A320 ditches into sea near Perpignan

[bramos]

Really sad to hear this. As said before by someone else, my condolences go out to the families and colleagues of those involved.

[bavaria]

It's not always a requirement. According to the Dutch AIP, AMS, RTM and MST don't require POB info, whereas EIN does.
In this case Perpignan does not have any requirement listed to report POB on first contact with ATC.

POB-call obliged only at military airfields (at least in the Netherlands)

[Lars]

That call is only made on millitary fields in NL.
introduced after the EIN crash IIRC.

almost all commercial operations note "TBN" (to be notified) in the pob section.
telling the authoritys that they have the number on record.

[James]

An ATC flightplan indicates the number of persons on board at the moment that the flightplan was filed. Although, that number might differ from the actual figures on board at the moment of departure of the flight.

??????????????? Belonie....a flight plan does not show the POB's

[skycruiser]

??????????????? Belonie....a flight plan does not show the POB's

arghhh we (JL) do then, at least

[flying_kiwi]

a flight plan does not show the POB's

An ATC flightplan indicates the number of persons on board at the moment that the flightplan was filed.

You're both right.
The transmitted flightplan message does not include POB, however, the supplementary information part of the flightplan does require something to be filled in for Persons On Board. As Lars said, most of the time TBN is filled in, and the operator will always have a record of the actual number that boarded the aircraft.

Regards,
Yorden

[Key]

Yep, and then comes the hardest step in news reporting: getting the correct number, unaltered, from the operational level through the media to publication...

A very sad event indeed.

Erik

[JS50557]

The crew of Air New Zealand's doomed Airbus jet were last night being hailed as heroes - a witness believes they saved dozens of lives by crashing the plane into the sea to avoid a small French town.

As the shattered jet lies in 20,000 pieces in the Mediterranean, new details began to emerge of the final seconds, including one witness report of a catastrophic engine failure.

"When the aircraft was over Canet, the pilot tried to restart it and it picked up," retired aviation mechanic Claude Pedro told Perpignan's L'Independant newspaper. "It ascended and then cut out. That was it, then nothing. It fell. I can tell you it was only flying on one engine, I'm sure of that, I would have heard the sound of the second. And with only one engine there was nothing to be done.

"What is certain, is that the aircraft could easily have crashed and fallen on Canet. I think that pilot really wanted to avoid the town and risk to the inhabitants, which is why he really pushed it. In some way, they sacrificed their lives to save others and to try to save the aircraft."


He said that once past the populated areas, the crew would have been able to descend to try to splash down but the aircraft probably "gave up".

According to several witnesses, it pitched in every direction before plunging into the ocean.

New Zealand-based aviation experts also speculated there was a catastrophic mechanical error on the German-operated plane. But questions remain over the final seconds - the pilots apparently had no time to correct the problem or issue a mayday.

A team of 10 divers last night returned to the crash site to try to retrieve the aircraft's two flight recorders, which are expected to yield significant clues to the cause of the crash. Air New Zealand urged the public and aviation industry to avoid speculating on possible causes until proper evidence emerged.

Five Kiwis - including four Air New Zealand staff - and the two German pilots were killed when the Airbus plunged into the Mediterranean, 3km from the French coast near Perpignan. Le Monde newspaper reported last night that three bodies have now been recovered, although search efforts are being hampered by bad weather and rough seas.

One experienced New Zealand pilot, speaking on condition of anonymity, had three theories: the plane either hit something, such as a bird; lost a vital piece of equipment such as an aileron or wing panel; or a mechanical defect brought the plane down. Another theory was that the wing flaps may not have deployed properly for the landing, causing the aircraft to bank suddenly to the right.

Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe arrived in Perpignan early today, following a 28-hour flight through Hong Kong and Heathrow with the partner and another family member of one of the victims, Murray White. There had been "a lot of tears, a few laughs, and a lot of sharing" on the flight to Europe, he said.

"It's bloody tough. I have sat next to them on the flight up to Hong Kong, and up to London," he told the Herald on Sunday. "We have got a team on board - there's police here, a TAIC [Transport Accident Investigation Commission] expert, people from the CAA [Civil Aviation Authority]. We have set aside space in the business class cabin. There's a real sense of team spirit developing, but also trepidation about what we are going to find when we get on the ground."

Family members of another victim flew out last night and a third family was leaving for France today.

Fyfe said he had received about 300 emails of condolence in the hours after the tragedy from staff, other airline CEOs, and members of the public, each of whom he was hoping to respond to by the time he arrived in France. He had also spent about four or five hours on a satellite phone on the flight to Hong Kong, liaising with senior management and families.

Fyfe had not seen photographs of the jet's koru fin floating in the water - an image eerily similar to an infamous Erebus crash photograph. "The aircraft was owned by Air New Zealand and was operated by another airline. Tragically, a number of our people were on board. XL was operating it. It's a tragedy and the fact there is imagery linking Air New Zealand, undoubtedly that connects the emotion to people, as much those inside the company as those outside."

