French plane 'missing off Brazil' (AF447)

[Thermal]

Thunderstorms alone are not able to cause this amount of trouble

1st rule of aviation: Fly the airplane
2nd rule of aviation: Never ever underestimate the power of weather. Especially in aviation.

Let's hope the boxes will be found. This has to be sorted out.

[streep]

Looking at this extract, it seems everything vital failed within a few minutes. A total electrical failure with no deploying ram-air turbine could possibly cause something similar, but how could there have been ACARS messages in that case?

It could not have been a full electrical failure, as this would generate FAR more error msgs.
All faults are now are only navigation and flight control related.


streep

[SPL]

Found this article and picture on http://www.telegraaf.nl" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/4202 ... tml?p=22,1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


credits of the picture: REUTERS

Incredible to see how in tact this part is.
If the aircraft fell a part in the air, how became this part so in tact?
With the inpact on the water, it must have been a thousand pieces?


Groeten Martijn

[Key]

Just guessing, it could have come down in a larger part of the aircraft (e.g. a fuselage section) which disintegrated on impact, leaving this galley as one of the bigger pieces. This disaster must be one of the weirdest air accidents in history.

Erik

[Derice]

Hoe zit het nou met de blackboxen?
Aangezien het nu 30+ dagen geleden is dat ze begonnen met uitzenden van hun signalen en de batterij naar verluid leeg zou moeten zijn.
Lost forever?

[hmv]

Hoe zit het nou met de blackboxen?
Aangezien het nu 30+ dagen geleden is dat ze begonnen met uitzenden van hun signalen en de batterij naar verluid leeg zou moeten zijn.
Lost forever?

De batterij moet MINSTENS 30 dagen aankunnen in extreme weersomstandigheden(dus zeer hoge of zeer lage temperatuur), dus waarschijnlijk kunnen ze het nog wel even aan en hopelijk worden ze gevonden voor het eigenlijk te laat is, anders blijft AF447 voor altijd een mysterie.

[flying_kiwi]

BEA have just held a press conference and released their preliminary report on AF447:
English Version

Apparently they also stated that the search for the black boxes will continue until the 10th of July.

Yorden

[Rockville]

Vital hours lost in Air France search

By Chris Yates
IHS Jane's aviation analyst

Poor air traffic communication contributed to a delay in the launch of a search and rescue mission for Air France 447 which crashed in the Atlantic on 1 June.

According to the French air accident investigation agency BEA, AF 447 attempted automated contact with Dakar Air Traffic Control (ATC) three times before it crashed, but these three contact requests were refused by the control system since no flight plan existed.

Neither Brazilian nor Senegalese air traffic control authorities noted the loss of the airliner and the alarm was only formally raised several hours later when the aircraft failed to appear in Spanish and, latterly, French airspace.

Specifically, BEA highlighted poor shortwave communication between aircraft crossing the area between the southern and northern hemispheres and ground based ATC centres.

Flight plan

BEA also singled out inadequate liaison between the relevant centres as a cause of the delay in raising an alarm.

Typically, an airline raises a flight plan with an appropriate agency some time before departure of a flight.


The flight plan is then transmitted to all control agencies along the planned route its aircraft intends taking.

Importantly, the flight plan generated and sent by Brazilian air traffic control authorities did not include the address code for Dakar ATC.

During the course of the flight, the aircraft flight deck crew communicates by voice and data transmission with the control agencies to pass vital information including position and altitude.

Separately, automated systems will communicate from time to time with the airline's maintenance base.

BEA initial findings state that Brazil only passed information about AF 447 after a voice request from Dakar, less than thirty minutes prior to its estimated time at the Tasil reporting point - which marks the boundary between Brazilian and Senegalese-controlled oceanic airspace.

Although Dakar then generated a virtual flight plan for AF 447, the centre had no radio or data contact with the flight.

Crucially, the Dakar centre did not appear to follow standard operating procedures when contact with an inbound aircraft cannot be made.

These procedures state that if contact is not made within three minutes following the estimated time of passing above a transfer point, then the receiving sector should inform the exiting sector so that adequate measures can be taken.

The Dakar shift supervisor only informed Dakar Rescue Control Centre that AF447 was missing at 0741, some 6 hours after generating a virtual flight plan and 5.5 hours after the aircraft should have entered Senegalese controlled airspace.

ATC service within the Africa and adjacent Oceanic regions has long been a source of significant consternation for airline pilots.

