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.

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

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.

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.

Lightning strikes are a possibility, but very rare (about once every three years to a commercial air liner at altitude.)

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?

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

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.