Auraflyer:

Not that it's important, but your version of the French text on the wing is absolutely correct, as evidenced by the more readable picture on post #3573.

Hi,

Thanks to PJ2 (post #3577) for the drawings and to Machaca for the pictures, especially the second one...

.
Perhaps my first sights were misleading : looking at the structural line between the two red lines, I can't find anything compatible with rear view of the left wing : on the trailing edge near spoilers 2 and 3, stuctural wing lines aren't parallel to the area line. So, it may be front view of right wing, whose shape could be the one bertween the green lines...

http://i24.servimg.com/u/f24/14/14/01/64/wing6010.jpg

With a bet changing every half day, may be I will find the truth some day: perhaps better to leave this to informed ones!

Total speculation warning.:uhoh:

Fins have come off airbus before.
This airbus's fin was found intacto and seperate. It didn't finish up where the wreckage of the a/c was found.

If rough rudder action can snap an airbus fin off, surely a MF Cb could too.

I'll betcha that fin came off and precip'd the accident sequence.

Shadoko

"More often than not your first inclinations are correct" and I think in this case this is a true statement. If you refer back to your #3573 post, the attachment points of the spoilers in your picture match very well with what is seen in the crash photo. The leading edge of the wing in the crash photo isn't there. IMHO, the wing tore from root to tip, maybe as a result of the forces of the engine and pylon tearing away. The bend you see (outlined in green) may have more to do with the location and angulation of the interior structural spar in the wing. The painting of the words in English & French "Do not walk beyond this point" may vary slightly in location from aircraft to aircraft over time, but the spoiler attachment points do not.

Except maybe for the message related to the pitot tubes which, in my opinion, is absolutely central in the AF447 ending.

But unreliable airspeed + turbulence + no natural horizon + AP disconnect + alternate law ... could be the perfect recipe for overcontrol.
We know how easy it is to over control especially with the sidestick.
The indicated airspeed may be little, but the real true airspeed would not cope well with anything more than tiny sidestick solicitations ...


Reminds me how smart it can be to put some distance with the rudder pedals before taking a nap. Never know if you gonna play it like Ronaldo in your half sleep ...

Mike-wsm, do you remember the old TV game show (in the US) called "Name That Tune?" The premise was to tell the contestants something about the tune to be played. Then the contestants would hit their buzzers and suggest they could guess the tune in some number of notes. (The record is zero notes. They asked, "This is the theme from a 1940s musical that forever changed musical theater." There is only one such, "Oklahoma.")

The group of us are essentially playing "Name That Crash" with the little bits of information BEA vouchsafes us. This "tune" er Crash is strange enough I am not sure we'll all agree that a solution has been found even with CVR, FDR, and CMC (?) all recovered and readable and essentially the entire plane recovered from the bottom of the ocean.

I've learned that FDRs really do not store an exhaustive array of data that could tell us what the radar was showing, whether somebody dozed off at a critical instant, weather every outside the plane sensor froze up at about the same time, or any of dozens of other potential phenomena. So I am betting with myself that when this is all over we'll still be a few dollars short of a full set of clues. I for one am just suspicious enough of BEA's motives etc that I'd like to see their report audited by a second panel of experts. We certainly seem to have a plethora of really sharp experts here. I suspect that if this group and BEA arrive, ultimately, at different causes "I'd demand a recount" as it were bu a team of airplane accident investigators from all around the world.

This group will, ultimately, let me know of my native cynicism and paranoia should express itself.

For example, The fact that they built a 40 nm search radius for an event that went down in a violent storm in 4 minutes is just a small indictment of BEA's motives and expertise. Figure the plane's ground speed in 4 minutes. Figure it was PROBABLY (only probably) below a few thousand feet at the time of one of the last messages and guess how far the plane could be from the LKP. I am figuring 8 to 12nm. I am guessing more or less North. If they REALLY had claimed finding it 30nm South in a compact debris field I'd have raised holy heck about that.

I figure this group is providing a rather nice forum for this "reality check."

(I also love learning when not ordered to by somebody else. And I've had tremendous fun learning here. And I bet if the BEA takes good enough notes about recovery locations for specific objects some very interesting data for undersea currents in that area could be derived from the BEA data. I hope they do not waste THAT opportunity.)

Machinbird, with your tab on a wing tip light example I'd suggest "imagine a maple seed." They do NOT fall straight down or deflect in breezes the same. The tab makes them "fly" more rather than sink like an avocado. And their spiral is non-trivial.

