Air France Plane Drops Off Radar Over Atlantic

[LaoPo]

Chief Pilot's body identified .... more

BR>Jack

June 26, 2009

Body of Pilot of Doomed Air France Flight Identified

By NICOLA CLARK

PARIS — Medical examiners in Brazil have identified the bodies of the captain and a flight attendant of Air France Flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month, Air France said Thursday.

The two male members of the 12-person flight crew are among 49 bodies that have been retrieved from the sea in the search for wreckage and the remains of the 228 victims of the June 1 crash.

The airline did not release the names of the two crew members, but a pilots union representative identified the captain as Marc Dubois, a 58-year-old Frenchman and 21-year veteran of the airline.

This week, the international police agency Interpol said that 11 of the victims had been positively identified using dental and medical records, fingerprints and DNA data: eight Brazilians, one Brazilian-German dual national, one Brazilian-Swiss dual national and one British national. Germany’s foreign ministry has also said that three Germans have also been identified.

Separately, the French agency charged with investigating the crash said that it planned to publish a preliminary report on the accident on July 2.

The Airbus A330 went down in a violent thunderstorm more than 600 miles off the coast of northern Brazil during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Brazilian and French naval recovery teams continue to trawl the seas near the presumed crash zone for the plane’s so-called “black box,” the flight data and cockpit voice recorder that investigators say could contain critical clues to explain the accident.

The search for the black box gains urgency with each passing day because the they are designed to emit electronic beacon signals for only around 30 days. Once that deadline passes, the chances of finding the black box drop considerably, crash investigators have said.

source: The New York Times

LaoPo

[jackdanielsesq]

Brazil has quit the body search, which must be real tough on their families. The hunt goes on for thr black boxes. RIP

BR>Jack

The Brazilian military says it has ended its search for bodies from the Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic almost a month ago. Fifty-one bodies have been recovered since the plane went down on 1 June. A total of 228 people were on board. A Brazilian spokesman said the recovery of any more of the bodies was "impossible". But a French-led search for the plane's black boxes - which will emit signals until at least 2 July - will continue. The cause of the accident has not yet been established. The Airbus 330 was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it plunged into the sea.

[Mosha]

RSS - states that several of the bodies thus far examined have multiple bone breakages.

Indicates that craft hit the ocean possibly intact. Poor souls. RIP

BR>Jack

Now that's a strange one. I read on MSN that the evidence of the injuries showed the plane broke up in the air.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...-up-in-air.html

[jackdanielsesq]

I picked the following up a short while ago. The timing, or lack thereof is rather sickening.

BR>Jack

The latest leaks from the airline and its pilots indicate that Air France and Airbus were aware earlier than they have publicly admitted of serious problems with the speed instruments on the long-range A330 and A340 aircraft. Faulty speed readings were reported automatically by the Air France plane at the start of a series of failures that ended with the plane breaking up at night over the Atlantic with 228 aboard early on June1. The accident investigators have yet to reach any finding, but the consensus among pilots is that erroneous speed data probably confused the flight computers and left the pilots with a plane that would have been near impossible to fly. As more documents have come out this week, Air France confirmed to us today that a maintenance team had been sent to await the arrival of AF 447 at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport during the night of the crash. They were supposed to correct faulty pitot tubes, the outside sensors that register the speed of the oncoming air. The dispatch of the mechanics was a standard response to the automatic alerts (known as ACARS) that reported the erroneous speed data to Air France's Paris base. At the time, the airline did not yet know that the aircraft had crashed just over four minutes after its satellite transmitter sent the first ACARS alert. The boss of Air France said last Friday that the airline had experienced a series of faulty speed incidents on its long-range Airbuses beginning last August. But last night, company documents reached the internet showing that the problem was known before that. Eurocockpit, a site run by professional pilots, including some from Air France, published an Air France maintenance notice, NT-34-029, dated last August 20. This said that at that time there had already been six cases of malfunctioning pitot probes on the company's A340 aircraft, the bigger brother of the A330 [see extract below]. These were said to be due to water and ice. Eurocockpit, which has been the source of the main leaks from the airline since the crash, said work on the technical notice had started in June last year (see full documents here). Air France 447 was the 36th known occurrence of faulty speed readings on the A330 and A340 series, said the Eurocockpit association. The 35 previous incidents followed the same sequence as those reported by AF447, except that the pilots were able to recover control and return to normal flight.

