Air France jet disappears over Atlantic

[takeachance]

really, oh god, so awful... how silly was i , ?for some reason i thought the water would preserve bodies... i dont know, its awful even thinking about it,

[Bralo20]

Gosh..they say that the bodies where so decomposed that they coulnd't tell if they were femele or male....poor families...

 

I think that would be a combination of damage done by the crash and natural decomposing.

 

really, oh god, so awful... how silly was i , ?for some reason i thought the water would preserve bodies... i dont know, its awful even thinking about it,

 

Water does not preserve bodies normally. However it water can slow the decomposition when the temperature of the water is low enough, near or below freezing.

Unfortunately the open ocean is not a good place to preserve humain remains, therefor it is necessary that they find the bodies as soon as possible. It is not unlikely that the human remains were damaged due the impact of the crash, this has some unfortunate results which will attract ocean species and micro organisms which will fasten the decomposing process. The watertemperature does also not help the preservation because the water is above 30°C there which is rather warm.

 

It is a very tragic situation for the families and friends of the deceased. However it is important that the bodies, no matter in which state of decomposition there are, are being salvaged from the ocean. No only for the investigation in this tragic incident but also to get a decent burial for the victims so that the relatives have some place to go to when they like to grief.

 

 

I definately hope that they can find some more parts of the airplane, hopefully including the DFDR and the CVR. It is a very weird crash and lessons need to be learned from it. It was in fact the first A330 lost in commercial aviation so any detail is very important.

[takeachance]

Gosh..they say that the bodies where so decomposed that they coulnd't tell if they were femele or male....poor families...

 

I think that would be a combination of damage done by the crash and natural decomposing.

 

really, oh god, so awful... how silly was i , ?for some reason i thought the water would preserve bodies... i dont know, its awful even thinking about it,

 

Water does not preserve bodies normally. However it water can slow the decomposition when the temperature of the water is low enough, near or below freezing.

Unfortunately the open ocean is not a good place to preserve humain remains, therefor it is necessary that they find the bodies as soon as possible. It is not unlikely that the human remains were damaged due the impact of the crash, this has some unfortunate results which will attract ocean species and micro organisms which will fasten the decomposing process. The watertemperature does also not help the preservation because the water is above 30°C there which is rather warm.

 

It is a very tragic situation for the families and friends of the deceased. However it is important that the bodies, no matter in which state of decomposition there are, are being salvaged from the ocean. No only for the investigation in this tragic incident but also to get a decent burial for the victims so that the relatives have some place to go to when they like to grief.

 

 

I definately hope that they can find some more parts of the airplane, hopefully including the DFDR and the CVR. It is a very weird crash and lessons need to be learned from it. It was in fact the first A330 lost in commercial aviation so any detail is very important.

 

Thanks for explaining all that, it makes alot of sense, i did not realise the ocean there was that warm, so no that would not be good at all to preserve bodies. i really hope they find more bodies for the families also and also parts of the plane they need to discover what happened, you are right, it is so important, and its scary for people to fly when we dont have the answer to why that plane went down, i mean airplanes should surely not just decide to break apart mid flight, so it would be really good if they could find out what really happened . i cant imagine how the families are coping, awful

Edited June 12, 2009 at 10:48 AM by takeachance

[Bralo20]

Thanks for explaining all that, it makes alot of sense, i did not realise the ocean there was that warm, so no that would not be good at all to preserve bodies. i really hope they find more bodies for the families also and also parts of the plane they need to discover what happened, you are right, it is so important, and its scary for people to fly when we dont have the answer to why that plane went down, i mean airplanes should surely not just decide to break apart mid flight, so it would be really good if they could find out what really happened . i cant imagine how the families are coping, awful

 

The ocean is indeed rather warm yes and no, bodies aren't preserved very good when there is "heat" (and humidity) involved.

 

The problem is that the "incident" happened in a non controlled airspace where there was no radarcoverage nor decent radiocommunications. Only HF radio and SATCOM would have worked there. The ACARS system is using SATCOM to send messages to the HQ. Fortunately this aircraft was equipped with the ACARS system and the messages were send in real time so probably there is a clue of what really happend above the ocean.

 

From the few pictures seen of the wreckage found I seriously doubt it was an midair explosion due the lack of burnmarks, but then again not much wreckage have been recovered or pictures made public. I also doubt that the weather brought the plane down, whetter it was lighting or regular turbulence, I seriously doubt that it could have been strong enough to damage the plane to an extend that it would have crashed. A positive lightning maybe but then they had to fly really high to suffer a positive lightning. Positive lighting is much stronger then negative lighting and in fact this can damage a plane but it's very rare and only happens on great altitudes.