JD-EE, That was one of the mental examples I used, but I was having trouble rembering what kind of tree produced those seeds.
Guess my forgetter is working very well.:O But in water, the rotation rate of a maple seed type airfoil would be severely slowed.

shadoko wrote:

I have to say, looking closely at the shape, it really resembles a fracture line or even a tear to me. Look how it "curves" going towards the BEA logo - down, then up then down again.

Is this part of the wing skin a composite material?

Could the damage here be due to the engine being forced up against the wing on impact with the water?

Hi Shadoko,

I'm with Turbine D on this one: Looking at the position of the supports of the plates in front of the spoilers in relation to the 'Do not step...' at the trailing edge they match perfectly. In your own post #3573 the images show it nicely.

That said it would mean everything behind the main wingbox (behind the aft spar) including the area in front of the spoilers were torn off on impact. However, as these arejust panels bolted/glued on the supports that doesn't seem too unlikely.

So I'm pretty sure you hit the nail on the head with your first assumption.

Random question time.

In what must be one of the best ditichings ever, even conditions-wise unless the plane had floats, US1549 suffered substantial damage. What would we have seen if it had ditched +30 or 40 kts?

Anyway - since (presumably) there's some forward momentum here (??)

How does the size of the aircraft reflect damage? By that - are design loadings directly proportionate to size - in that - does a 1 tonne wing need twice the strength of a half tonne wing? (if that makes sense!)

Similarly, if a wing is longer, it has longer control surfaces - which is more area to contact water - mor drag - more 'distorting force' - a similar thing could be said for engine housings - if they are larger then they will scoop up a greater volume of water and if so - would this give 'more' damage - say it had been an A330 ditched in the Hudson at the same velocitys would there be more damage (even if only by the aircraft weight?)

Ignoring he seabed position, can much be deduced from the images beeing seen about the aircraft's dispostion at impact?

Yes. But in all cases except one this happened during the impact sequence

As is the case in almost all instances where an Airbus crashes. Even the Afriqiah Fin looked pristine compared to the rest of the plane.
The fins are simply extremely strong compared to their weight. So their own inertia is low compared to their strength.

[How do you know that, while even the investigation experts don't know it / don't agree ?

If a Cb shears something off it would rather be the HS.
That is in most cases the first control surface which fails in a dynamic overload. In the remaining cases it is the wing that fails.
Loss of VS is extremeliest rare.

Besides that I do not see giant lateral forces in a Cb, mostly vertical forces.

Where can I place my money for this bet ?

While we are at speculating:
(Attention: This is all really speculation and I'm impatiently awaiting the results of the FDR /CVR analysis after they will be hopefully found soon). Will be interesting to see in hindsight where the brain farts were.

So for what it's worth:
Here comes my scenario which I have in mind based on what we know atm :

2:09:30
Being in Cb with supercooled droplets. Pitots starting to freeze over.
2:10:00 - 2:10:15
Pitot fail, unreliable airspeed.
AP A/THR disconnect.
Possibly showing overspeed causing the Pilots to reduce Thrust, leading to slow decelleration
ADR disagree, Alternate Law 2
Edit: Following comment by @Sensor_validation I agree AP /A/THR deactivation and switch to Alt2 probably occured more or less simultaneously, time delay in ACRAS only due to ACARS transmission
/Edit
2:10:15 - ~2:11:00
Pilots manually trying to keep the plane straight and level, significant turbulence being countered by significant control inputs, not being covered by protections.
Meanwhile:
2:10:34 Last position report transmitted, already in Alt 2 3nm left off course possibly indicating pilots already fighting the situation.
Probably shortly after reporting of LKP:
Manual overcontrol in pitch combined with reduced speed and strong vertical gusts leading to accelerated stall causing massive wing drop. Causing loss of spatial orientation due to severly moving Attitude indication.
2:11:30 - 2:14:30 Aircraft progressively stalled.
Heavy loss of forward velocity, decellerating from ~250kts CAS to <100 kts. Potential course reversal after initial wing drop. Pilots regaining horizontal attitude.
Heavy loss of altitude, RoD ~ 20000 ft/min. 'Falling Leaf attitude'. possiibly combined with slow rotation or erroneous heading change while dropping. In between partly recovery possible. Re-activation of AP possible while Airspeed still unreliable but consistent. Potentially followed by subsequent stall(s).
In denser atmosphere RoD decreasing to 15000 ft/min. Forward speed reduced to < 100kts.
2:14:30 - 2:15:15.
Edit:
Following Comment by @Sensor_validation I tend to agree time of crash seems more likely towards 2:14:30
/Edit
Impact on the surface: Vertical speed : 150kts, horizontal speed: 50 - 100 kts. Pitch angle: 20 - 30° Nose up, perhaps slightly less. Engines at high N1/EPR. (Does that match the pictures of the engine ?)
Heading at impact: between 090 and 180.

