Air France 447 Crash - Heading to Paris From Rio de Janeiro - 228 On Board
Sunday June 7, 2009
Links continue to be updated...
An Air France flight en route to Paris from Brazil went missing after experiencing thunderstorms and turbulence somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean in the late evening of May 31, 2009 / early morning of June 1, 2009. It appears there were electrical malfunction issues about 4 hours into the flight. 216 passengers and 12 crew were on board.
Brief summary of what's known so far - Air France 447 Missing, Presumed Crash - Heading to Paris From Rio de Janeiro.
June 2 - debris is spotted a few hundred miles off the coast of Brazil that may be from AF447. The passenger list from the flight is expected to be released soon by Air France.
June 3 - debris is confirmed to be that of Air France 447. A debris field of several miles is being searched.
June 4 - speculation that pilots may have slowed down the aircraft too much going through an area of severe turbulence, possibly causing the plane to stall and not being able to recover from the stall.
June 5 - previously confirmed debris from AF447 now believed to have been trash from other vessels and not the Paris bound flight. The search for signs of flight 447 continue.
June 6 - causes of the Air France 447 tragedy are now including multiple systems failure and speed monitoring failure (a flaw that is now repairable but has caused issues with A330 aircraft - "We have seen a certain number of these types of faults on the A330," says BEA director Paul-Louis Arslanian (French air accident investigation agency).
June 7 - Is this where the blame game begins? Air France had replaced sensors that had issues with ice/icy conditions for its A320s as the problem was documented in those planes in its fleet. The airline was in the process of replacing these same problematic sensors on the A330 series but had not yet done so as it seems the same issues that were seen on their A320s were not widely reported for its A330 or A340 aircraft. Seems Airbus warned Air France. So who will point the biggest finger? The airline that didn't enact recommended changes, or the manufacturer that built planes with these issues...
June 10 - Air France commits to making the changes for the speed sensors on all of its A330 aircraft. Though not confirmed, it is suspected that malfunctioning speed sensors may have had a part to play in the crash.
June 11 - Air France allegedly received replacement sensors days before crash, not installed on AF447's aircraft.
June 12 - As more bodies are found, speculation grows that the plane broke up in the air.
June 15 - reports that Air France replaces air speed sensors on all of its Airbus A330s and A340s.
June 19 - over the course of several days, it seems that bodies found from AF447 had broken bones, but not burn marks, suggesting a possible mid-air rupture of the plane.
June 22 - Bolivian television airs photos from the tv show "Lost", mistaking them for photos from doomed AF447.
June 23 - Signals from the black boxes are reportedly found. Later, the signals are discounted - no transmissions from the black boxes for AF447 are recorded.
June 25 - The pilot and one of the flight attendants from AF447 are reportedly among the bodies found. Approximately 50 bodies in total are retrieved from the ocean.
June 26 - Late on Friday, June 26 the Brazilian military calls off the search for bodies from AF447.
June 27 - Despite the called off search for bodies, France will continue to have resources searching for the black boxes from the flight.
Brief summary of what's known so far - Air France 447 Missing, Presumed Crash - Heading to Paris From Rio de Janeiro.
June 2 - debris is spotted a few hundred miles off the coast of Brazil that may be from AF447. The passenger list from the flight is expected to be released soon by Air France.
June 3 - debris is confirmed to be that of Air France 447. A debris field of several miles is being searched.
June 4 - speculation that pilots may have slowed down the aircraft too much going through an area of severe turbulence, possibly causing the plane to stall and not being able to recover from the stall.
June 5 - previously confirmed debris from AF447 now believed to have been trash from other vessels and not the Paris bound flight. The search for signs of flight 447 continue.
June 6 - causes of the Air France 447 tragedy are now including multiple systems failure and speed monitoring failure (a flaw that is now repairable but has caused issues with A330 aircraft - "We have seen a certain number of these types of faults on the A330," says BEA director Paul-Louis Arslanian (French air accident investigation agency).
June 7 - Is this where the blame game begins? Air France had replaced sensors that had issues with ice/icy conditions for its A320s as the problem was documented in those planes in its fleet. The airline was in the process of replacing these same problematic sensors on the A330 series but had not yet done so as it seems the same issues that were seen on their A320s were not widely reported for its A330 or A340 aircraft. Seems Airbus warned Air France. So who will point the biggest finger? The airline that didn't enact recommended changes, or the manufacturer that built planes with these issues...
June 10 - Air France commits to making the changes for the speed sensors on all of its A330 aircraft. Though not confirmed, it is suspected that malfunctioning speed sensors may have had a part to play in the crash.
June 11 - Air France allegedly received replacement sensors days before crash, not installed on AF447's aircraft.
June 12 - As more bodies are found, speculation grows that the plane broke up in the air.
June 15 - reports that Air France replaces air speed sensors on all of its Airbus A330s and A340s.
