French plane 'missing off Brazil' (AF447)

[Rockville]

France Dedicates More Military Assets to Search

PARIS - The French Air Force has contributed two Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft, an AWACs airborne radar plane, and a Falcon 50 in the search for traces of flight 447, the Air France A330 airliner which went down in the Atlantic earlier this week, Commandant Christophe Prazuck, the spokesman for the Chief of the Defense Staff said June 4.
The long range ATL 2 and AWACs aircraft operate out of Dakar, Senegal, flying nearly 2,000 km from the West African coast to reach the search area, codenamed Tasil, off the Brazilian coast. The ATL 2s can stay aloft for 12 hours and are flying at their maximum capability, Prazuck told journalists. The Falcon 50 flies 1,000 km to the search zone and works from the Brazilian Natal airbase. The Falcon has endurance of around 6.5 hours, while the AWACs plane can stay aloft for 15 hours. The AWACs aircraft flew its first search flight June 3.
"In any search and rescue operation the first days count double. You have to pull out all the stops," Prazuck said. Winds and strong currents will disperse any wreckage and the search pattern will progressively widen.
The French Navy's Ventose frigate, stationed in the Caribbean, is due to arrive in the area June 7 to help in the search effort. The frigate ships a helicopter.
The Pourquoi Pas, a hydrographic survey ship belonging to the Ifremer civil marine research institute is due to arrive June 12 and its undersea equipment will be used to look for the black box recorder.
The French Navy's Mistral projection and command ship, presently staging at Equatorial Guinea, is on alert to take part in the search. The ship operates as a helicopter carrier.
The U.S. has sent a P-3 Orion, while Spain has offered a Casa aircraft working from the West African coast.
A French request for U.S. satellite intelligence over the zone did not yield information because heavy cloud on the first day of search prevented visual imagery, while electromagnetic sensors also failed to deliver data on the aircraft's fate.
The French search efforts were being coordinated with Brazilian authorities, Prazuck said.
The Brazilian authorities have said debris pulled out of the water earlier this week did not belong the Air France flight.
Brazil has asked three merchant ships - a French container ship and two Dutch commercial - in the area to help in the search for wreckage of flight 447. The aircraft went down in unknown circumstances four hours after taking off from Rio for Paris.

Defense News, Published: 5 Jun 2009 05:50

[flying_kiwi]

Spanish newspaper EL MUNDO reported that a crew flying just behind the AF-flight saw a bright white light falling down the sky for 6 secondes around the time of the disappearing, believed to be the AF plane

(for me this indicates that it is very likely that the plane cought fire and went burning from cruise alt. into the ocean, after the fire and the impact on the water i'm not supriced that noting is found so far, every part of the a/c shatters to dust, as sad IMHO)

Problem with this report is that it was from an Air Comet flight that was flying Lima-Madrid (not behind the AF flight).
The location the Air Comet was at when the captain reported seeing this light was 2000km from the Air France flight, so it's phyisically impossible for what they saw to have been the A330.

Yorden

[Tintin]

According to French media, France will dispatch a nuclear submarine to the search area.

PARIS - The French Air Force has contributed two Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft, an AWACs airborne radar plane, and a Falcon 50 in the search for traces of flight 447

The Emeraude nuclear submarine is enroute to the search area and will arrive next week.

Dakar
E-3F : 204/36-DC
Falcon 50 : 7

[TF-104G]

Brazilians reports first bodys and aircraftparts found.

[Henk Voortwijs]

Reports: Bodies Found Near Air France Crash Site
The Brazilian military says two bodies have been found near the apparent Air
France crash site, according to several media reports.

MORE DETAILS: http://www.wsoctv.com/tu/5HkKfvSd6.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[streep]

In one of the press converences yesterday the small underwater locator beacon attached to the flight and voice recorder was shown. The spokesman said, holding the 10 cm long beacon in the air, "this is what we are looking for.... in the Atlantic ocean".

Streep.

[Key]

A little more real is to say you are looking for some orange-coloured containers, transmitting homing signals for the coming three weeks by means of that beacon. But, a very difficult task nonetheless.
Suggestions are now being made the transmission of tech data by ACARS may mark the time from severe aircraft damage to impact with the ocean...