Stern questions

Over recent years the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO); the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and L'Agence pour la Securite de la Navigation aerienne en Afrique et a Madagasar (ASECNA) have taken steps to improve both voice and data communications between aircraft and ground within the region.

These steps have included establishing satellite voice and data channels between air traffic control centres, a significant upgrade of ground-to-air communication systems and enhanced operational procedures to improve the safety of flight.

Nevertheless, the loss of this aircraft and the delay in mounting a search and rescue operation, clearly shows that much more must be done to improve the lot for air carriers and their passengers.

As the investigation into the loss of AF 447 progresses, stern questions need to be asked of both the Brazilian and Senegalese air traffic control agencies over their inter-agency communication capability and procedures.

Specifically these agencies must be taken to task as to how a civil airliner could simply fall out of the sky on their watch and go unnoticed for several hours until other air traffic control agencies along the planned and filed route raised the alarm.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/e ... 132997.stm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Published: 2009/07/04 11:07:21 GMT

[Derice]

Ships ending search for Airfrance black boxes

Two ships using U.S. listening devices to search for the black boxes of Air France Flight 447 were ending their hunt Friday, an American commander said. A French nuclear submarine, however, will continue to look. U.S. Air Force Col. Willie Berges, the Brazil-based commander of American military forces supporting the effort, said one ship towing a U.S. Navy listening device had already stopped searching. “The last ship will be departing the search area today,” Berges said. He didn’t know what time the final ship would leave the search area. Flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, more than 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) off Brazil’s northeastern coast, on June 1. All 228 people aboard died. Investigators have said without the black boxes, it may be impossible to know with certainty what caused the crash.

Source: http://www.jetphotos.net/news/index.php ... &tb=1&pb=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Shannon spotter]

They aren't giving up yet:

"Though the search for the flight recorders by two ships using U.S. listening devices and a French nuclear submarine ended July 10, the BEA said the oceanographic survey ship Pourquoi Pas will begin a new underwater search next week.

The new phase of research will last around a month with the help of diving vehicles and sonar, the agency said."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/brazil_plane" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Rockville]

Airbus urges airlines to swap plane speed sensors

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Airbus has urged airlines to replace most of the European-made speed sensors on their A330 and A340 planes for more "consistent" ones made in the U.S.

The recommendation follows a series of incidents in which speed sensors -- known as pitot tubes -- made by French defense and electronic systems group Thales have been observed to give inconsistent readings mid-flight.

Thales-made speed sensors came under scrutiny during the investigation into the mysterious crash of Air France flight 447 on June 1, killing all 228 passengers and crew. See a map of the flight route »

The cause of the crash still hasn't been determined, but French air accident investigators said the pilots received "inconsistent" speed indications before the aircraft's perilous descent.

On Thursday, Airbus emailed an Accident Information Telex to all operators of the A330 and A340 recommending that at least two of the three pitot tubes on each aircraft were replaced by those manufactured by U.S. firm Goodrich.

The recommendation applies to around 200 aircraft owned by a number of airlines, including Air France. The majority of A330s and A340s are already fitted with the Goodrich parts. Calls made to Thales for comment on Friday were not returned.

Airbus says the timing of the alert is not based on new information received from French air crash investigators probing flight 447, but a "precautionary" response to a lack of confirmation about the cause of the accident two months on.

The aerospace group had already been examining "a handful" of cases of air speed inconsistency before the Air France crash in June.

"We found that there were some instances towards the end of 2008 that were happening and we asked some airlines to help us feed back some information in order that we could study why there seemed to be a rise in these sorts of incidents," Airbus spokesman Justin Dubon told CNN.

After the crash, airlines were urged to report any anomalies, and more cases of inconsistencies came to light.

"From that reporting back to us, looking at the pattern, that was when it was discovered that operators using the Goodrich probes had fewer problems," Dubon said.

While the Airbus recommendation carries no regulatory weight, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said it plans to make the move mandatory. A proposal to that effect will be issued within the next 14 days. An EASA spokesman says the U.S. safety body, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), is likely to follow.

"We're in constant consultation with the FAA on this -- and they have confirmed their support for our action. This is what usually happens. We rarely have any difference in airworthiness directives," said EASA spokesman Daniel Hoeltgen.

Pitot tubes are positioned on the exterior of aircraft. As air passes through the tube, they measure and convert the air pressure into air speed. The information is relayed to pilots in the cockpit. If three dials are all showing different speeds, the pitot tubes are determined to be inconsistent. See pictot tubes explained »

The procedure to change the tubes is simple. Airbus says the work could be completed in an overnight stop so no aircraft would have to be taken out of service.

