Tim Vasquez’s meteorological reconstruction of Air France 447′s last flight is a classic. Don’t miss the comments either with inputs from experienced pilots, meteorologists and aviation professionals.
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I recall a flight from Milwaukee to Detroilet. I was beat, so when we jumped into Milwaukee’s air I was pretty much two sheets to the wind. However, it was a fitful sleep and I distinctly recall the sound of thunder & the flashes of lightning. I never recall being disturbed by thunderstorms when traveling intercontinentally. I am not willing to leap to the conclusion the Air France flight was lost due to malevolent intentions, but the fact authorities are being very quick to leap to their own conclusions is a sign in that direction.
Captain Dave–an experienced pilot who blogs at Flight Level 390 (good aviation blog, for BCers who haven’t seen it yet)– has some insights into what might (and he emphasizes might) have happened to AF 447:
“I will put forward two scenarios that may have happened to this jet:
First- Struck by a super bolt which fried the electronics causing depressurization, loss of electrical power and finally, a high altitude upset in IFR conditions (dark, turbulent, scary) leading to catastrophe.
Second- Encountered severe turbulence between or in thunderstorms. Airframe damage and/or failure leads to depressurization, loss of electrical power and finally, disaster.
Whatever happened, it was not pretty. . . . ”
http://flightlevel390.blogspot.com/
Looking at the links Wretchard provides I find the conclusion completely plausible. The conclusion quite simply is “we don’t know” with an intimation it is not malevolent.
I was “Up north” when this one came out. Some in the cabin was saying “bomb…bomb…bomb”. I immediately doubted lightning but there was nothing to lead to the conclusion of bomb. Flight is barely 100 years old, ships still sink, bridges still collapse due to engineering unknowns, why should we think planes will never fail (especially new models)?
To give everyone a point of reference for how long this might take, the Swissair 111 investigation took over four years to reach a plausible conclusion. And that airplane hit the water only five miles from shore. This investigation will take place in the Mid Atlantic, a vastly more daunting undertaking.
The real experts already know that anything built by man can fail, including late model passenger jets. It’s the exact chain of failure that will keep at least some of these experts awake at night until this puzzle is solved.
Incredible analysis of the Met data.
Over at PJ’s Tech Blog there is a discussion of Fly by Wire systems. I commented there
Very interesting analysis by the meteorologist. New article states that the debris found so far, as well as the big oil streak, was from a surface vessel and not part of AF 447. Also, a trailing pilot saw a bright descending flash in the sky where AF 447 would have been at the time.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/821929/debris-recovered-from-air-france-jet
Great example of why the MSM is doomed.
Compare this to a ‘reporter’ from any of your (used to be) favourite newspapers.
ADE
I worked with a Boeing electrical engineer for a time (best electrical engineer I ever met by the way)…
I was surprised that he was nervous flying in severe ice or a thunder storm. As he described it to me, in clear or moderate weather it takes multiple failures to bring down a jet, but in really bad weather it only takes a single point failure.
A friend who flies for a freight hauler told me the Airbus has 2 pilots and 3 computers. In keeping with good Gallic democracy each gets one vote. F
Wretchard,
The technical commentary that you linked to was brilliant. It’s amazing what the Internet can provide.
A few years ago, my family and I were on a 747 flight out of Johannesburg, RSA to Europe. We flew into a thunderstorm (they’re very common in southern Africa) and the plane was struck by lightning. It was like being inside a flash bulb and the sound of the explosion was deafening. Many of the passengers screamed in fear. My wife and children handled it well but I almost wet my pants.
Oddly enough… nothing happened. A couple minutes passed then the pilot went on the intercom and made a matter-of-fact comment that the plane had just been struck by lightning, we had obviously survived but the plane was designed for it and not to worry. I then put on my aeronautical engineer’s hat and thought to myself: How can the plane’s autopilot computers survive a direct lightning strike? Obviously they have a pretty good Faraday shield. Then again, I think(?) the 747 was not fly-by-wire so even if the flight computers had to reboot, the pilot would be able to maintain control.
The Airbus would have been fly-by-wire. My guess is the flight computers did have to reboot after a lightning strike. The plane went into a dive and overstressed the vehicle’s structure. Of course this is pure speculation. We won’t know until after they recover the data recorders which are now on the bottom of the ocean’s abyss.
richard, you constantly amaze me with all of the material that you sift through and share with us; many thanks again.
based on that met analysis, it looks like this crew tried to fly 100 miles through the worst that Mother Nature has to offer; very very sad for all involved
It’s an Airbus. Made in France, no? French manufactured stuff has a history of rudders falling off, ceilings caving in, cables snapping.