Erik

[Rockville]

U.S. Navy Sending High-Tech Locators to Help Locate Air France Black Box

The U.S. Navy is sending two high-tech devices to French ships that will help them locate the black box flight recorders for the Air France plane that crashed nearly a week ago in the Atlantic Ocean.
A senior defense official said the Towed Pinger Locators, which can detect emergency beacons to a depth of 20,000 feet, are being flown to Brazil Monday with a U.S. Navy team. The team, which includes Navy personnel and some contractors, will deliver the locators to two French tugs that will use them to listen for transmissions from the black box.
The official requested anonymity because the decision, which came in response to a request from France, has not been announced. The U.S. Navy owns two of the locators, which are 5 feet long and 5 inches in diameter and are towed behind vessels at slow speed.

AP, Saturday , June 06, 2009

[Henk Voortwijs]

Sorry, this is only in Dutch:

http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/news/?ID=30917" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Thermal]

Wow these guys really were in the sh*t.

Here are some ACARS details from the doomed airbus

02:10Z: Autothrust off
Autopilot off
FBW alternate law
Rudder Travel Limiter Fault
TCAS fault due to antenna fault
Flight Envelope Computation warning
All pitot static ports lost
02:11Z: Failure of all three ADIRUs
Failure of gyros of ISIS (attitude information lost)
02:12Z: ADIRUs Air Data disagree
02:13Z: Flight Management, Guidance and Envelope Computer fault
PRIM 1 fault
SEC 1 fault
02:14Z: Cabin Pressure Controller fault (cabin vertical speed)

All three pito's got blocked (presumably iced up). They met some serious icing conditions. Unfortunately this is not the first time this has happend on the A330/A4340 series. In an earlier incident with an Air France A343, the ASI's indicated an errornous los of speed to 140kts in the cruise. Plane landed safely though. The maintenance later found that the drainage holes of all three pitot tubes had been clogged, rendering it very likely that weather combined with the clogged drainage holes caused the incident. Air France maintenance have reported more clogged drainage holes on A330 and A340 aircraft in the past to Airbus Industries.

Images of the ITZC that plane flew through.


source The Aviation Herald

[Key]

Aren't those conclusions a little fast? For starters, we don't even know yet if these messages were sent before, during or after loss of control of the aircraft. Clogged tubes do exist but are not a common thing, and to have all tubes on an Airbus clogged seems a bit wild.
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?

A plane going down with extensive structural damage on the other hand, could produce this series of messages it seems...

Erik

[Thermal]

A plane going down with extensive structural damage on the other hand, could produce this series of messages it seems...

Exactly what I think. Something (severe turbulence? lightning strike?) must have damaged the A/C so bad that it's design ultimate load must have been exceeded by a big margin.

Unreal.

[Pete]

A plane going down with extensive structural damage on the other hand, could produce this series of messages it seems...

Exactly what I think. Something (severe turbulence? lightning strike?) must have damaged the A/C so bad that it's design ultimate load must have been exceeded by a big margin.

Unreal.

By reading all this information and given the fact that this flight ran into an area with thunderstorms it leaves me under the impression it must have been subject to microburst or something equally violent. However im not willing nor able to draw conclusions these are just my thoughts about this tragic accident. According to dutch teletext a German plane suffered severe enroute turbulence a few hours before on roughly the same route.

Regards Pete

[Hurricane]

A plane going down with extensive structural damage on the other hand, could produce this series of messages it seems...

Exactly what I think. Something (severe turbulence? lightning strike?) must have damaged the A/C so bad that it's design ultimate load must have been exceeded by a big margin.

Unreal.

By reading all this information and given the fact that this flight ran into an area with thunderstorms it leaves me under the impression it must have been subject to microburst or something equally violent. However im not willing nor able to draw conclusions these are just my thoughts about this tragic accident. According to dutch teletext a German plane suffered severe enroute turbulence a few hours before on roughly the same route.

Regards Pete

Thunderstorms alone are not able to cause this amount of trouble, the other airline that ran into trouble was an LH 744 going from GRU-FRA but he came in severe turbulance a few days prior to the AF flight, not hours

Other media report that an possible extremist was onboard (and blew the a/c up....) and by now 40 bodies where recoverd from the Atl. Ocean...

As long as the black boxes remain unfound the stories will become even wilder

Adios,

Hurricane

[SPL]

The terrorist story is now untrue, because those two onboard had the same name as two terrorists on the black list.


Groeten Martijn