 

Media are now following the story of the pitot tubes which could have been one of the causes. But then again, this alone could not have crashed the plane. It's just like the B738 crash of TK in Amsterdam a couple of months ago. It was near a brand new airplane which had some issues with the LHRA (left hand radio altimeter) which caused the plane to think it was in final landing configuration which caused the engines to retard and eventually crashed the plane. While this issue can be one of the causes it alone cannot bring down an airplane. It's mostly a series of events that causes a plane to crash. With TK1951 for example the LHRA malfunctioned. The AP (autopilot) & AT (autothrottle) system are using the information from the LHRA to keep a plane flying or landing it. At a certain point it malfunctioned and it read an high of -8ft (groundlevel) instead of +1950ft where the plane actually was. The autopilot thought it was landing the plane and sended a command to the autothrottle system to retard the engines (sort of idling). Due this the plane lost airspeed, while this happened a warning signal occured to remind that they have to deploy the landing gear (this normally whould have triggered something with the pilots since it was to soon to deploy the landing gear). However instead of correcting the issue they deployed the landinggear which resulted that this plane was in final landing configuration and was losing a lot of airspeed (no airspeed = no lift = crash), until the point where the stickshacker came active (the stickshacker is the final alarm before a plane stalls and crashes), the reaction to this was to give full power, however they still hadn't noticed that the plane was in landing configuration with autopilot active. The throttles went back to retard mode, they deployed again full power but at that point it was to late and the plane stalled and crashed into a field. Now, the report is still preliminary but what can we conclude from this event? A malfunctioning altimeter triggered the plane to think that it was at groundlevel. Is this the cause why the plane crashed? No it isn't. The altimeter alone can't crash an airplane. The following events led to the crash: crew busy with other things except flying the plane (it was a line trying flight so they were training another pilot), the reacted wrong on the signals that something was wrong. They let the plane lose airspeed untill the plane sended a warning that it was going to stall and crash. Again the reaction to this wasn't the right one. Full throttle was applied but the autopilot wasn't disegaged so this caused the engines to retard again and stall with the known result... 9 people killed, dozens of injured. In this case there is a chance that the cause will be pilot's error with a technical malfunctioning.

 

When we take this over to the event of the A330 we see that the pitot tubes alone can't crash a plane. The pitot tubes are essential to get a correct airspeed but this alone cannot bring down a plane. Maybe a series of events happened... But maybe also other faults occured with the airplane. The A330 is a fly by wire plane which means that every single control is managed electronicaly while older or different planes are uning hydraulics to control the plane. Maybe there was indeed a malfunction of the electrical system also which caused the plane to do things that it shouldn't have done, maybe it caused a complete malfunctioning...

 

There are so many questions at this point and specially because it was the first commercial lost of an A332 it is very important to recover as much as possible. I'm very confident that the A330, A340, A380 are extremely safely aircrafts. But there is always a chance that there is indeed a malfunctioning part used that can bring down an entire aircraft or that there is an event that can cause a string of reactions... The A332/A333 has entered service 15 years ago with an blanc record sheet. Some small issues occured but never was a plane lost with such amount of fatalities with no indications to the cause of the crash.

 

Unfortunately AirFrance has been the carrier losing as a first operator some aircrafts that were never been lost before... The Airbus A320 during a charterflight in 1988, The Concorde in 2000, The Airbus A340 in 2005 and now the Airbus A330 in 2009

[Filine]

Wow Bralo, you know so much about airplanes...yes it's a good thing they find bodies, it will offer families better closure. It's just awful

[Bellamy]

Unfortunately AirFrance has been the carrier losing as a first operator some aircrafts that were never been lost before... The Airbus A320 during a charterflight in 1988, The Concorde in 2000, The Airbus A340 in 2005 and now the Airbus A330 in 2009

It looks scary to fly with Air France.

[Bralo20]

It looks scary to fly with Air France.

 

It looks so but they have a very good safety record... However they have been the carrier that lost some planes that never crashed before in commercial service... The A320 crashed during a low pass fly by on an airshow in 1988, the same year the A320 was flew for the first time, The Concorde did crash due debris lying on the runway and causing a fuelleak which ignited, the A340 overran the runway after landing whereafter it caught fire. Fortunately no fatalities during this crash and the A330 that simply vanished from the sky...

