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I also agree with that.
We are not going to have usefull info from the recorders. Maybe this time the pilot also did something strange with the throttles or didnt follow or know a recovery procedure. Airbus still have to give a lot of answers. This is only plane that 10,000 hours pilots one day forgot how to fly, always with disastrous consequences. |
I think that Air New Zealand should use next weeks bio flight as a tribute to the staff on board and do a low pass over Auckland City and Airport to give a tribute to them.
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"The DFDR and CVRs should tell us quite soon (if the French are honest about it - there are hundreds of thousandsof jobs depending on these aircraft!). Would it be a surprise to discover that the recorders were damaged and could give no useful information."
Isn't this exactly the type of thing that we've been warned about talking about? I'm not sure personally but it sounds pretty dangerous saying stuff like that with journalists ready to quote word for word posts on this thread. I'm only reading at the moment that the CVR and the DFDR have been located and not in fact recovered yet , probably due to the weather still, any confirmations/corrections? Terrible accident. |
Air New Zealand A320 Accident Update 29 November 2008, 1.28pm
This is the latest undated on NZ's website
Air New Zealand A320 Accident Update 29 November 2008, 1.28pm French search and rescue teams are working in deteriorating weather conditions to try and retrieve the two flight recorders from the A320 on lease to Germany's XL Airways that was lost in the Mediterranean yesterday. Air New Zealand Group General Manager International Airline Ed Sims has today been in direct contact with the head of the search and rescue operation in Perpignan. Mr Sims said the operation had continued during the night with up to 75 personnel actively involved, with a focus on recovering bodies, locating the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, and recovering debris that may be useful for the investigation. Signals had been located for the two flight recorders but they had not yet been recovered. The search and rescue team had a real urgency to retrieving these today as weather conditions were forecast to worsen overnight, Mr Sims said. Mr Sims said that flags at Air New Zealand locations were flying at half-mast as a mark of respect following news from the French authorities that there was no realistic change of survivors. "The airline will be immeasurably poorer for the loss of our colleagues, and we again express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of those who have been lost." Condolence books will also be made available to Air New Zealanders from this afternoon, to allow staff to express their feelings for their colleagues Captain Brian Horrell, Michael Gyles, Noel Marsh and Murray White, who were onboard. Mr Sims this morning briefed Transport Minister Stephen Joyce who has undertaken to keep Prime Minister John Key informed. Air New Zealand Rob Fyfe, who is en-route to Perpignan, has also been kept abreast of developments while travelling. Air New Zealand has team of London-based staff in Perpignan to provide on the ground support to the operation. Due to the difference in time zones, with Europe now entering late evening, Air New Zealand does not expect to provide further updates until 8pm tonight. ENDS Issued by Air New Zealand Public Affairs |
The DFDR and CVRs should tell us quite soon (if the French are honest about it - there are hundreds of thousandsof jobs depending on these aircraft!). Would it be a surprise to discover that the recorders were damaged and could give no useful information Isn't this exactly the type of thing that we've been warned about talking about? To summarize: Some don't trust the journos and others don't trust the AB guys. Where does that leave us? Should we shut up until the official reports are out? Should we trust them? Should we stop reading newspapers, as all they publish is trash? Are only the self proclaimed AB specialists allowed to voice their opinion here? Shall we disregard the achievment of free speech in our society just because we might not be the rocket scientist others pretend to be? Get a grip. Speculation is part of the function of our superior brain. Apparently it has evolved and learned to speak by beeing able to extrapolate from itself and reason about others non present. To impede speculation is to shut someone up, present in many dictatures and archaic religions, but not in modern society. Everything gets abused, just as is demonstrated here. But the choice would be to shut down such forums or to let them run more or less as society runs, with certain rules, but mostly free. The pretense to allow only a chosen few to speak, even if they are (or claim to be) more competent is to the very least arrogant if not preposterous. It is absolutely legitimate to voice concerns about a technology. If concerns are categorically classified as speculation, it points more to censorship than joining a healthy debate. The contribution of SIDSTAR in this respect seems apropriate. |
Anyone care to speculate on this report in the Sydney Morning Herald
Airbus was investigating the technical issue thought to have caused the crash and was communicating with Qantas, Mr Joyce said. |
I get sick of the dreamers who lecture us about speculation, there's nothing wrong with informed speculation.