Is there any obvious thing which I oversaw which contradicts this sequence? Are there any obvious brain farts identifiable already now ?
Any comments ?
Please feel free to challenge/dissect it part by part.

To be fair they, and the Brazilian Navy, were originally trying to guess where the last message came from - based on 4 mins at 10 NM/min from the last position report, which was 3NM 'left of track'. As repeated recently had it just been dual engine failure the aircraft could have glided much further and possibly back towards Brazil, but it appears that never taken seriously.

Which bit of F-GZCP knocked the tail off F-GTAM on 17.08.2006 ?

The attachment points of the A330 do look like the are specially reinforced compared to similar early designs?

http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/photo/Unti...203/0786517/L/Photos: Airbus A330-203 Aircraft Pictures | !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The natural feature was then incorporated into AF's paint job.

Perhaps they should start to search for the remains of half of it "UNDER THE FOOT OF THE BEAR" (Nevil Shute)

henra said "As is the case in almost all instances where an Airbus crashes. Even the Afriqiah Fin looked pristine compared to the rest of the plane. The fins are simply extremely strong compared to their weight. So their own inertia is low compared to their strength."

On the contrary, the fin was quite thoroughly damaged, and was mixed up with the remainder of the empennage and HS in a tangled mess.

Libya crash's boy survivor doing well | World | News | Toronto Sun

Apart from the TE obviously having contacted the hard surface and taken a little beating, the fins looks relatively fine to me !?

Where do you see damage to the rest of the fin structure (apart from the TE as said) ?
Have you looked at the remainder of the aircraft and what has been left of it compared to the fin ? It is a 10 million item 3d puzzle.

Can't you see a pattern there ?

What I see is that a belly flop on the hard desert pan of sufficient violence to completely destroy the aircraft, did not separate the fin from the empennage or from the HS, but that the rudder was torn all to hell.

Rescue workers examine debris from Afriqiyah Airways flight 8U771 at Tripoli airport May 12.

PF Transition from AP with Normal Law to AP-OFF with ALTN 2 Law
 

I wrote (currently post #3556), in the light of the TSB of Canada’s report[FONT=Verdana][SIZE=2] of an A319 wake-turbulence encounter:
"In view of the possibility that AF447 encountered sudden, severe turbulence, perhaps we should be adding another scenario to the list of possible causes of LOC and Control-Law degradation. Could it be compatible with the analysis of ACARS messages? I think it might be."

Was the original fault that led to the degradation from Normal Law to Alternate-2 (ALTN2) Law either:
(a) AoA-probe anomalies caused by pilot-induced yaw;
or
(b) pitot-probe anomalies caused (perhaps) by icing?

CONF iture points out:
"...the message related to the pitot tubes which, in my opinion, is absolutely central in the AF447 ending."

So (a) looks less likely than (b).

However, CONF iture continues:
"We know how easy it is to over control especially with the sidestick.
The indicated airspeed may be little, but the real true airspeed would not cope well with anything more than tiny sidestick solicitations ..."

During the minute from 0210z, for whatever reason, the PF undoubtedly found himself in Alternate Law (probably ALTN 2), sans-AP, trying to keep the wings level (or fly a safe turn) and control the pitch. ALTN 2 does not apply in the case of the A320 family, but the DFDR trace (reproduced above by Machinbird) shows an experienced PF trying to cope with the transition from AP to sidestick and Alternate Law in moderate-severe turbulence on an A319.

Again in the light of the TSB of Canada’s report, I also wrote:
Should rudder ever be used in cruise-flight, apart from the asymmetry case?

If the answer to that is in the negative, there is now more than anecdotal evidence that some pilots do use rudder at any speed, and that undesired yaw-cycling can be the result. This may compromise aerodynamics and/or structure; and even the quality of sensor-data in the ADRs.

henra

Given only the photos of the engine remains, it is impossible to tell if the engines were operating at high N1, there is nothing to go by at the moment. Usually one can tell this by visually observing the fan blades or compressor blades which would be bent in the opposite direction of rotation.

