Air France Airbus missing :S

[ED40]

Looks like some very sad news :S Fingers crossed a miracle has happened,

Update from Air France: Vol Air France 447 Rio de Janeiro - Paris-Charles de Gaulle

Brief translation


Air France regrets to announce the loss of flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro - Paris-Charles de Gaulle, expected arrival this morning at 11.10 am local, as just announced to the press by the Director General of Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon.

AF447 Aircraft F-GZCP A330-200 departed Rio de Janeiro on the 31st May 2009 at 19:03 Local time (00:03 paris time).


The aircraft went through a thunderstorm with strong turbulence at 2 am (universal time) or 4:00 GMT. An automated message was received at 2:14 (4:14 GMT) indicating a failure of electrical system in a remote area off the coast.


All civilian air traffic control Brazilian, African, Spanish and french have tried in vain to make contact with the flight AF447. The french military air traffic control tried to detect the aircraft without success.

216 pax onboard, 126 men, 82 women, 7 infants and babies.

12 crew (3 pilots, 9 cabin crew)

Captain 11,000 hrs TT (1700 on Airbus A330/A340)
Copilot 3,000 hrs TT (800 on Airbus A330/A340)
Copilot 6,600 hrs TT (2600 on Airbus A330/A340)

Aircraft equipped with engines General Electric CF6-80E.


Airframe had 18,870 flight hours since commencing service on 18 April 2005.

Last visit maintenance hangar dated 16 April 2009.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/6/1/1243860703922/Map-of-the-Air-France-cra-001.jpg

[ED40]

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/9/6/0/0816069.jpg

[Tocchi]

fffuuuccckkk... hope some people have survived :(

[Yarms]

yeh that sad as..very rare for a decent aircraft like this to go down . since its only been in service since 2005.. im no expert but i got a theory that the system that pretects it from lightening strikes fcukt up n yeh got struck n went down...hopefully they find it soon

[ED40]

Yeah Qantas also use A330's and remember the incident over Exmouth? I wonder if it is a related incident? I guess we have to sit back and wait for them to find her.

[Zuicider]

i doubt the outcome will be very good at all

[DJ84WA]

:( Not good.
I hope they find surviver's.

[TJ]

No good.

[d1_drifter]

"The aircraft would have run out of fuel by now. It would be beyond it's kerosene reserves..." - Jean-Louis Borloo, Air France.

:(

[[FFOUR]]

What a nightmare.

Hopefully by some miracle there are at least some survivors.

[Kye]

too soon

[Lonewolf]

sad :(

[savage1987]

I read about this earlier this evening. Bit of a devastating situation! Will be fascinating to see how it pans out though; hopefully the media circus doesn't just go into a feeding frenzy like usual.

[Rantopotamus]

my parents are getting on a plane in 4 hours!!!

[savage1987]

Don't stress man. Something has gone wrong on this one flight so recently - although statistically it does not work like this, it will help you to think that that's the bad luck for worldwide air travel used up for a while. :)

[Supra_boi]

air travel is the safest its ever been. probably another bird in the engine or something,

condolences to family's of those on board

[dstyle]

i dont think alot of people get the gravity of the situation.
some of the people on the flight would be going on holiday, and having excitement turn to shear horror, from the plane crashing.
some people were returning home, whilst there familys wait and wait and wait at the airport and never see them again.
its fucking tragic, and possibly one of the worst ways to die IMO
let them rest in piece

[thommo]

this is pretty fkd up. sad to hear.

news update just then on 9 still said same story.

[Mad_Aussie]

I've got doubts it was hit by lightning, modern planes are essentially Faraday cages, and are designed to keep flying even after direct strikes.
Similar doubts with a bird going into a turbine, many planes have kept flying through far worse; bird strike is very common.

Good point made about the Qantas one with its autopilot thing.

Tho my bets lie in something snapping in the turbulence; as they said, an electrical alarm was reported, something has broken and taken the plane down.
Extremely sad news, not that i'm religious but my prayers go out to them; best case scenario they are all found in life rafts... if the pilot was that experienced hopefully he could have binned it into the drink gently enough to get them all out.

[LooneyToons]

bermuda triangle they all travelled in time and theyr stuck with penny farthings and eye glasses

[locote]

this is what happens when a plane and water come together.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zuLP-QYiy0&feature=PlayList&p=DB59158392B0A8E0&index=1&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL

chances of survival out in the middle of the ocean....

[DT95WA]

still nothing on news.com.au wether they have been found or not...

RIP

[RICEY]

Landing a plane in water is apparently the hardest type of landing there is though that dude in the Hudson managed to pull it off somehow.

Would be a bad way to go knowing your times up as the plane plummets back to earth :(

RIP

[KPWISHN]

The Airbus brand planes seem to fall out of the sky left right and centre. Fuck getting on an Airbus again.