However, one thing I've noticed is after there's an accident like the BA glide approach we have all kinds of 'experts' come out of the woodwork with 1 or 2 posts, talking generally a lot of codswallop. Like cavemanzk. It is after all the 'rumour network'. |
Radio calls before plane hit water... but 'not a single mayday' NZ Herald Radio calls before plane hit water... but 'not a single mayday' - 28 Nov 2008 - Air NZ plane crash in France - NZ Herald 10:00AM Friday Nov 28, 2008 An aviation enthusiast in France who monitored radio traffic at the time the Air New Zealand Airbus crash killed seven people said shortly afterwards on a website that the incident sent shivers up his spine. The plane - registered in New Zealand as ZK-OJL, but flying for Germany's XL Airways as D-AXLA - contacted air traffic control at 4.45pm and was directed to descend to "flight level 120" (12,000 feet or 3650m altitude) while a Ryanair plane was on the standard terminal approach. The listener - listed as Phillippe/AIB1017 on an aviation enthusiasts' website, PPRune.org, which promotes itself as a bulletin board for professional pilots to exchange information - said a woman air controller cleared the Airbus 360 to descend to 4000 feet to a circuit east of the airport and extending several kilometres out to sea. The air pressure at sea level was given as 1016 millibars. "The pilot read (it) back and this is the last time we heard the pilot," Phillippe said, according to a translation of his comments. "Not a single mayday, nothing." Then the pilot of a nearby PA28 Piper Warrior shouted over the radio: "an aircraft crashing, an aircraft crashing". That plane, with the callsign Ulysses 34, began turning to the crash scene as a security helicopter took off from Perpignan, nearly 10km away. At the scene, the helicopter pilot announced: "no visual on the aircraft, large white patch in the water". He said there was debris over more than 1km. "I hope that there will be survivors, but given the cold and the water temperature ...." Phillippe wrote. A copy of the posting was made on crash-aerien.com. I think the thermomiester failed resulting in a alpha foot protection... you can quote me on that one..... |
I hink you wil find the DGAC's priority wil be to protect Airbus. If they find it was the crews fault they will blame the crew. If thy find it was an engineers fault, they will blame engineering. if they find it's Airbus's fault, they will blame the crew. then fix the problem through the back door! Only in my opinion of course!
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Wasn't that flight flown at night though, with this one in the day with light if there was a instrument failure due to the pitot tubes being covered, at least you could have some idea of your attitude and height.
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Unknown defect?
There are similarities with the A330 QF72 flight incident
QF72 incident may lead to the grounding of Airbus A330-300 models - Airbus only if it is confirmed if the adirus are of the effected P/N type and subsequent AD applicability. http://rgl.faa.gov/REGULATORY_AND_GU...2008-17-12.pdf The mistake it seems they made in QF72 was not to switch off the IR 1 and corresponding ADR 1 when NAV IR 1 was annuciated on the ECAM. This still caused pitching down on 2 occasions of the a/c with the autopilot disengaged under manual control due to the incorrect flight data values sensed by one of the adirus translated to the fcc - which remains in ultimate control. See emergency operational AD http://www.casa.gov.au/airworth/airw...0/A330-095.pdf http://rgl.faa.gov/REGULATORY_AND_GU...2008-17-12.pdf SUMMARY: The FAA is superseding an existing airworthiness directive (AD), which applies to certain Airbus Model A319, A320, and A321 series airplanes equipped with certain Litton air data inertial reference units (ADIRUs). That AD currently requires modifying the shelf (floor panel) above ADIRU 3, modifying the polycarbonate guard that covers the ADIRUs for certain airplanes and modifying the ladder located in the avionics compartment for certain airplanes. This new AD requires those modifications on additional airplanes. This new AD also requires replacing all three ADIRUs with improved ADIRUs. This new AD also adds Model A318 series airplanes to the applicability. This AD results from reports that ''NAV IR FAULT'' messages have occurred during takeoff due to failure of an ADIRU and subsequent analysis showing that the shelf modification has not sufficiently addressed failure of an ADIRU. We are issuing this AD to prevent failure of an ADIRU during flight, which could result in loss of one source of critical attitude and airspeed data and reduce the ability of the flightcrew to control the airplane. |
No doubt this post will result in me being accused (again) of being Anti-French or a luddite but I still believe that Airbus (and now Boeing) FBW will continue to throw up surprises for decades to come, possibly even more so as the hardware gets older and falls into less experienced hands.