I am thinking the upward pitch angle would be less, more like 5°

Did anyone see this article? BabelFish translates the heading "Zu hohe psychische Belastung" to "Too high psychological load"

Absturz von AF 447: Kieler Forscher steigen bei Wrack-Bergung aus - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Wissenschaft

The engines would probably not tolerate a flat impact without stalling and spooling down ala the A300 at Nagoya

I'm sure you are right that it is significant what happened just before 02:10z - did the auto controls take action on 'bad-data' before disconnecting, was a turn or step-climb in progress etc.

I think you need to revise your timings a bit though to fit in with the detailed ACARS timings - presented in colour here

AF447 ACARS MESSAGES - Color Coded & Interactive Version

Couldn't all the 02:10 messages have been generated early in 02:10, just output in priority order over the next 2 minutes - interrupted only by high priority position report?

The aircraft was clearly in stable enough orientation to stream the messages in with only the occasional missed 6 or 7 second slot until 2:12:16. The BEA identified one missing ACARS that should have been transmitted before 2:15:15, but impact could have been at 2:14:30. A shorter time of fall seems to fit in better with a single stall/ fall rate. Much discussion earlier that true 'flat spins' a feature of T-tail, and 'falling-leaf' delta-wing, still lots of unknowns.

From the peanut gallery...
 

Wouldn't the simplest explanation (keeping Mr Occam and his razor in mind) for both engines having lost their entire forward fan sections, including all traces of fan, be that they were singing pretty fast when they hit the water? Also, from the looks of them, near half of both of their remaining fan case sections have been crushed on impact, so I don't think there was much "spooling down" going on... More like sudden stoppage, no?

I've examined the photos and would like to offer my observations...

The wing with the text decals still visible is undoubtedly the left wing.
The wing with gear still attached is definitely the right wing. The pointed bit of structure just inboard of the visible flap track shows some of the plumbing that would indicate where the pylon would have been.
On the left gear, there is a hunk of 'stuff' between the #3 and 4 wheels... It looks like it might be some of the I/B flap track and carriage assembly... which it sort of lives near when the gear is up and locked... Perhaps impact forces allowed for the gear to have ripped this from it's roots on it's way down? Anyway, whatever it is, I'm sure it also has a story to tell...

I too enjoy reading and learning from all of this. Thanks to all of you for the opportunity!

Yes, the exact timings of the real events related to the ACARS messages that's where I was a bit unsure indeed.
The only thing which seemed reasonable to me was the sequence
Icing -> A/THR /AP lost -> Alt2.
The exact timing may well have been closer together.
so that close to 2:10:05 they were already in Alt2.

Yes, agreed, see above.

Agreed that is the second area of uncertainty: It could reasonably have crashed between 2:14:30 and 2:15:15.
I was just on the conservative side, admitting that an earlier impact fits better with the RoD's that can be expected in such a scenario.

I will include the updated timings based on your remarks in my original post.

henra:
henra, my only comment is your supposition of the nose low attitude (20-30 deg nose low) ... which I think you intend to be attitude at impact? (If not, then I misread your post).

I see the crew confronted with three different challenges all at once
1. The stall/upset (agree with your posited wing drop)
2. Stall recovery (3-D) using an IFR scan
3. Unusual attitude recovery on an IFR scan directly related to the stall recovery

I'll add to numbers 2 and 3 (caveat, it may be a load of rubbish if the gyros in the A330 are not prone to tumbling ...)

"these recoveries to be accomplished on instruments with an attitude gyro that has tumbled." (As I was speculating about some posts back.) In other words, a spin (or at least a rotating sort of stall) followed by an unusual attitude recovery, all with a partial panel scan.

There would be an unknown interval of time before the crew recognized that their primary attitude reference is buggered (possibly shown by the PFD reset attempts?) and they are called upon to recover from a 3-D upset using a partial panel scan. Is this trained for? (From my own experience, that particular taks is hard, even when you are ready for it, and in a training environment).

Added to this degree of difficulty is a reasoned belief that for a good portion of the descent, airspeed indications, (primary ref on partial panel scans) are unreliable.

If all I had to rely on to recover from an under the bag spin recovery was turn needle, balance ball, and Vertical speed, I might or might not manage it on the first go. I was trained to use airspeed as a primary reference for partial panel scan.