Then also .....

The Eurocockpit pilots voiced amazement that the August 2008 technical note says that the faulty pitot tubes would have "nil operational impact". They called this outrageous. "How can it be imagined that there would be no operational consequence from the loss of so much information and vital systems?" it asked. "We have consulted the pilots who had these pitot problems. All told us that it took a big dose of immediate lucidity to avoid distraction by the stall warnings which came with the incident and face up to the deluge of alarms...." Maintaining control of AF447, at night in a tropical storm with faulty information, would have been a monumental task, the pilots said.

The pilots are obviously keen that the crew of AF447 should not be blamed for the crash. The flight recorders still lie on the floor of the Atlantic with only days left before their locator batteries run out. It is early to pronounce on the cause of this rare disaster, but the evidence is building up and it does not look good for Air France and Airbus. The accident investigation bureau, the BEA, is to produce a preliminary report by June 30.

Below is an extract from the August 2008 Air France note setting out the pitot problem and remedial action to be taken by engineers. AF447 reported the same auto-pilot disengagement and disconnection of the computerised flight controls as set out here at least 10 months earlier (THT is Air Tahiti Nui, whose aircraft are maintained by Air France).

[churchill]

I picked the following up a short while ago. The timing, or lack thereof is rather sickening.

BR>Jack

The latest leaks from the airline and its pilots indicate that Air France and Airbus were aware earlier than they have publicly admitted of serious problems with the speed instruments on the long-range A330 and A340 aircraft. Faulty speed readings were reported automatically by the Air France plane at the start of a series of failures that ended with the plane breaking up at night over the Atlantic with 228 aboard early on June1. The accident investigators have yet to reach any finding, but the consensus among pilots is that erroneous speed data probably confused the flight computers and left the pilots with a plane that would have been near impossible to fly. As more documents have come out this week, Air France confirmed to us today that a maintenance team had been sent to await the arrival of AF 447 at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport during the night of the crash. They were supposed to correct faulty pitot tubes, the outside sensors that register the speed of the oncoming air. The dispatch of the mechanics was a standard response to the automatic alerts (known as ACARS) that reported the erroneous speed data to Air France's Paris base. At the time, the airline did not yet know that the aircraft had crashed just over four minutes after its satellite transmitter sent the first ACARS alert. The boss of Air France said last Friday that the airline had experienced a series of faulty speed incidents on its long-range Airbuses beginning last August. But last night, company documents reached the internet showing that the problem was known before that. Eurocockpit, a site run by professional pilots, including some from Air France, published an Air France maintenance notice, NT-34-029, dated last August 20. This said that at that time there had already been six cases of malfunctioning pitot probes on the company's A340 aircraft, the bigger brother of the A330 [see extract below]. These were said to be due to water and ice. Eurocockpit, which has been the source of the main leaks from the airline since the crash, said work on the technical notice had started in June last year (see full documents here). Air France 447 was the 36th known occurrence of faulty speed readings on the A330 and A340 series, said the Eurocockpit association. The 35 previous incidents followed the same sequence as those reported by AF447, except that the pilots were able to recover control and return to normal flight.

Then also .....

The Eurocockpit pilots voiced amazement that the August 2008 technical note says that the faulty pitot tubes would have "nil operational impact". They called this outrageous. "How can it be imagined that there would be no operational consequence from the loss of so much information and vital systems?" it asked. "We have consulted the pilots who had these pitot problems. All told us that it took a big dose of immediate lucidity to avoid distraction by the stall warnings which came with the incident and face up to the deluge of alarms...." Maintaining control of AF447, at night in a tropical storm with faulty information, would have been a monumental task, the pilots said.

The pilots are obviously keen that the crew of AF447 should not be blamed for the crash. The flight recorders still lie on the floor of the Atlantic with only days left before their locator batteries run out. It is early to pronounce on the cause of this rare disaster, but the evidence is building up and it does not look good for Air France and Airbus. The accident investigation bureau, the BEA, is to produce a preliminary report by June 30.

Below is an extract from the August 2008 Air France note setting out the pitot problem and remedial action to be taken by engineers. AF447 reported the same auto-pilot disengagement and disconnection of the computerised flight controls as set out here at least 10 months earlier (THT is Air Tahiti Nui, whose aircraft are maintained by Air France).