I noticed in the comments to the article that Wretchard linked to that one consequence of a lightening strike and/or overall bad weather might be the disappearance of bolts holding things together. Given that they were French bolts to begin with, isn’t it a plausible scenario that – like the Titanic – the thing simply fell apart?
Assuming that they flew through severe weather, the pitot tubes being damaged/icing up, combined with erratic ground speed indications (due to the rapidly shifting winds), could result in the pilots over controlling. In that kind of turbulence, that could put unacceptable stresses on the aircraft, which could cause a variety of failures on the airframe. Or the control issues could have put the aircraft in an unrecoverable state, which could also result in a variety of failures on the airframe.
Lightning strikes are a possibility, but very rare (about once every three years to a commercial air liner at altitude.)
If it ain’t Boeing, I’m not going!
Several years ago, I sat next to a maintenance center chief for the then largest U.S. airline. His maintenance center serviced the B-727 and the Airbus 320. He referred to the Airbus as a “20 year throw-away airplane”. He told me that you will never see an Airbus after years of service in the U.S. or European markets flying for a third world airline (like you see OLD B-727, B-737 and MD – 80 airliners today).
My estimation is that the A- 340 is the worst of the lot. I have no experience with the new monster – A-380 – so I won’t comment.
Compare the search for a plane that is probably fragmented to say, the USS Cyclops which has likely never been found. I say likely because one diver found an unknown wreck that fit the description well, but it was never re-located.
The Cyclops had a few more suspicious factors like Germans, mutiny, and a half-crazy captain. I like to think that we know everything when we die. One of the first things I want to look up when I’m dead is what really happened in various transportation disasters.
MÊME SI LE SÉISME ÉTAIT MODÉRÉ IL FAUT OSER PRENDRE EN CONSIDÉRATION LES COUCHES SISMIQUES!
C’est incroyable que personne n’ait parlé de cette zone sismique.. En plus, 36 heures avant une secousse s’est produite sur les failles = dites zone sismique= de magnitude 4.8… Avant les séismes et aussi après les séismes, une zone électro magnétique se produit sur une vaste zone dans l’atmosphère.. En Indonésie, les pilotes le savent et ils sont prudents quand ils volent au-dessus des couches sismiques et des volcans… Je suis sûr que l’avion a perdu de l’altitude à cause de cette couche sismique et les émissions électro magnétiques qui se sont produites durant le séisme…
http://www.meteoquake.org/sismique.html
this expert in earthquake says that there was a seism 36 hours before where the planes “crashed”, and that electro-magnetic interferences might have put out the electronic systems
X L’endroit où l’avion a disparu… C’est l’endroit où le séisme s’est produit.. Les émissions électro magnétiques sont très fortes sur les zones sismiques.. Plusieurs avions ont eu de graves problèmes en Indonésie et il ya 3 semaines, un avion s’est même écrasé sur le pays parce qu’il volait au-dessus d’ une couche sismique en Indonésie.. Plusieurs articles scientifiques ont été publiés dans les magazines scientifiques mais à cause des séismologues qui s’opposent farouchement à l’idée des “” earthquake precursors”" ou disons “”earthquake pre-signals”", ils gênent les chercheurs comme nous qui travaillent depuis une cinquantaine d’années sur les signes que les séismes peuvent nous donner avant qu’ils ne se produisent
RWE @5
I read somewhere that the Airbus computers were programmed with an artificial intelligence that analyzed conditions from the aircraft and made adjustments accordingly. The argument was that those AI decisions put the Hudson plane down because the bird impact effects told the computer that the engine was gone and it had to shut it down, lest something catastrophic happened like the engine catching on fire [as opposed to the airplane falling?]
Can somebody with knowledge in this area enlighten?
The post that RWE linked above doesnt talk to that, but I can easily see how a computer could go slightly mad trying to make sense of a lot of random electrical inputs.
Herb, this month’s Vanity Fair has an excellent article on the Hudson River incident, including a full description of the AI system you’re asking about, what it does and how it functioned. It’s rave-licious in its praise of both the system and the French engineer who designed it. Maybe it works differently with 12-pound geese over the Hudson River, and a lightening-bolted sky over the Atlantic.