The aircraft gets to a high RoD ... then airspeed indication finally come back (at lower alt) and the pilots begin to catch up ... maybe unstall again, and then get stuck in a problem of accelerated stall at the end of it all as they 'pull up' (altitude keeps getting smaller in large chunks, one has to break the descent ...). Given "in the goo" scan and possibly disoriented pilots, the plane is in the process of a major pull up (nose at or above horizon) when it restalls yet again, accelerated, and falls ... this time, with no altitude left. (Hence not quite hitting in the nose low attitude you suggest ... )

I base this amplified version of your scenario on a mishap that killed a colleague of mine. He was in a spin or a spiral, went into clouds, and as he came out (finally not in the clouds anymore) was making a major correction to his high rate of descent when he got into an accelerated stall "close to the ground." The eye-witness saw the vapor trails coming off the wings (similar to what you see the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels create in their high G turns at airshows) and reported that he saw the aircraft abruptly controlled flight with little to no altitude left for one last recovery ...

That was a lot of text to suggest why the BEA nose attitude assessment might be spot on, within the general scenario you presented.

Hmm, probably my fault.
My assumption was 20-30° Nose up during impact (damage to the lower TE of the fin)
Should have made it more clear, will amend my original post.

Aha, thanks, then your proposed scenario (high AoA in the end game) seems to match what was in my minds eye pretty closely. (If I read your post incorrectly, apologies).

(By 3-D stall, I meant "a 3-axis upset:" Pitch, roll, yaw)

Engine damage
 

@Turbine D

Attached is an interesting comparison showing turbine damage on two identical engines, one where most of the blades are broken off about half way between root and tip, operating with some power applied, and another on the same aircraft which, at the time of impact, was stationary or windmilling with little or no power on. Compare this with the two photos of the same engine from AF447, where the rotating blades are missing, apparently torn away at the roots. Another example of a stationary or mild windmilling fan section, is that shown in my previous post where we see just the bottom section of one of TWA800 engines with fan blades bent in both directions away from the point of impact.


PICTURES: BA Boeing 777 Heathrow crash evidence

TWA800 example:

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

@ shadoko, aurafleyer

the wing picture just shows a unexpected smal part of the wing, the holder are not between the spoilers they are just between the smaler flaps in front of the spoilers

if I scale the outline of the wing-picture with the holders onto this cutaway, than your red lines follow direkt along the inner part of the middle stringer !!!

the cutaway is on flightglobal.com
http://s7.directupload.net/images/110418/w4v3dv93.jpg

Lone Wolf
 

There's another possibility and probably the only one that fits with all the BEA text about vertical acceleration and an attitude comparable to a level flight :
At low altitudes, they recovered all the instruments, checked the descent and were starting to pull out of the descent (dive ? )... they hit the sea surface at the bottom of that recovery curve.
Then you have it all ; centrifugal G forces plus still a downward vertical acceleration, interrupted by the collision with the water, with a lesser longitudinal deceleration which still left important traces.
All the scenarios that involve a stall fail short of the observed attitude published by the BEA.
What I don't know is what law they were in hence whether they could have had a dynamic stall or they just ran out of skyspace.

Since people are talking quite a bit about a high altitude stall here is a video from the ASB (Australian Safety Board) of a 777 stalling at high altitude due to the computers and AP wrongly using erroneous data from the faulty accelerometers.

.

Machinbird back at post #3601 made reference to the DFDR flight control inputs trace from an A319 wake turbulence incident investigated by the TSB of Canada.

A enlarged image of the DFDR trace is here

777 pitch-up incident video
 

To alph2z :

Now that is chillingly close to the kind of problem I have in mind regarding our thread subject matter, keeping in mind vast differences in design philosophy between the 777 and the 330. Could you please provide a link or reference to the official report ?

3holelover

I think the problem with the simple solution (Occam's razor) has to do with what lomapaseo pointed out. When there isn't much forward speed, but significant vertical drop speed, inlet distortion comes into play on commercial high by-pass fan engines. The engines become starved of air, stall and flameout during the rapid descent resulting in the spool down situation. Whatever rotational speed is left, it ends at impact. Quite honestly, the vertical speed in this incident, resulted in one of the most significant destruction of a high by-pass engine I have ever seen. Even the TWA 800 engine appeared to suffer less destruction.

sensor validation, If I am reading Wikipoodle correctly the speed of sound at commercial aircraft altitudes is around 660 MPH or 573 kn. That gives a speed of 7.8 nm/s for .82 Mach. If the plane flew on the entire time the radius would be 31 nm.