Aviation expert Keiran Daly told CNN the exact nature of the problem with Thales-made tubes had not yet been determined, but it related to the tube's ability to release water.

"There's a tiny hole in the bottom on of it which lets water drain out of it. What happened was that, in some instances at least, when the hole was drilled the machinery left a burr around the edge of it which was preventing the water from easily draining out."

"Now that is known to have been discovered in some cases. What has not been established is a direct link between that phenomenon and the instances that have occurred but obviously there is considerable interest in that and suspicion around that," he said.

He added: "So far, at least, there hasn't been the same type of phenomena recorded on aircraft with Goodrich tubes."

The investigation into the Air France crash entered a new phase three weeks ago. Investigators switched their efforts from detecting the missing 'black boxes' through acoustic broadcasts, known as "pings."

France's oceanographic ship "Pourquoi Pas?," which carries specialized exploration and intervention vehicles, is conducting new searches using diving equipment and towed sonar.

CNN, July 31, 2009

[JS50557]

LE BOURGET, France - Air France Flight 447 slammed into the Atlantic Ocean, intact and belly first, at such a high speed that the 228 people aboard probably had no time to even inflate their life jackets, French investigators said Thursday in their first report into the June 1 accident.
Likening the investigation to a puzzle with missing pieces, lead investigator Alain Bouillard said that one month after the crash, "we are very far from establishing the causes of the accident."

Problematic speed sensors on the Airbus A330-200 jet that have been the focus of intense speculation since the crash may have misled the plane's pilots but were not a direct cause, Bouillard said, while admitting that investigators are still a long way from knowing what did precipitate the disaster.

"The investigation is a big puzzle," said Bouillard, who is leading the investigation for the French accident agency BEA. "Today we only have a few pieces of the puzzle which prevents us from even distinguishing the photo of the puzzle."

The plane was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it went down in a remote area of the Atlantic, 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) off Brazil's mainland and far from radar coverage.

The BEA released its first preliminary findings on the crash Thursday, calling it one of history's most challenging plane crash investigations. Yet the probe, which has operated without access to the plane's flight data and voice

recorders, appears so far to have unveiled little about what really caused the accident.
The speed sensors, called Pitot tubes, are "a factor but not the only one," Bouillard said. "It is an element but not the cause," Bouillard told a news conference in Le Bourget outside Paris.

Other elements that came under scrutiny in the immediate aftermath of the crash, such as the possibility that heavy storms or lightening may have brought down the jet, were also downplayed in the BEA's presentation.

Meteorlogical data show the presence of storm clouds in the area the jet would have flown through, but nothing out of the ordinary for the equatorial region in June, Bouillard said, eliminating the theory that the plane could have encountered a storm of unprecedented power. Other flights through the area shortly after Flight 447 disappeared didn't report unusual weather, Bouillard said.

"Between the surface of the water and 35,000 feet, we don't know what happened," Bouillard admitted. "In the absence of the flight recorders, it is extremely difficult to draw conclusions."

A burst of automated messages emitted by the plane before it fell gave rescuers only a vague location to begin their search, which has failed to locate the plane's black boxes in the vast ocean expanse.

The chances of finding the flight recorders are falling daily as the signals they emit fade. Without them, the full causes of the tragic accident may never be known.

One of the automatic messages indicates the plane was receiving incorrect speed information from the external monitoring instruments, which could destabilize its control systems. Experts have suggested those external instruments might have iced over.

The Pitots have not been "excluded from the chain that led to the accident," Bouillard said.

Analysis of the 600-odd pieces of the jet that have been recovered indicate that the plane "was not destroyed in flight" and appeared to have hit the water intact and "belly first," gathering speed as it dropped thousands of feet through the air, he said.

He also said investigators have found "neither traces of fire nor traces of explosives."

Bouillard said air traffic controllers in Dakar, Senegal had never officially taken control of Flight 447 after its last radio contact with Brazilian flight controllers at 1:35 a.m., and it wasn't until up to seven hours later that flight controllers in Madrid and Brest, France raised an alarm. He said the delay was being investigated but was not a cause of the crash.

Some members of the crash victims' families said that without a clear cause to blame the accident on, the interim report held little significance.

Marco Tulio Moreno Marques, a 43-year-old lawyer in Rio de Janeiro, lost both his parents in the crash. He did not bother watching the French investigators' public presentation, saying that without the black boxes, he was skeptical of any findings investigators present.