He said the airline had not received any indication of the cause of the crash.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=10545744" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Key]

Pfff...
With a comment like

I can tell you it was only flying on one engine, I'm sure of that, I would have heard the sound of the second. And with only one engine there was nothing to be done.

at the beginning of this 'report' by a former aviation mechanic, I estimate its value close to none at all.

Erik

[JS50557]

INVESTIGATORS are looking at whether a paint job may have been the reason an Air New Zealand Airbus plunged into the sea, killing seven people.

French aviation officials were investigating whether the repainting of the plane in Air NZ livery affected external instruments providing data to the A320 aircraft's systems, Stuff.co.nz reported today.

Two bodies have recovered from the crash scene in the Mediterranean Sea off France but five are believed to be still trapped in the fuselage of the four-year-old Airbus A320.

The plane had been chartered to a German carrier and was undergoing tests before being handed back to Air NZ.

It made the fatal flight last wek after a firm in Perpignan, France, had repainted the exterior, Stuff said.

A cockpit voice recorder had been recovered by French divers and the cause of the crash was expected to be known within two days of experts deciphering its contents, deputy Perpignan prosecutor Diminique Alzeari said.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/s ... 28,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Peter3076]

De Pers, 27th November 2008 reported:
A passengerairliner of Air New Sealand with 7 people aboard is during a testflight crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. Two persons has been found dead, 5 others are missing. The aircraft toke off from Perpignan, France.
The Flight recorders where found on Friday. The plane had undergone checks at a Perpignan maintenance center. It was leased to charter airline XL Airways Germany and was due to return to service for Air New Zealand next month, officials from the companies said.
The crew included two German pilots, as well as a pilot and three engineers working for Air New Zealand and an aircraft inspector from the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority.
Airbus said Thursday the 150-passenger plane had accumulated approximately 7,000 flight hours since its delivery to Air New Zealand in July 2005.

flightlevel.be gives the next info:
Een Airbus van het type A320-232 die haar carrière in de zomer van 2005 begon, bij het Australische Freedom Air met registratie ZK-OJL. Nog geen jaar later werd het toestel als D-AXLA overgenomen door Star XL, dat later omgevormd werd tot XL Germany. Op 1 december zou het in dienst komen bij Air New Zealand onder haar oude registratie ZK-OJL.

[flying_kiwi]

There are now reports that the CVR is so badly damaged, that there are fears that no information can be extracted from it. The DFDR was recovered yesterday, also in a badly damaged state.
Both recorders have been sent to the manufacturer (Honeywell) to give the best possible chance of retrieving data from them.

This news, plus the fact that there are very few large pieces of wreckage, would seem to indicate that the impact was extremely violent, which will make the investigation a difficult and time-consuming one unless the BEA catch a break.

Also, a third body was recovered by divers from the cockpit area of the wreckage on the seabed. This leaves four still missing.

Regards,
Yorden

[patrick@tediek.com]

There are now reports that the CVR is so badly damaged, that there are fears that no information can be extracted from it. The DFDR was recovered yesterday, also in a badly damaged state.
Both recorders have been sent to the manufacturer (Honeywell) to give the best possible chance of retrieving data from them.

This news, plus the fact that there are very few large pieces of wreckage, would seem to indicate that the impact was extremely violent, which will make the investigation a difficult and time-consuming one unless the BEA catch a break.

Also, a third body was recovered by divers from the cockpit area of the wreckage on the seabed. This leaves four still missing.

I am really amazed with this. The plane was flying low. of course impact with water is harder then stone, but jets have flown with high speed into an ocean and the recorders are functional.

[JS50557]

Investigators have found the black box flight recorders of an Air New Zealand Airbus A320 which crashed in France last week, but they still cannot explain how the incident occurred, French authorities said on Wednesday.
The plane, which had been leased to a German carrier, was being refitted and tested before returning to Air New Zealand, when it plunged into the Mediterranean sea on an approach run into the southwestern city of Perpignan on November 28.

All seven people aboard are believed to have been killed.

France's BEA civil aviation security organisation said the aircraft's flight recorders have been found and their protective casing and memory cards appear to be intact, but investigators have so far been unable to extract information from them.

"Additional work is needed although it is not possible at the moment to predict results," the authority said in a statement.

"The crew had given no indication of any problem to air traffic control when it stopped responding to calls," the statement added.

"At this stage of the inquiry, nothing explains why the aircraft left its trajectory and crashed into the sea."

The A320 is a twin-engine, single-aisle airliner made by the Airbus unit of European aerospace group EADS that normally seats around 150 passengers. About 1,960 A320 aircraft are in service with airlines around the world.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20081203/tw ... 5ebb3.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[flying_kiwi]

The BEA has released an interim (factual) report with the information currently known.
Makes for interesting reading, and raises more questions for me than it answers.

Report

Regards,
Yorden