though. So we're still in the 10 to 40 cps regime.)
Of course, as a person who worked at a seismology lab one summer at Univ of Michigan, being able to pick an aircraft engine hitting the bottom of the ocean out of the ambient seismic noise would take REAL effort. I was involved in some field work. Explosives were being fired off Delaware in the water. I was scheduled into sites in the Ohio and West Virgina areas. Picking nice quiet sites took some effort. (Simple streams are killers if there is much water flow, for example.) One of the other team members was barely able to feel what memory declares was a depth charge like explosion of about 100# to 1000# from a site in Northern Michigan. (This was some 45 or so years ago so I'm hazy on details.) So I am somewhat skeptical about detecting bits of the plane hitting the bottom at similar distances.
(Neoflt: please note my "justification" for the 6 second figure in my previous message. The ASR33 was pretty fast for its day at 10 characters per second - 100 WPM. This is circumstantial, of course. It all depends on how the messages were stored and forwarded. Telephone lines typically ran at 75 to 300 baud, though. So we're still in the 10 to 40 cps regime.)
BEA Meeting with Families Monday Nov. 29
According to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/wo....html?_r=1&hpw
Perhaps after that BEA will update their AF447 page: Vol AF 447
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/wo....html?_r=1&hpw
Perhaps after that BEA will update their AF447 page: Vol AF 447
Last edited by RatherBeFlying; 26th Nov 2010 at 14:54.
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High altitude ice crystal research
I don't think this on-going research into high altitude ice crystals has been discussed here. It is interesting that Boeing and Air France are reported to be working together on this.
Experts Zero In on Jet-Ice Risk - WSJ.com
Experts Zero In on Jet-Ice Risk - WSJ.com
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Part Statement by Air France (Google translation)
In today's La Depeche
Flight from Rio to Paris: Air France was aware of "a critical risk," said an association
Wreck of the Air France AF447 in the Atlantic Ocean, June 9, 2009 BRAZILIAN NAVY / AFP / File
The memorandum on the accident flight from Rio to Paris brought to justice by Air France shows that the company knew that the failure of speed sensors constituted a "critical risk" for flight safety, said Friday an association of victims.
"In this note, Air France officially valid problems pitot probes were a critical risk to flight safety and that she had full knowledge on the subject since exchanged a long time with Airbus," said AFP Audousset Jean-Baptiste, president of an association of families of victims, "Mutual Aid and Solidarity AF447.
"Who says + + for critical risk to flight safety, said disaster risk. For several months, we are told that it is impossible to hold a conclusion on the role of pitot probes. With this memorandum, Air France unambiguously valid Pitot probes that are central to the causal chain that led to the crash, "he added.
Counsel for Air France, Fernand Garnault, gave the court a memorandum on the A330 accident occurred on June 1, 2009 by 228 victims.
In this 15-page document which AFP has obtained a copy, the company considers itself beyond reproach, pointing alerting the authorities and questioned repeatedly by the European manufacturer Airbus incident in series (icing) recorded on the sensors manufactured Thales.
The company, however, point the finger at Airbus and Thales. "Airbus and Thales have considered these events as minor and inconsequential potentially catastrophic," the company said in its findings.
However, she believes that "it is impossible to establish with certainty a causal link between the malfunction of pitot probes and the accident," echoing the provisional findings of the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) responsible technical investigations.
BEA believes that icing probes played a role in the accident but it can not alone explain the disaster.
The union representing Air France pilots Alter (minority) opinion on its side with this memorandum, the company confessed that it was limited only to regulatory procedures.
"We bump into a company that just says it did its job in informing the regulatory authorities but does not go beyond. She did not change the Pitot probe involved" on the long-haul fleet , said spokesman Chris Pesenti.
He stressed that the union's belief, one of the first to have revealed the failure of the pitot opinion after the accident, is that "if there had been no malfunction of pitot probes, the aircraft would arrived at destination ".
He said the new document filed in court shows that "the battle firms began to blame."
"We would prefer the truth to be made for such an accident does not happen again," he said.
Jean-Baptiste Audousset believes his side will note that this may be the merit of the various parties react.
"One positive is the fact that Air France puts in question directly but also Airbus DGAC, the BEA. This gives us hope that the language will finally be releasing," he concludes.
Flight from Rio to Paris: Air France was aware of "a critical risk," said an association
Wreck of the Air France AF447 in the Atlantic Ocean, June 9, 2009 BRAZILIAN NAVY / AFP / File
The memorandum on the accident flight from Rio to Paris brought to justice by Air France shows that the company knew that the failure of speed sensors constituted a "critical risk" for flight safety, said Friday an association of victims.
"In this note, Air France officially valid problems pitot probes were a critical risk to flight safety and that she had full knowledge on the subject since exchanged a long time with Airbus," said AFP Audousset Jean-Baptiste, president of an association of families of victims, "Mutual Aid and Solidarity AF447.
"Who says + + for critical risk to flight safety, said disaster risk. For several months, we are told that it is impossible to hold a conclusion on the role of pitot probes. With this memorandum, Air France unambiguously valid Pitot probes that are central to the causal chain that led to the crash, "he added.