It has to be faced that since it's introduction many Airbus accidents/incidents have resulted in accusations of slightly "clandenstine" conclusions / investigations. Having said that the Concorde accident could be accused of the same lack of emphasis on certain factors,draw your own conclusions from that. Boeing are not immune to this either, I believe the 737 rudder problems were probably known about but down-played as long as possible. Finally, money has a habit of influencing dissemination of safety information whether it is Dollars or Euros. Does anyone know how closely they were following the other ( Ryanair) aircraft ? I have had some fairly dramatic wake turbulence encounters following similar aircraft types, not of the magnitude perhaps to lose control & plunge into the sea, but certainly alarming in their intensity. Unlikely I know, but this accident is going to throw up some rather left-field cause in any case I think. As previous posters have alluded to, I hope we will be allowed to know the cause & fix, rather than it just being serruptitiously inserted into a software update sometime in the future. |
Captplaystation -
Was it a FBW failure? Why did you then comment on B737? You you mean that either electrical or hydro-mechanical flight is unsafe? |
Of course it is unsafe. . why do you think they pay us all this money ? :}
Not implying it is FBW failure, but loss of control on a FBW aircraft is normally prevented ( or facilitated ? ) by FBW, unlike a 737 where you either foul up , or ARE fouled up by ( for example) maximum rudder deflection at an innoportune moment. But anyhow, I am still a non-believer as far as Airbus/FBW/(B777) is concerned. Perhaps one day I will be dragged kicking & screaming into the 21st century, but for the moment at least I prefer stone-age connections to the bits that keep me the right way up ( shame about all those electric connections to the thrust levers though :rolleyes: ) Yes, unashamed luddite sums it up fairly in that respect I guess. |
captplaystation
No doubt this post will result in me being accused (again) of being Anti-French or a luddite but I still believe that Airbus (and now Boeing) FBW will continue to throw up surprises for decades to come, possibly even more so as the hardware gets older and falls into less experienced hands. It has to be faced that since it's introduction many Airbus accidents/incidents have resulted in accusations of slightly "clandenstine" conclusions / investigations. Having said that the Concorde accident could be accused of the same lack of emphasis on certain factors,draw your own conclusions And as for "clandenstine" conclusions, one should not lose sight of the fact that most accident investigations are contributed to by a party system representing what some may call competing commercial interests albeit with well qualified technical expertise in establishing facts. It is the analysis of the facts afterwards that the casual arm-chair orbserver typically tries to second guess. At this point in the investigation we are trying to read among this hash for bonafide facts not Nostradamas predictions |
Some reports have suggested that the lack of any R/T call following the last routine message is an indication of a very short time interval between what went wrong and impact.