 

And the weird thing is that that all of those are European manufactured planes... They never lost a Boeing or so as the first from a specific type in commercial service...

 

 

A300 / A310 family (A300B1 / A300B2 / A300B4 / A300-600) - A310-200 / A310-300)

A320 family (A318/A319/A320/A321)

A330 family (A330-200 (A332) / A330-300 (A333))

A340 family (A340-200 (A342) / A340-300 (A343) / A340-500 (A345) / A340-600 (A346))

A380 family (A380-800 (A388))

 

From the 5 families of Airbusses Air Frances uses or used 4 of them. The A380 is on order and the first will enter service in October this year. For 3 of the 4 they have lost the first hull during commercial aviation. Even with the A300 family they were the first to have a serious incident, on June 27, 1976 an A300 was hijacked which resulted in Operation Entebbe.

 

 

But they are a very good company, I like them a lot... They just seem to have some bad luck for losing the first aircraft of a type in commercial aviation

[robert sadler]

I did come across this report.This still would not stop me flying i still love it.

http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/

 

Robert sadler

Edited June 14, 2009 at 01:39 AM by Koolan

[takeachance]

Bralo20 you do know alot about planes , your posts are really interesting. thanks for sharing ...

 

Did ye see on the news that a woman, i think from Austria, who had escaped being on the AF47 flight, as she had missed the flight, has now, days later ,just died in a car crash, its crazy? how ironic is that? its just desperate, what an awful, awful coinsidence, may she RIP

 

You can read about it here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525835,00.html

 

To be honest, This is just me, but i would never for the LIFE of me get on an Air France plane after this.....Nooooo wayyyy

Edited June 12, 2009 at 11:22 PM by takeachance

[neilg]

When we take this over to the event of the A330 we see that the pitot tubes alone can't crash a plane. The pitot tubes are essential to get a correct airspeed but this alone cannot bring down a plane.

 

Hmmm, I disagree - a Boeing 757-200 crashed in 1996 because of blocked pitot tubes - and the blockage was caused by bees. There were no mechanical faults with the aircraft.

[Bralo20]

Hmmm, I disagree - a Boeing 757-200 crashed in 1996 because of blocked pitot tubes - and the blockage was caused by bees. There were no mechanical faults with the aircraft.

 

I know about the crash, as I'm correct it was a Birgenair 752 that crashed near the Domincan Republic.

 

While the blocked pitot tubes can lead to a crash they themself cannot crash an airplane. An airplane is still piloted by the pilots. The pilot in command is responsible for the well being of his aircraft, the crew and the pax aboard the plane. The blocked tube sended wrong readings to the airspeed indicators. Now when reacted upon appropriate the plane doesn't have to crash.

 

I know that airplanes are those days mostly flown by the computers, from takeoff to landing, everything can be done automatic. You just have to program the computer with the right information and off you go... This does not mean that the pilots mustn't do anything anymore. As I reffered to the TK1951 crash of a couple of months ago the trigger to the crash was a wrong reading of the LHRA which gave a reading of -8ft. Although it triggered the start of the crash itself it was not a problem that crashed the plane. Wat did crash the plane was the lack of appropriate reaction to this fault.

 

We do see the same thing with the Birgenair crash. You can easily fly with a blocked pitot tube and wrong airspeed indicators. There are multiple of them available. All you have to do as a pilot is take control of the airplane and fly it manually. Disengage the autopilot and take control of the situation...

 

It is always a chain of reactions that causes a plane to crash. In the Birgenair crash it was a blocked pitot tube followed with wrong actions by the crew. The crash occured due a mechanical faillure and pilot error. In fact as I remember correct the cause of the crash was stated as a pilot error due an inexperienced crew.

[Bralo20]

Bralo20 you do know alot about planes , your posts are really interesting. thanks for sharing ...

 

Did ye see on the news that a woman, i think from Austria, who had escaped being on the AF47 flight, as she had missed the flight, has now, days later ,just died in a car crash, its crazy? how ironic is that? its just desperate, what an awful, awful coinsidence, may she RIP

 

You can read about it here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525835,00.html

 

To be honest, This is just me, but i would never for the LIFE of me get on an Air France plane after this.....Nooooo wayyyy

 

Sad, but that's life... You can mis a plane that crashes but then you can be run over by a car or so. It's the path of life and nothing you can do about it. When your time as come, your time as come...