[Ryan1080]

The Airbus brand planes seem to fall out of the sky left right and centre. Fuck getting on an Airbus again.

So do Boeings, McDonnell Douglasses, Concordes, and other brands of planes. I don't think there is one that hasn't ever had a crash before... Best to focus on airlines and their safety records.

I stick to Singapore Airlines, at least you know you'll get to your destination in one piece no problem.

RIP :(

[Roobiks]

would be terrible waiting for someone at FDX and being told the plane just disappeared..

i'm betting on bird strike, 2 engine plane, loses one.. not much left to hold it up..



some food for thought though, statistically you have more chance being hit by lightening then being in a plane crash..

[KPWISHN]

"A succession of a dozen technical messages" sent by the aircraft around 2.15am GMT (10:15pm AEST) showed that "several electrical systems had broken down" which caused a "totally unprecedented situation in the plane," said Pierre-Henry Gourgeon said.

Same sort of thing that happened to the Airbus over WA that plummeted 10,000 feet or whatever injuring many. Surely confidence in their product will be running thin.

Very tragic and would suck to go like that.

[Adr3naL1N]

I may be wrong on this but wouldnt it of been up to high for a bird strike? at its cruising height?

none of us are really going to know whats happened unless they find the little black box which atm is looking pretty slim. Im guessing the electrical malfunction brought it down which was cause by the thunderstorm.

Another thing i was thinking about was if it was that bad of a thunderstorm arent they warned about it in advance to avoid/fly around them? i guess in this situation they underestimated it or couldnt avoid it?

[BOSS 290]

Yeah Qantas also use A330's and remember the incident over Exmouth? I wonder if it is a related incident? I guess we have to sit back and wait for them to find her.

The incident over Exmouth caused the ATSB to issue an instruction to Airbus to adequately ensure the fuel tanks were grounded so a possible explosion by lightning would not happen.

Who knows what happened. The A332 was navigating it's way through an electrical storm, with cloud height up to 50,000ft meaning it was impossible for it for fly over the storm. A bird strike would be impossible; birds rarely fly higher than 3000-5000ft.

Time will tell what happened. Extremely unfortunate event :(

[BOSS 290]

Same sort of thing that happened to the Airbus over WA that plummeted 10,000 feet or whatever injuring many. Surely confidence in their product will be running thin.

Very tragic and would suck to go like that.

Completely different problem. I'm most annoyed that the incident involving the Qantas A330 over Exmouth seems to get a lot of attention and bad press, yet people forget the incident involving Malaysia Airlines B777 which lost complete flight control over Learmonth, twice, then had to turn around and come back to Perth.

Both these type of aircraft are extremely safe.

[AndrZeJ]

emirates ftw

[zxz]

i think i read somewhere that a plane could fly easily with only one engine?

seems strange as usually they have 3 or 4 back up electrical systems to run each of the important things
to have 'several' failures at once is like the same chance of walking along a busy street and finding a winning $20mil lotto ticket on the ground - of course, one is bad luck, and one is good luck, but the chances are about the same - fuck all!

[Zuicider]

The Republic of Senegal says they have found wreckage from Air France flight 447 off their coast near their border of international waters.

[sethor]

i think i read somewhere that a plane could fly easily with only one engine?


Most planes from props to jets can fly on one engine, the A330 has a ETOPS-180 rating which allows it to fly 180 mins away from a diversion airport. Even with all engines out planes turn into giant gliders, Back up systems such as the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) give planes back up basic power/hydraulics.

[Adr3naL1N]

i think i read somewhere that a plane could fly easily with only one engine?

correct planes are designed to fly wiTh one engine in case of failure. But i dunno how long they can fly like that for.

also heard the reports about senegal but cant fidn anything on it yet.

[kiasu]

The Republic of Senegal says they have found wreckage from Air France flight 447 off their coast near their border of international waters.

RIP

[ossie_21]

Landing a plane in water is apparently the hardest type of landing there is though that dude in the Hudson managed to pull it off somehow.

Would be a bad way to go knowing your times up as the plane plummets back to earth :(

RIP


Especially when the water in the ocean has swells! Then when it comes to the lifeboats they get to deal with them, and if the plane goes down in the storm & you survive long enough to be in the ocean in that storm, the odds are stacked against you.

RIP to all

[BOSS 290]

emirates ftw

Really? http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2009/AAIR/pdf/AO2009012_Prelim.pdf

Pretty fucking scary imo! Look at the pics, especially the rear part of the bulkhead. JAL lost a 743 in the mid 80's, it's empennage separated from the fuselage due to a tail strike on take-off some 5 years earlier.

[VS50WA]

Its most likely a maintenence issue or, just a unlucky flight it could happen to any airline so dont get on the band wagon of what airline has the safest stats!