While this is obviously possible, in my experience there is another possible reason for the silence - the crew were too busy trying to sort things out and had not given up on recovering from whatever had gone wrong. Whenever I have lost control due to a mistake on my part or an issue with the aeroplane I have always got on with doing everything I could to recover the situation first before climbing on the R/T. Off-hand I can only remember one example of a crew saying they were going to crash ("We are falling") and that was when their tail had detached in the cruise at height. Not much you can do about that hence the R/T call. |
Originally Posted by drivez
... with this one in [daylight] if there was a instrument failure due to the pitot tubes being covered, at least you could have some idea of your attitude and height.
Originally Posted by captplaystation
...but for the moment at least I prefer stone-age connections to the bits that keep me the right way up...
I have the impression you're confusing the "connections" (which in practice are as reliable as your rods and cables) with the electrical and electronic 'bits' at either end of those connections. FBW as such is nothing new. Concorde had it forty years ago and the Vulcan even before that. Concorde had two separate "electrical signalling" (as it was then called) channels and a mechanical 'rods and cables' backup. While it was tested, and trained for, in service reversion to mechanical signalling was essentially unknown. The difference with present-day FBW was that you still pushed and pulled a control column, turned a yoke, and pushed the pedals, and the control surface deflections were directly related to your control inputs. The autopilots moved exactly the same controls (through relay jacks) giving your direct feedback on what the autopilot was doing. CJ |
My misgivings were always related to the concept that you make a demand, and rather than being electrically/mechanically transmitted directly to the control surface, it instead passed through microprocessors which then interpreted what you wanted and moved the surface accordingly( my somewhat simplistic thinking being that if the computer can stop you doing the wrong thing/or too much, it can also prevent you doing the right thing or do more/less than you wished / intended. . as I said luddite thinking on my behalf.) So, I guess my misgivings are through passing by an interpreter rather than mechanically OR electrically moving the bit I want as much or as little as I want. Obviously the advantage of not being able to do so is that you can't whack the fin off a la the A300 with the heavy footed guys a few years back, the disadvantages ? ? well, time will tell but the recent Qantas "upset" comes to mind, and who knows what has befallen this aircraft. Could of course have been some purely mechanical failure that would have been equally applicable to a B732(Jurassic) but my gut feeling thinks not. Finally, I know as much or as little as the rest of you , and I guess this accident is no stranger than the 737's that rolled over on their backs and ploughed in due uncommanded rudder hardovers . . . so far.
Edited to say, having flown the DC9 I fully understand the meaning of "DC" and it's limitations to bigger ships, even if that one handled like a dream. |
Originally Posted by John Farley
Some reports have suggested that the lack of any R/T call following the last routine message is an indication of a very short time interval between what went wrong and impact.
The aircraft was doing, say, 150kts, i.e., 250ft/sec, and was at something like 1000ft when starting the turn and then the "wing-over", impacting quite steeply. That corresponds to about 10 to 20 seconds between "something wrong" and impact. No time to communicate. CJ |
Time to do things
John Farley:
I agree 100% with your comments, I know from my own experiences, that is the case. Tmb |
Witness: Air NZ crew sacrificed lives to save town NZ Herald Witness: Air NZ crew sacrificed lives to save town - 30 Nov 2008 - NZ Herald: New Zealand National news 4:00AM Sunday Nov 30, 2008 Cliff Taylor The crew of Air New Zealand's doomed Airbus jet were last night being hailed as heroes - a witness believes they saved dozens of lives by crashing the plane into the sea to avoid a small French town. As the shattered jet lies in 20,000 pieces in the Mediterranean, new details began to emerge of the final seconds, including one witness report of a catastrophic engine failure. "When the aircraft was over Canet, the pilot tried to restart it and it picked up," retired aviation mechanic Claude Pedro told Perpignan's L'Independant newspaper. "It ascended and then cut out. That was it, then nothing. It fell. I can tell you it was only flying on one engine, I'm sure of that, I would have heard the sound of the second. And with only one engine there was nothing to be done. "What is certain, is that the aircraft could easily have crashed and fallen on Canet. I think that pilot really wanted to avoid the town and