 

 

Why on earth wouldn't you go on an AirFrance plane? Yes, the do have some bad luck to be the first for a couple of aircrafts to crash it. I don't know the full details of all the crashes by mind but the A340 crash for example had no fatalities... And the Concorde crash did occur due some debris on the runway. In fact, the pilot of the Concorde probably saved hundreds of lifes to keep the Concorde flying as long as possible and crashing it into a open space (unfortunately there was an hotel in the crashpath but neverless things could have been much worse when the Concorde crashed immidiately after takeoff. Probably multiple of dozens more (maybe hundreds more) would have been killed then.

 

AirFrance has a very good safetyrecord. Yes, they have some crashes but it's a big famous company so a crash of their planes is always big news. When a similar plane of for example our own Brussels Airlines would crash I doubt it would have the same value because Brussels Airlines isn't that famous like AirFrance. Maybe in the days when it was SABENA yes, but now... Probably an headline on CNN for a day or so, and a couple of weeks in our national newspapers...

 

I'm not scared to take a plane. And certainly not an AirFrance plane. However I mostly use Star Alliance carriers to cross the Atlantic like United Airlines of maybe Lufthansa and OneWorld carriers like British Airways but this is mainly the case because I collect airmiles with them. A couple of days after the Air France crash I was enjoying a nice trip across the Atlantic towards Washington onboard of a United Airlines B772. I love flying and not a single crash can stop me from loving it. Unless the plane crashes with me onboard offcourse

[Bralo20]

It became clear that the bodies who were recovered from the ocean didn't had any burnmarks. This actually can exclude the posibility of an inflight explosion. However it seems that the bodies recovered were near complete naked and suffered a certain amount of broken bones. Also no water seems to be recovered from the lungs of the human remains (= victims didn't drown, most likely allready dead before they reached the water).

 

What can we learn from those facts? We can exclude an explosion since an explosion leaves burnmarks on bodies and wreckage. However the absence of clothing means that the victims made a very long fall while the clothes were ripped of from falling that great height and the speed involved with the fall, this can also mean that the plane broke into pieces on greater altitude, maybe due an explosive decompression (= not the same as an explosion). The broken bones can come from heavy turbulence before the plane broke down midair.

 

The last ACARS message send by the plane contained information about sudden loss of cabin pressure and exessive vertical speed. Most likely those messages were send on the moment the plane disintegrated and fell into the ocean or just a fraction before this happened.

 

Although it is rather "good" news that no explosion occured and so bombing can most likely be ruled out, the mistery of this crash remaines... What did cause the plane to disintegrate on great altitude?

 

Although it's very sad for the victims and their families and friends I find this accident very interresting. It's a bit of a mystery why this accident happened, hopely we get an answer soon.

Edited June 14, 2009 at 01:51 AM by Bralo20

[Krys]

The broken bones can come from heavy turbulence before the plane broke down midair.

 

the broken bones can come from impacting the ocean surface. if passengers were free falling through the air, they could be travelling at 200km/h (terminal velocity). hitting the ocean surface even from 5 stories high is like hitting concrete.

[Bralo20]

the broken bones can come from impacting the ocean surface. if passengers were free falling through the air, they could be travelling at 200km/h (terminal velocity). hitting the ocean surface even from 5 stories high is like hitting concrete.

 

Ofcourse there are broken bones from faling into the ocean surface but what I meant was that there seemed to be injuries on the victims which came from heavy turbulence prior to the ultimate crash.

 

At least that I what I am reading in several reports

[takeachance]

God it is so frightening ! so awful, i had a bit of a night mare the other night i think related to all this!!!! i cannot answer why i would never get on an air france plane, i just WOULD NOT and never will, its a mistery why this plane crashed and numerous things seem to have failed, so i dont want to get on that same type of plane, as how do i know the same things are not going to fail on my flight?? no thanks!!! i'd never take that chance, I would picture myself falling through the sky getting on one of their planes and if i told my family or freinds i was getting on an air france flight , i think they would have a bloody heart attack !!!!! as far as im concerned they should finish up business altogehter!!! I have asked a few of my friends would they ever get on an Air France after this , and they have all said NO......

 

The accident sounded like so horrific, i keep thinking of how awful it must have been, would they have been unconsious while everything was happening? i hope they were not aware? Have ye ever watched Alive, the movie? During the accident scene I rememeber the back of the plane flew off and the people in the front were still aware? im thinking too much about this but no point in livinh in denial either!

 

Also, i wonder what is the point in all the safety talk before flights take off, no one ever gets the chance to put on parachutes? should it not be mandatory to wear these during a flight?Then if anything happened atleast you would have it on?