Counsel for Air France, Fernand Garnault, gave the court a memorandum on the A330 accident occurred on June 1, 2009 by 228 victims.
In this 15-page document which AFP has obtained a copy, the company considers itself beyond reproach, pointing alerting the authorities and questioned repeatedly by the European manufacturer Airbus incident in series (icing) recorded on the sensors manufactured Thales.
The company, however, point the finger at Airbus and Thales. "Airbus and Thales have considered these events as minor and inconsequential potentially catastrophic," the company said in its findings.
However, she believes that "it is impossible to establish with certainty a causal link between the malfunction of pitot probes and the accident," echoing the provisional findings of the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) responsible technical investigations.
BEA believes that icing probes played a role in the accident but it can not alone explain the disaster.
The union representing Air France pilots Alter (minority) opinion on its side with this memorandum, the company confessed that it was limited only to regulatory procedures.
"We bump into a company that just says it did its job in informing the regulatory authorities but does not go beyond. She did not change the Pitot probe involved" on the long-haul fleet , said spokesman Chris Pesenti.
He stressed that the union's belief, one of the first to have revealed the failure of the pitot opinion after the accident, is that "if there had been no malfunction of pitot probes, the aircraft would arrived at destination ".
He said the new document filed in court shows that "the battle firms began to blame."
"We would prefer the truth to be made for such an accident does not happen again," he said.
Jean-Baptiste Audousset believes his side will note that this may be the merit of the various parties react.
"One positive is the fact that Air France puts in question directly but also Airbus DGAC, the BEA. This gives us hope that the language will finally be releasing," he concludes.
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a rapid digest
Hi there,
-The French transportation ministry has announced a new search phase next febuary, but the BEA has not yet given details about the new areas to be searched.
-Air France has provided documents to the court showing that it was proactive on the pitot probe issue whereas Airbus and Thales failed to respond in due time.
-Informations about test flights conducted by Airbus over Australia and over French guyana, flying through large cumulonimbus to reproduce what may have occured to the AF 447. These test flights have reproduced the pitot probe icing/obstruction and the reversion to the alternate law. They also have shown that the weather radar cannot detect the icing areas in many occurrences. The flight test data and report has been transmitted to the BEA.
------------
The problems with the weather radar, the pitot probe "typical signature" (as it is called by Airbus), the loss of automation were also experienced by crews in 2008 who reported these incidents.
JF
Airbus discret sur son vol d?essai - Libération
Air France/Airbus: la chronologie de la polémique autour des sondes Pitot - 20minutes.fr
-The French transportation ministry has announced a new search phase next febuary, but the BEA has not yet given details about the new areas to be searched.
-Air France has provided documents to the court showing that it was proactive on the pitot probe issue whereas Airbus and Thales failed to respond in due time.
-Informations about test flights conducted by Airbus over Australia and over French guyana, flying through large cumulonimbus to reproduce what may have occured to the AF 447. These test flights have reproduced the pitot probe icing/obstruction and the reversion to the alternate law. They also have shown that the weather radar cannot detect the icing areas in many occurrences. The flight test data and report has been transmitted to the BEA.
------------
The problems with the weather radar, the pitot probe "typical signature" (as it is called by Airbus), the loss of automation were also experienced by crews in 2008 who reported these incidents.
JF
Airbus discret sur son vol d?essai - Libération
Air France/Airbus: la chronologie de la polémique autour des sondes Pitot - 20minutes.fr
Last edited by Hyperveloce; 26th Nov 2010 at 17:57.
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The Blame Game - AF v Airbus
It appears from reports in the French media that Air France has documented their version of events surrounding malfunctioning of pitot tubes and have presented a dossier containing this information to the investigating magistrate - Silvia Zimmerman. As far as AF is concerned, the blame for the loss of AF447 rests squarely with Airbus.
The full media article can be found at France24
The sharks are circling!
mm43
The full media article can be found at France24
The sharks are circling!
mm43
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Air France has provided documents to establish a "proactive position"?
Perhaps, except in the case of all the 330s it flew prior to 447's demise.
One does remember the pilot's action, a labor action, that prompted the replacement of at least two of the Thales with Goodrich. Perhaps that is AF's definition of "Proactive".
A lack of proposed search areas.....what's that about?
This is very good news.
bear
Perhaps, except in the case of all the 330s it flew prior to 447's demise.
One does remember the pilot's action, a labor action, that prompted the replacement of at least two of the Thales with Goodrich. Perhaps that is AF's definition of "Proactive".
A lack of proposed search areas.....what's that about?
This is very good news.
bear
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auv-ee
Ties in nicely with my previous post. Airbus may be about to see a huge downturn in sales to the Air France-KLM group.
Notwithstanding, the Super Cooled ice crystal conundrum was raised in the BBC2 documentary, though nothing of interest seemed to come out of it.
mm43
I don't think this on-going research into high altitude ice crystals has been discussed here. It is interesting that Boeing and Air France are reported to be working together on this.
Notwithstanding, the Super Cooled ice crystal conundrum was raised in the BBC2 documentary, though nothing of interest seemed to come out of it.
mm43