risk to the inhabitants, which is why he really pushed it. In some way, they sacrificed their lives to save others and to try to save the aircraft." He said that once past the populated areas, the crew would have been able to descend to try to splash down but the aircraft probably "gave up". According to several witnesses, it pitched in every direction before plunging into the ocean. New Zealand-based aviation experts also speculated there was a catastrophic mechanical error on the German-operated plane. But questions remain over the final seconds - the pilots apparently had no time to correct the problem or issue a mayday. A team of 10 divers last night returned to the crash site to try to retrieve the aircraft's two flight recorders, which are expected to yield significant clues to the cause of the crash. Air New Zealand urged the public and aviation industry to avoid speculating on possible causes until proper evidence emerged. Five Kiwis - including four Air New Zealand staff - and the two German pilots were killed when the Airbus plunged into the Mediterranean, 3km from the French coast near Perpignan. Le Monde newspaper reported last night that three bodies have now been recovered, although search efforts are being hampered by bad weather and rough seas. One experienced New Zealand pilot, speaking on condition of anonymity, had three theories: the plane either hit something, such as a bird; lost a vital piece of equipment such as an aileron or wing panel; or a mechanical defect brought the plane down. Another theory was that the wing flaps may not have deployed properly for the landing, causing the aircraft to bank suddenly to the right. Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe arrived in Perpignan early today, following a 28-hour flight through Hong Kong and Heathrow with the partner and another family member of one of the victims, Murray White. There had been "a lot of tears, a few laughs, and a lot of sharing" on the flight to Europe, he said. "It's bloody tough. I have sat next to them on the flight up to Hong Kong, and up to London," he told the Herald on Sunday. "We have got a team on board - there's police here, a TAIC [Transport Accident Investigation Commission] expert, people from the CAA [Civil Aviation Authority]. We have set aside space in the business class cabin. There's a real sense of team spirit developing, but also trepidation about what we are going to find when we get on the ground." Family members of another victim flew out last night and a third family was leaving for France today. Fyfe said he had received about 300 emails of condolence in the hours after the tragedy from staff, other airline CEOs, and members of the public, each of whom he was hoping to respond to by the time he arrived in France. He had also spent about four or five hours on a satellite phone on the flight to Hong Kong, liaising with senior management and families. Fyfe had not seen photographs of the jet's koru fin floating in the water - an image eerily similar to an infamous Erebus crash photograph. "The aircraft was owned by Air New Zealand and was operated by another airline. Tragically, a number of our people were on board. XL was operating it. It's a tragedy and the fact there is imagery linking Air New Zealand, undoubtedly that connects the emotion to people, as much those inside the company as those outside." He said the airline had not received any indication of the cause of the crash. |
Midilibre Coverage
Quite a bit of coverage in the local paper: Midi Libre - Actualités et informations nationales et régionales en direct
Besides the surfers, the cop and the private pilot in the air, a sailboat was uncomfortably close to the scene. The topic of a possible problem with flight controls has been brought up; also the fact that repainting often involves the removal and reinstallation of various parts, i.e. flight control surfaces leading to the possibility that something may have come undone. Lots of details if you can read French. |
I hate to add to speculation... but my 2 cents worth...
The classic error is blockage of the static ports (on the side of the aircraft). There have been cases of aircraft coming out of repaint with the static ports still masked over. This results in erratic airspeed indications, and it has been known that the pressure bleeds out at altitude, and then on descent the pressure in the static ports stays low, resulting in erronously high airspeed indication and a resultant stall on approach. |
Pitot blocked unlikely due to flying for over an hour
Catastrophic engine failure due to only hearing one engine? B*llocks Flap issue? Maybe Bird ingestion? no explanation for the erratic last flying movements Too much speculation by retired mechanics and other early commentators. Lets wait for the CVR and FDR.... I m sure there will be something to learn for all. At least some PPRuNers should learn to stop nagging at each other here, fighting a fight which does not belong here |
Its not on BBC or Sky News, odd!?