 

Maybe im being crazy

Edited June 14, 2009 at 05:59 PM by takeachance

[Bralo20]

God it is so frightening ! so awful, i had a bit of a night mare the other night i think related to all this!!!! i cannot answer why i would never get on an air france plane, i just WOULD NOT and never will, its a mistery why this plane crashed and numerous things seem to have failed, so i dont want to get on that same type of plane, as how do i know the same things are not going to fail on my flight?? no thanks!!! i'd never take that chance, I would picture myself falling through the sky getting on one of their planes and if i told my family or freinds i was getting on an air france flight , i think they would have a bloody heart attack !!!!! as far as im concerned they should finish up business altogehter!!! I have asked a few of my friends would they ever get on an Air France after this , and they have all said NO......

 

The accident sounded like so horrific, i keep thinking of how awful it must have been, would they have been unconsious while everything was happening? i hope they were not aware? Have ye ever watched Alive, the movie? During the accident scene I rememeber the back of the plane flew off and the people in the front were still aware? im thinking too much about this but no point in livinh in denial either!

 

Also, i wonder what is the point in all the safety talk before flights take off, no one ever gets the chance to put on parachutes? should it not be mandatory to wear these during a flight?Then if anything happened atleast you would have it on?

 

Maybe im being crazy

 

 

Near all carriers in this world have crashed at least once. One of the biggest disasters in aviation history was the KLM jumbojet (747) crash with another jumbojet from PanAM in Tenerife back in the seventies. Even British Airways did crash some planes... Aer Lingus has had soms crashes to back in the old days. United Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, US Airways, Delta, etc... all have crashed planes....

 

Statisticly flying is and remains the most safe way of transportation.

 

Also there are plenty of other operators flying with the Airbus A330 family, both in A330-200 and in A330-300 series. Would you avoid them? I probably not... Chanses are very slim that this happens again...

 

I never saw the movie Alive, but I saw other movies and seen dozens of documentaries involving plane crashes. As a fire/police photographer I'm regulary called to roadside accidents were people were killed. Did I stop driving? No ofcourse not. More then a decade ago I had a very serious car accident where the car was crushed beyond recognision. I was one of the passengers of the car, my uncle was the driver. No one was injured while authorities couldn't believe nobody sustained any injuries. Did I got scared? No, I still love driving a lot!

 

There is no sense in stopping flying or taking a specific carrier just because one has crashed. At least when the carrier has a big reputation like AirFrance. I do admit I never want to fly Hewa Bora or anyother second rank African carrier. But those carriers are also blacklisted in the EU.

 

The incident sounds indeed horrific. And probably the passangers, the crew and the pilots did know the end was coming. From the information available to this point it seemed that it leasted for serveral minutes even excluding the time with the very hard turbulence and the storm. So yes, it was probably a very very hard time aboard the plane. But I think they didn't know it for long... When the depressuring started I'm certain then every single one was unconsious in no time so they died "peacefully"...

 

Concerning the parachutes:

 

Parachutes have no sense flying at FL370 or above. 37.000 feet (or about 11.000 meters) is an altitude where you just can't step out the plane and jump. First of all the lack of oxygene on that altitude would kill you or make you unconsious in no time. Second of all the cabin of an airline is pressurised so even when you would like to open a door you could not do it, it would just take a huge amount of force (multiple tons) just to open a door on flightlevel. And lets not forget the temperature, with freezing temperatures of -50°C and lower it isn't exactly a temperature you would enjoy. Even when slowly depressurised you just could not jump out of an airplane. A jetliner (like the A330 series and many others) have an average speed of 850 to 1.000 kilometers an hour. Would you like to jump out of a plane flying that fast? And remember, it's a jetliner not a turboprop so it isn't capable to fly at ultra low speeds without stalling. And let's not forget the weight. A plane with a capacity of 300 people would have only a capacity of about 200 people when you add the extra weight of the parachutes and the oxygentanks with a full face mask. And even when all of this could be taken care of chanses of surving are very slim... It takes a lot of training to become a parachutejumper and jumping at high altitudes is mostly only reserved for special forces in armed forces.

 

 

Just my thoughts

[takeachance]

Thanks for answering my questions Bralo20. you are very knowledgable on the subject. I didnt know anything about parachutes , thanks for explaining....i guess nothing can save anyone if something goes wrong up there......

[celinefan5]

My heart goes out to all those people! So sad.... Thanks for posting the info.