June 19 - over the course of several days, it seems that bodies found from AF447 had broken bones, but not burn marks, suggesting a possible mid-air rupture of the plane.
June 22 - Bolivian television airs photos from the tv show "Lost", mistaking them for photos from doomed AF447.
June 23 - Signals from the black boxes are reportedly found. Later, the signals are discounted - no transmissions from the black boxes for AF447 are recorded.
June 25 - The pilot and one of the flight attendants from AF447 are reportedly among the bodies found. Approximately 50 bodies in total are retrieved from the ocean.
June 26 - Late on Friday, June 26 the Brazilian military calls off the search for bodies from AF447.
June 27 - Despite the called off search for bodies, France will continue to have resources searching for the black boxes from the flight.
- Waiting for Signs of Air France Flight 447 - from the About Guide to Brazil Travel - and a message of condolences in English and Portugese.
- Map of Air France 447's route - following the events of AF447 late on May 31, into June 1.
- A few of Air France's press releases - release 1, and release 4. Release 5 lists all of the many nationalities on board.
- Debris possibly found from AF447 (June 2)
- Debris field confirmed as AF447 as the New York Times reports "Wreckage of Air France Jet Is Found, Brazil Says" (June 3)
- Air France Flight 447 'may have stalled at 35,000ft' (June 4)
- Bodies recovered and speed sensor issues (June 7)
- Bolivian TV mistakenly airs "Lost" pics as photos from AF447
- Airbus A330 Safety Record - Times UK looks at the A330's solid safety record.
- Excellent collaborative piece from the AP that discusses possible causes, search efforts, and what is happening on the ground in both Paris and Rio de Janeiro.
- Airlines and Accidents - Commercial Airline Crashes with Fatalities - 2009
- Chances of Surviving an Airplane Crash over Water
This will keep happening as long as the airlines keep letting the poorest counties Mexico, India, with sub-standard, poorly trained shade tree mechanics do the maintenance on the planes instead of having a trained air-flight mechanic.
There are plenty of incompetent and entitlement minded employees in the “richest” countries (including the US and in Europe) who feel it is their birthright to own these jobs and screw up at times. Do you have any sources that indicate these people from these so called “poorest” countries are poorly trained and incompetent or just editorializing without any basis?
I am shocked that AirBus is completely automated with PC controls. We all know computers are unreliable compared to mechanical steering and engine controls. Every AirBus in the world should be grounded until retrofit with dependable mechanicals. The news is telling us that similar partial failures of AirBus are routine. Some engineer at AirBus is too clever by half. Nice try. Start over and do it right.
Before this accident, if someone told me that the airlines were using 16th Century Engineering (the air tubes) to determine air speed, I would have laughed at them.
If someone told me that these air tubes could essentially shut down all computerized systems on a plane (that is essentially 99% computer controlled), I would have thought that they were a lunatic.
The shuttle and moon landings do not use these tubes and have a much much more precise air speed indicator.
Also, sand wasps that had built a hive in air tubes caused another crash that killed every passenger in another flight (different type of plane, but the same “wonder tubes).
Quality definitely cost more – until you have a disaster.
Dear Sailingwindward,
You have an invitation to visit India and see yourself the so branded “POOREST COUNTRY”. India has the latest state of the art technology with the best brains who are often invited to work in the so called “RICH COUNTRIES”. Build a strong base and then leave these stupid comments and for now, please feel sad for those 228 souls and stop the stupid blames. And ya, you got to pay for the visit to India yourself as I am presuming that you are from one of the so called “RICH COUNTRY”.
Sid: You tell em!! and you are right. Sailingwindward exhibits classical mindless bigotry and a witless “union” ethos.
I have a different take on the accident: It seems the seedy underground had good reason to bring this flight down (see this link):
http://www.sundayherald.com/international/shinternational/display.var.2512885.0.0.php
But how could such a seedy type bring the A330 down? And without anyone finding out? Use an EMP device. The A330 jets are not designed to reject an Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that exceeds those typically encountered in everyday life (lightning etc) – A NNEMP device that triggered in the baggage compartment would cause damaging voltage differentials in the power wiring that runs in trays along the baggage compartment. These would damage components in the low voltage power supplies in the avionic systems, some of which would fail immediately; others of which would fail in short order after the initial shock. This would explain the cascading electrical system failures.
Hi Busta,
For now I am also too confused and have various reasons in mind.
1. Lightning?
2. Terror?
3. System failure?
4. Pilot error?
5. Last and not the least, the tubes?
In this case, I can only go by the gut feel and that is:
The craft was struck by lightning, which every plane does at least once every year. However, this plane was struck at the wrong place leading to electrical failures. At the same times the tubes were iced and the pilots could not identify the speed. Probably they reduced the speed for trying to turn the plane to go around the CB clouds and they got an error on the speed that they were too fast and they reduced the speed further resulting in a stall. Yet I am not sure that does the system give a “terrain” warning while stalling at hights or not?