[thommo]

stats doesnt mean anything if they all using the same planes ! just purely bad luck

r.i.p

[Smoked]

the one in the youtube link there were quite a few survivors of that.
its been on air crash investigation on foxtel

[DRKWRX]

the strange thing is that the pilot didnt have time to make an emergency call?? if they were running one engine he would have called??? and that emirates scrapage was pilot error.

[SimonR32]

will be interesting to see the result of the black box findings...

no radio contact usually means big bang mid air!

[locote]

Contact with UFO.......
There back

[rucker_]

New burmuda triangle.

[ED40]

the strange thing is that the pilot didnt have time to make an emergency call?? if they were running one engine he would have called??? and that emirates scrapage was pilot error.

Yes, therefore it's quite possible the aircraft had a catastrophic failure.. ie broke apart during flight.. Maybe a bomb? Severe Turbulence?

[31-EVO]

according to the media, it's all pointing towards mid air explosion or epic failure of the plane due to turbulence

[Zuicider]

and people wonder why i dont like planes

[savage1987]

lol, I love flying. It's still ubersafe in the big scheme of things. I'm more at risk every time I'm on the road.

[Yarms]

i reckon the blackbox wont be found...sittin now at the bottom of atlantic ocean..

[BOSS 290]

i reckon the blackbox wont be found...sittin now at the bottom of atlantic ocean..

I think they have 28 days to recover it, after that the battery for the beacon goes dead........

[LooneyToons]

2 new factors...
a pilot claims to of spotted fire in the ocean..
and what ever happened happened fast because no mayday calls were reported meaning the only info they have is direct from the computers in the plane.
wouldn't be terrorism or they would all be on t.v trying to claim their involvement as usual.

[Yarms]

I think they have 28 days to recover it, after that the battery for the beacon goes dead........

ah yeh forgot bout that bit...my bad

[Adam]

gg computers

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/a5NXpar4Ouw&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/a5NXpar4Ouw&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

[Supra_boi]

lol. funny if no one was on board. that failed miserably

[HANS YOLO]

Could a lightining strike cause a breach in the fuselage?

[dstyle]

most likely not.
planes are that complex it could of been many errors or just a small one.

[Sully]

saw on the news about an hour ago that they've found the wreckage. no word on survivors, think they've just located it, not gotten people out there yet

[Shauno]

The sparse remains - which included an aircraft seat - were located 650km northeast of Brazil's Fernando do Noronha island late yesterday.

Mr Amaral said officials needed "a piece that might have a serial number, some sort of identification" to be sure that it came from the missing airliner.

[Shauno]

DEBRIS floating on the Atlantic Ocean where a missing Air France jet is suspected of crashing has been sighted by crew on a French freighter.

The sighting by the crew on the Douce France is said to be in the same area off the coast of Senegal where a Brazil TAM airline pilot spotted what was thought to be a burning piece of wreckage.

Brazilian carrier TAM said the crew of one of its planes saw "bright spots" on the surface of the ocean. The sighting took place at about the same time that Air France Flight 447 vanished from radar.

[31-EVO]

It's a horrible thing to say as many have lost there lives, but I'm really interested in hearing the outcome of what actually happened, if they ever find out what happened.

The weather radar would of displayed the intensity of the storm, so I hope he didn't just go " she'll be right " instead of flying around it. Apparently it was a decent storm, guess thats pretty evident:rolleyes:

[ReaperSS]

What i want to know is how the hell are they going to recover the wreckage from 4000 meters deep!!!!! Now thats deep!

[DT95WA]

What i want to know is how the hell are they going to recover the wreckage from 4000 meters deep!!!!! Now thats deep!

tocchi's little underwater robot?

[kaotic_azn]

Could a lightining strike cause a breach in the fuselage?

Don't think so. This clip just shows the lightning hitting the plane and going straight to the groud.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5IRfbC0RHsY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5IRfbC0RHsY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

[kiasu]

apparently using a couple submarines..

[Steppo_GT]

and people wonder why i dont like planes

And you are..?

[Fryman]

there is something quite strange about seeing the big birds fall and crash. youtube is full of these videos.

being an aircraft enthusiast, on the way back from stuttgart we stopped at the concorde museum. To see a concorde and even go inside one is a real experience, never in our lifetime will we ever have mach 2 supersonic aircraft for the well do to. Air france ruins everything!

[Tocchi]

tocchi's little underwater robot?

little? well we got a handful of "little" ones.. and a bombed one.. capable of 3500/4000m :) comes with a 20ft sea container, leather swivel seats and 6 monitor setup :D

[mc68]

Could a lightining strike cause a breach in the fuselage?

most airliners are rated to take alot more than any lightning strike...

[Tocchi]

supposedly lightning strikes coming UP from a cloud, are stronger than the typical lightning strikes.. could of hit the underside of the plane