Sad news! I fly the A320 great little a/c. |
BTW, the Midi Libre does mention the flight recorders have been found yesterday afternoon. No other info.
CJ |
The CVR has been recovered; the DFDR, not yet :
Crash : L'une des 2 botes noires de l'A320 repche - France - LCI |
..but for the moment at least I prefer stone-age connections to the bits that keep me the right way up... Having spent a memorable 35 minutes with elevator and elevator trim rock solid. Stone age controls are not always infallible. This data could all have been sent to Spain, NZ and Germany within seconds of the crash - using satellite communications. Heaven knows, kids can play real-time games with people on the other side of the world these days. It's long past time that the black boxes are no more than backup system to a regular data transmission...any anomaly causing a huge increase of sampling. |
I get more than a little tired of the people on this forum who accuse the French and Airbus (or the Americans and Boeing for that matter) of trying to cover up safety issues with their aircraft. All you have to do is attend one of their safety conferences to see the depths they go to in ensuring that their products are highly reliable and safe.
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For what it's worth
While I completely agree that random & uninformed theories about the cause of this particular crash are unwarranted, I greatly appreciate discussions about factors that are likely to be relevant and I particularly like to read of others experiences. Informative and highly interesting. Thanks to those who have made meaningful contributions and also for correcting those slightly less than meaningful :ok:
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I think this is what captplaystation is referring to:
Misconfigured A330 flight computers led to severe hard landing: EASA That there is alway a "middle man" (computer) who knows what's best for the situation. If it ever comes to a war of "computer vs. mankind" (like in the Terminator movies) I sure would hate to be on an Airbus. |
In the company I work for most of the aircraft are configured for ACARS reporting in the event of certain parameters being exceeded, eg high rate of descent on final approach. Does anyone know if the A320 would have sent real time info via ACARS before the accident?
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act700,
Actually I was thinking of the recent in-flight upset caused by the air data computers,(or ADIRU to be pedantic) but this "man-made" one wasn't too pretty either. skol, Most , in fact probably all airlines ( including I imagine XL in Germany ) have the data sent out , but in some cases I believe it is sent after the aircraft is parked with parking brake set or engines shut down, which wouldn't have worked too well in this case. I believe other systems send data constantly in real time. As loose rivets said, in this day & age I can have a simulated motor race in real time with a teenager in Tokyo, so we really shouldn't be dependant on fishing bits of orange metal from 35m depth in the Med to know what has happened. |
The operator has a system called airman that shows the ECAM faults and data in real time to their ground station, so they will be aware of all system failures and anomalies.
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I believe other systems send data constantly in real time. As loose rivets said, in this day & age I can have a simulated motor race in real time with a teenager in Tokyo, so we really shouldn't be dependant on fishing bits of orange metal from 35m depth in the Med to know what has happened. One possible solution is to use self-organizing multiplexing techniques to share a few frequencies in an intelligent way. There are techniques such as STDMA (Self-Organizing Time Division Multiple Access, used in VDL (VHF Data Link) Mode 4 for ADS-B) and CSMA/CD (carrier sense multiple access with collision detection, the basis of how Ethernet works but not directly suitable for aviation radio). |
The aircraft was doing, say, 150kts, i.e., 250ft/sec, and was at something like 1000ft What seems odd to me is that the last clearance they received was direct LANET, cleared LANET ILS 33, descend 4000 feet (source: this thread). Looking at the approach plate for the LANET ILS 33, they were on or near the 11DME arc. The plate shows establishing on the ILS at or above 2000ft. Based on those two pieces of information, they should have been nowhere near 1000ft. Were they below the flightpath or did someone just imagine that they saw the a/c at 1000ft? |
After the famous 320's excursion into the trees, the ITV's 'Chronicle' I think it was, had two long investigative programs about the accident and the strange goings on afterwords.