Just from ACARS it is pretty clear the plane was not at altitude by the last minute when the cabin pressure indication appeared. Unless the plane was intentionally driven into the ocean at the fastest speed possible without breakup it could not be outside the 31 nm radius. If it was falling, that would indicate, to me at least, that it had stalled. Perhaps some stall recovery could have taken place. However, in a stall my understanding is that the plane is making very little headway with a serious amount of altitude loss.

Admittedly this is in retrospect, basically because I am not a pilot, it seems fairly obvious the plane is not going to be immediately at LKP. And it's probably not going to be much past 4 minutes of flight minus the time it takes for it to fall the full 35000'. You might define an annulus about 5 nm to 15nm. Then erase the part "behind" the LKP. That's a more limited area to search and has the advantage of being the most likely region for the plane to crash. Instead they ass-u-me-d that the plane continued on for a good minute after the last message before deciding to plant itself forcefully into the ocean with small headway compared to vertical speed.

I repeat, what in heck were they doing out there so far from where the plane could possibly get to? (And how-in-'ell could it get 40 nm BEHIND LKP, which they were supposedly ready to search?)

I can buy it that this was ineptitude caused by the intense political pressure, just barely. I am suppressing comments from accident investigators about the reliability of reports. If the accident happens in a third world area, the report quality is poor because of the untrained and inexperienced investigators. If the accident is not politically charged and is in a "first world" nation the reports tend to be pretty good. If politics enters the picture the reports are what the politicians wanted them to say. That's from their experience. I suspect that is what this investigation started out to be. This latest search probably fell out of the unrelenting public oversight and demands. It would not go away. So the plane had to be found. At least that's what I get if I let my cynicism and "too many decades of real world experience" get out of hand. I still expect a political report. But I expect it's going to be as honest as the politicians permit. (And Wikileaks exists as a means of forcing honesty on politicians.)

(As a pair of side notes it has been reported here that the Russians, with (heh) more experience than others with crashes, have found that you start at or near the LKP when searching for crash locations. And I further note that mm43's current backtraces also placed the accident location fairly close to LKP but, if I recall, a bit South of where BEA hinted it actually fell.)

deSitter, hard desert pan is not ocean water. Reexamine mm43's drawings of how he imagined the plane hit. Note the tail. Think of the tail surfaces. Where is the tail assembly going to go when the tail surfaces hit the water with the rest if the plane trying to force it deeper?

The tail assembly is going to be pushed upwards, distorting it heavily and pretty much pivoting it around a point a little rear of the nose of the tail fin. That fits the damage seen to the leading edge. Pushing it up that way places tremendous strain on the attachment clevises. They break. Tail fin pops off, probably to one side or the other. Back where it lives the only stuff to hit amounts to the elevators and tail cone. Being thrown free of that debris by the combination of the popped clevises releasing hold down pressure on the fin and wind is not nearly a stretch of my imagination.

If it did come off before the plane hit, where is the ACARS message about a massive hydraulics failure? It could NOT have been the precipitating cause of the accident.

Turbine D

The TWA800 engines and PA103, and etc. etc. all hit the ground/water in free fall terminal velocity relatively flat, shearing the LPT turbine case and last stage turbines away from the rest of the engine. However, that while their fan cases were also sheared away the fan rotosr stayed with the engines and thus the blades were easily visible for examination.

The only thing that seems to be different here is the completely missing (to us) fan disk and blades. No doubt there are lots of other photos that the investigators have to work with so I'm not going to try guessing at their hand :hmm:

Might it possible that this was a high speed upset? I think it doubtful that a fully stalled A330 would descend at a much greater rate than 6,000 ft per minute. There is, after all, still some lift being generated even at quite low IAS. The speculated rates of descent in the order of 20,000 fpm are only achievable in steep descent attitudes at high subsonic Mach numbers. The photographs of the left wing section show that a large section of the outboard upper wing surface is missing and broken wing spars can be clearly seen. This kind of damage is often seen when a wing is overstressed in a high speed dive recovery. Of course, such damage might have occured at impact, but it would be interesting to know if those missing outboard wing sections are found with the main wreckage, elsewhere, or not at all.

svarin