"I think it is difficult that they will ever find out what happened," he said. "They can say a flying saucer hit the plane, but if they don't find the black boxes we will never know for certain what happened."

Kieran Daly, editor of Air Transport Intelligence, said that although investigators seem to know very little about what happened due to "a horrendous lack of evidence," it is significant that the plane landed the right way up.

"It suggests they were in some kind of flight attitude," he said.

But he warned that "without finding the black boxes it's going to be phenomenally difficult, maybe impossible, to determine what happened."

Bouillard said life vests found among the wreckage were not inflated, suggesting that passengers were not prepared for a crash landing in the water. The pilots apparently also did not send any mayday calls.

He said there was "no information" suggesting a need to ground the world's fleet of more than 600 A330 planes as a result of the crash.

"As far as I'm concerned there's no problem flying these aircraft," he said.

Air France said all elements of the investigation "will be fully and immediately taken into account by the airline" and that it is continuing to cooperate with the investigators with "a commitment to total transparency with regard to the investigators, its passengers and the general public."

The black boxes - which are in reality bright orange - are resting somewhere on an underwater mountain range filled with crevasses and rough, uneven terrain. Bouillard said the search for them has been extended by 10 days through July 10. He said his investigation is currently scheduled to run through Aug. 15.

Bouillard said French investigators have yet to receive any information from Brazilian authorities about the results of the autopsies on the 51 bodies recovered from the site.

Families of the victims met with officials from BEA, Air France and the French transport ministry before the report was released. An association of families addressed a letter to the CEO of Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, demanding answers to several questions about the plane.

Investigators should have an easier time recovering debris and black boxes in the crash of a Yemeni Airbus 310 with 153 people on board that went down Tuesday just nine miles (14.5 kilometers) north of the Indian Ocean island-nation of Comoros.

Vandore reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Cecile Brisson at Le Bourget, Angela Charlton in Paris, Marco Sibaja in Brasilia and Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

[Rockville]

FAA orders airplane part replaced after Air France crash

(WASHINGTON) -- The Federal Aviation Administration ordered U.S. airlines Thursday to replace a part that has come under suspicion in the crash of Air France Flight 447.
The FAA gave airlines 120 days to replace devices that could be giving false airspeed indications.
All 228 people on Air France Flight 447 were killed when the Airbus A330 plane crashed June 1 en route to Paris, France, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The U.S. air safety watchdog agency bypassed the usual process which allows for public comment on its orders.
It said it could expedite the process because of the limited number of planes involved -- only 43 in the United States -- and because they say it is prudent to make the change as quickly as possible.
At the same time, it said it did not feel the risk warranted grounding the fleet of aircraft.
US Airways, one of only two American carriers who fly planes affected by the order, said Thursday they had already replaced the part.
"The work was completed last week. We are scheduled to take delivery of three new ... A330s by year's end and those three will not require any ... changes," a US Airways spokesman told CNN via e-mail.
Northwest is the other U.S. carrier that operates A330s, the FAA said.
A spokeswoman for Delta airlines, Northwest's parent company, said affected Northwest planes are getting new parts.
"We are well under way working closely with Airbus and Goodrich to install the Goodrich pitot tubes within the required timelines," Ashley Black told CNN.
The devices under suspicion are the Thales Avionics pitot probes on some Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft.
They measure "ram air pressure," the pressure exerted on the plane as it flies through the air, and are part of a system used to determine air speed.
The FAA order requires aircraft operators to replace certain Thales pitot probes with certain Goodrich or newer-design Thales pitot probes.
The FAA says the order is intended to "prevent airspeed discrepancies, which could lead to disconnect of the autopilot and/or auto-thrust functions and consequent increased pilot workload."
French authorities are still investigating the cause of the Air France crash. But tests conducted since the crash have brought into question the performance of the pitot tubes and authorities say there have been reports of other malfunctions on flights.
No U.S. operator flies A340s. There are 302 of the aircraft worldwide.
The FAA action follows an announcement by European air safety authorities earlier this week to require pitot tube replacements by September 7.

CNN, September 3, 2009

[Derice]

They found the black boxes! (Dutch article)

http://www.nu.nl/buitenland/2241704/zwa ... onden.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Basman]

They found the black boxes!

'Found' seems a little premature here....The article says they have localized the black boxes but this localization has a margin of 5km....that's still an awful lot of seabed to explore.

Bas