I'm not totally sure of the program name, but I am sure about a statement made - that local magistrates were certain that the recorders they saw in the trunk of the car at the site, were not the ones they later saw. I was puzzled by this because they would no doubt have been cleaned etc., but this was something that the magistrates were (reported to be) very unhappy about. There were myriads of other things, but what happened to the co-pilot was beyond credulity. Data uploading would best be discussed in the tech forum, but just to say that sending packages of data to other aircraft might be a simple alternative. It would be far easier to do than set up a cell/mobile phone system, but of course there wouldn't be the $$$$'s pouring in as a reward. The sky is full of aircraft...pinging data to each other is mostly a case of organizing protocol. Each data package would have to be sent back to confirm its integrity, so a limit could be made on how many aircraft held one given batch of data. Say ten other aircraft would hold that particular batch, then reject others from that aircraft. Any crisis or anomaly, and all surrounding aircraft start downloading that channel. Longer term uploads - as previously discussed, so that the flying host units could be purged. The thing about aircraft is that they have line of sight to a lot of orbital hardware. The signal strength needed, much less than ground-based transmissions. I'm sure the days of diving for black boxes is limited, but I'm astonished that they have gone on for so long. BTW I recall one of my colleagues meeting his end in a Viscount. It was said that the recorder wire was in 20,000 pieces. Still they read it. |
local magistrates were certain that the recorders they saw in the trunk of the car at the site, were not the ones they later saw. Rgds The Moss:ok: |
Catplaystation and ChristianJ bring up an interesting debate.
On a very persona note, my plane has push rods and cables for controls and at the GA level I certainly would have some concerns if they became FBW and FBC (Fly by computer.) It is easy to see how the FBW thing became the norm, and then the FBC thing crept in and it too became the norm and the stats seem to show that it is as safe as any other system, after all we hear often enough of physical control systems being jambed, either by mis installation or foreign objects or by minor structural damage that would not in itself bring an aircraft down. That said it still seems, at least to us very old SLF, that there is something inherently unsettling about flying without some direct connection between the controls and the control surfaces. The assertion that it would not be possible to have physical connection in modern aircraft seems unwise. After all your car has power steering but there is still a physical connection. (And if FBW and FBC are so damned good why doesn't your car have it for steering?) If it was mandated then the engineering does not seem so difficult. The trade off would be the risk of physical jambing and in a long and possibly complicated system that might be as high as the risk of multiple electrical or computer failure. I love flying in anything, even long tedious trips as SLF (As long as I get the window seat,) but sometimes, if I think about it just before boarding, I do get a frisson of worry about the controls having such a very tenuous connection to the bits that actually make it go where it should! Let's just not even talk about "Plastic." |
No links, but sad accident it is..
a few facts, 1) just came out of maintenance 2) they flew at around 1400 feet or so (at 4 Nm from threshold) 3) there was not even a single radio transmission from the stricken aircraft. point 2 & 3 make it reasonable to suspect that whatever happend happend so fast that they just did not stand any chance of recognising it, let alone coping with it. if you start an agressive serious nose down dive, the vertical descent rate is easily in excess of 7000 feet per minute. This means that they would have 12 second from the time the problem started till they met the water below, or far less.. a few possible scenarios 1) 'human error' maintenance forgot something very vital (think of the lack of greasing MD80 Alaska airlines stabilizer trimspindel/jack for example leading to detachment & horrifying result) Structural overloading) mayor structural failure of a wing, or stabilizer, due to upset beyond ultimate load limit. 3) rudder hard over, or 'renagade' total uncommanded control surface deflection of fly by wire system. Commanding for example full nose down elevator and / or full aileron deflection and so on. Airbus does have flight envolope protection & computer systems are fail safe, or suppost to be. 4) trust reverser unlocked. Think of 767 Lauda Air.. In any case it must have been something very sudden & at 1220 - 1400 feet AGL that left no room for recovery. very curious what happend.. p.s. i prefere Boeing anyway over the 'scarebus'..:eek: |
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