The second theory I believe in is that while trying to turn and avoid the CB clouds, they reduced the speed and the system gave them a very slow speed reading. they increased the speed and yet got a slow speed reading resulting in further increase of speed. In the phenomena, they went well overspeed, probably Mach 1, the speed of sound which the aircraft could not take as it is not designed for those high speeds and resulted in tearing the rudder apart. Thereafter we all know what happened.
However, I have a disclosure that neither am I a pilot nor an engineer. The terms used here by me are in a laymans language.
“God bless the 228 souls”
Another theory by a pilot:
Captain at the controls?
A possible cause could be the misinterpretation of the weather system by the crew, which made them enter an area with extremely severe weather. The cockpit crew comprised a captain and two first officers (co-pilots). The investigators have not been able to answer if the captain was at the controls.
When a flight is operated for a duration where the duty time limits are exceeded by a small margin, some regulators permit an additional co-pilot to be taken to fill in during the cruise section of the flight while the captain rests. The fatal flight had completed four hours of its eleven-hour journey. Could the two co-pilots have been at the controls? Could it be a case of lack of experience in flying under such weather conditions? The airline procedure may indicate who could have been in the cockpit, but the onset of severe turbulence may have brought the captain back to his seat. Only the CVR will provide the answer to who were at the controls.
Flying in the vicinity of a fully developed thunderstorm cloud system is not understood by all. Areas which appear to be clear may be serious traps while negotiating the path through the weather system. The satellite images indicate that the cumulonimbus clouds (Cbs in aviation meteorology language) were huge, extending for a distance to the left of the approaching aircraft path.
Strong updrafts
The ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) is an area 5 degrees north and south of the equator and is known to experience unstable weather conditions. AF 447 was in the ITCZ area. Did the crew fall for the trap of trying to go through an area which appeared clear?
A fully developed Cb has very strong updrafts in the core area. The warm air at a lower altitude is pushed up rapidly due to this updraft. A part of this gets super-cooled and any moisture gets condensed as hail and is thrown out of the area under the portion of the top of the cloud, which has an anvil shape.
It is difficult to detect hail in the weather radar returns in an aircraft. A major portion of this warm air mass that rises in the core is also thrown out of the anvil area as a strong downdraft. This can be extremely dangerous if one does not have the experience in interpreting weather indications in the cockpit.
The prevalent temperature at an altitude of 35,000 feet that AF 447 was flying at would have been around -40 degrees Celsius. When the aircraft encounters this downdraft of warm air, the temperature would have risen rapidly.
An aircraft flying in cold conditions is suddenly in a warm air region! At 35,000 feet, the temperature of the warm air mass could be what is prevalent at about 20,000 feet!
The only indication of an impending unstable air condition in the cockpit is the Total Air Temperature (TAT). A clear understanding and interpretation of this gauge may have helped in anticipating the turbulent weather.
Digital engine control
All the modern high performance jet aircraft have the FADEC (full authority digital engine control) system which ensures that the safe thrust levels acceptable to the airframe are never exceeded. FADEC computes and commands the required thrust from the engine using a number of inputs it receives both from the engine and the airplane systems. It is capable of validating and choosing the most accurate data for its computation. It has a precise thrust control mode, termed normal mode, and has two levels of backup control modes called soft and hard alternate modes.
For normal mode of operation it uses data from air data computers. In the event of total loss of data from air data computers, the FADEC still controls the engine using the inputs from its own sensors in a mode called alternate mode. As thrust computation is not very precise, thrust exceedance can occur in alternate mode.
The FADEC can precisely set and maintain the thrust required. Initially, when AF 447 was flying in stable cold conditions, the FADEC would have set the thrust limits for that temperature. When the aircraft entered the area of the rapidly descending warm air mass, the temperature sensors would have assumed that the aircraft requires a much lesser thrust setting to prevent exceedance of thrust limits. This thrust decay would not have been apparent to a pilot who has not experienced this.
The result will be a rapid reduction in airspeed and the natural reaction will be to select the maximum thrust to regain lost speed. The thrust will not be available as the FADEC has controlled the limits to prevent exceedance.
If the area of the strong downdraft is short, the aircraft will fly out of this and recover the speed as thrust will be available as the temperature starts dropping. If the downdraft area is widespread, the only answer is to trade altitude for speed.
The aircraft has to descend rapidly to a lower altitude and recover the speed. If the pilots try to maintain altitude, the rapid speed loss could result in a stall or get into what is known as a jet upset. This is the most likely scenario that AF 447 encountered. The location of the black boxes is vital to find out what really happened.
Regulators worldwide need to have a relook at crew requirements. Acceding to a system where two co-pilots may be in the cockpit without adequate experience in flying in adverse weather conditions has to be reconsidered. Such experience cannot be replaced by theoretical or classroom knowledge. The fatal crash of AF 447 may open the eyes of a system that seems complacent even about the dangers of flying in adverse weather.