Air France

[tfaw]

This is very bad and sad news. Hard to understand - this was a fairly new aircraft. With all the technology and weather radar, I wonder why this happended? Wonder if the composite structure of the A330-200 contributed to the causes. We will probably never know. In summary, this was sad, I hope the suffering was very minimal, and our thoughts are with those all impacted.

[50convert]

Agreed. I hope they find something soon to help ease the minds of the families. This is horrible.

[skadanks]

This story has really had an emotional impact on me. Only about a month ago I was on an AA767 flight leaving Rio de Janeiro to Miami. While we were near some tropical thunderstorms as I could tell by the bumps and the criss-crossy pattern we were flying going around them, the flight for the most part was fine and turbulence was only moderate at most. But I think, it's all just a matter of luck. It could've been my flight that happened to rather than the Air France plane, it's just random chance and being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

News is reporting that the plane went through severe turbulence. I wonder if that was the cause? It will be one hell of an ordeal to get the blackbox off the Atlantic ocean floor.

[tek]

I looked at the weather patterns and saw no major disturbances other than a generally large area of isolated embedded thunderstorms with tops to 500 (50K) and extending from the Amazon basin offshore into the Atlantic including Rio. Key word here is embedded which means as you are flying along in weather with no visibilty you cannot see the isolated thunderstorm cells. Embedded phraseology usually got the pilots attention during a weather brief. Also, we were trained that onboard radar is fairly useless at penetrating rain bands which may obscure cells further on. It is tragic and I hope those affected may find solace.

[skadanks]

I looked at the weather patterns and saw no major disturbances other than a generally large area of isolated embedded thunderstorms with tops to 500 (50K) and extending from the Amazon basin offshore into the Atlantic including Rio. Key word here is embedded which means as you are flying along in weather with no visibilty you cannot see the isolated thunderstorm cells. Embedded phraseology usually got the pilots attention during a weather brief. Also, we were trained that onboard radar is fairly useless at penetrating rain bands which may obscure cells further on. It is tragic and I hope those affected may find solace.

Is this the latest weather brief or last night's?

[tek]

I heard the news on NPR at around 12:30 P.M. Pacific 6/1/09. Then I checked the turbulence forecast site for potential problems which may have been lingering after the fact. It would be interesting to see radar data, if available, in that part of the world, for the time of last contact and report of turbulence from the crew.

[Walrusmuse]

very tragic news-and a frightening, fascinating mystery. peace be with the crew and passengers.

[skadanks]

Just out of curiosity and maybe someone who works in aviation would know this, but why do we depend on radar only for tracking planes? Once they go to far out over sea, than nobody knows their exact location. Now they said the plane's computer sent back an automated message reporting trouble, so why couldn't it just as soon send back the GPS coordinates as well and we wouldn't have to have ships scour hundreds of miles of open sea having no idea where exactly to look?

[tfaw]

Certain of these aircraft had issues with Northrop supplied navigation devices called Air Data Inertial Reference Unit. As I recall, Quantas had two instances of uncommanded flight changes. At least one of those planes was the A330, and in that situation the plane lost control for a bit.

The FAA issued an airworthiness directive. See: http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAD.nsf/0/3cf0c40419204a2f8625756100508bef/$FILE/2009-04-07.pdf

Wonder if the unit failed bacause of a lighting strike or somehow just simply failed, along with the back-up.

I don't think I will be flying these aircaft that have these particular navigation units until there is some clarity.

[skadanks]

This type of aircraft is completely fly-by-wire. That makes me a bit nervous aboard one of these, because if there is a catastrophic electrical failure, the pilot has no manual means of controlling the plane. Perhaps that is what happened in this instance.