I heard this also - and if Air France knew there was a problem wait for the shit to hit .

[jackdanielsesq]

LOL - quit flying a while back - prefer water - thats prolly where ya gonna land anywho - rather mix the aqua with my Jack.

Nice thought, but not nearly as rakish as your Inspector Clouseauesq avatar.

BR>Jack

[churchill]

Computer Failures Are Probed in Jet Crash

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1246059482...=fox_australian

[jackdanielsesq]

I saw the OZ, Perth Airbus fiasco some while back - Qantas, I believe - presume yours in a similar vein - and as I alluded to right up

front in this thread that 'normally' there is a catastrophic sequence of events that leads to this type of event.

We dont arbitrarily crash craft.

In so much as they will try and pin it on PE, so as to escape blame & (criminal) negligence, there is still the same issue that keeps

cropping up everywhere vis-a-vis all FBW systems on Airbus, and that is that the flight deck is still not 100% au fait with that

system when it goes down. In other words they have found serious difficulties in bringing any Airbus back from the brink -

which is the worst case scenario that these PIC train for - continuously - which is why flying has such good stats.

The simulator is your friend. That there are four very long minutes as it is spewed out messages - the Air France maintenance team

were to meet the incoming flight to effect repairs in Paris - and continued its flight to eternity.

Were it not that EADS/BEA were perceived rather as hostile witnesses, folks might rest easier.

Considering EADS is a sizable chunk of French GDP & pride, the damage-control machine is all over this like a cheap suit.

BR>Jack

I heard this also - and if Air France knew there was a problem wait for the shit to hit .

Amen!!

[Datsun240Z]

Watch THIS vid !

Watch the vid guys, also speedometer problems, speedometer is linked to the planes auto-pilot = doom

[Thai at Heart]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...dian-Ocean.html

Another Airbus goes down

[Datsun240Z]

^{_{Just reading the morning papers: Another A310 Crashed in the Comores Islands, 153 people onboard.}}

[animatic]

They must be gargling their toenails in Toulouse AirBus headquarters right about now....

2 in a month and Quantas not so far in the past and NYC, etc...

This is going be a Hunter Thompson moment for them for sure.

Will I ever awake from this nightmare? No just another day at work....

[LaoPo]

Member cdnvic just posted a very wise answer elsewhere on this forum:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Airbus-Bad-T...01#entry2840701

If there would be just 2 major carbuilders people would point their finger to either one of them when a car crashed, again...

Murphy's Law, and apart from that, Yemenia Airline wasn't exactly known for their good maintenance of their planes, so it seems.

LaoPo

Edited June 30, 2009 by LaoPo

[Datsun240Z]

Watch THIS vid !

Watch the vid guys, also speedometer problems, speedometer is linked to the planes auto-pilot = doom

[cdnvic]

Watch THIS vid !

Watch the vid guys, also speedometer problems, speedometer is linked to the planes auto-pilot = doom

Ok, ok, we read it the first two times. Are you waiting for applause?

(and it's not called a speedometer)

Further to this, if an autopilot doesn't know how fast an aircraft is flying, how can it work?

Edited June 30, 2009 by cdnvic

[animatic]

Watch THIS vid !

Watch the vid guys, also speedometer problems, speedometer is linked to the planes auto-pilot = doom

Ok, ok, we read it the first two times. Are you waiting for applause?

(and it's not called a speedometer)

Further to this, if an autopilot doesn't know how fast an aircraft is flying, how can it work?

Well that IS the basic point Datsun is trying to make.

It seems triple redundancy is not enough.

And that there was no inertial back up to deal with the lack of airspeed indication.

[Carib]

Further to this, if an autopilot doesn't know how fast an aircraft is flying, how can it work?

Well that IS the basic point Datsun is trying to make.

It seems triple redundancy is not enough.

And that there was no inertial back up to deal with the lack of airspeed indication.

Now, what inertial back up would that be for airspeed, please elaborate, I am sure the industry will be very interested.

[animatic]

Changes in speed cause changes in inertia.

This could have been used to add feedback to a troubled situation.

Another non-externally fouling source of the plane movements.

One speed indicator says slowing, the other says speeding up.

One is right... what's your reference if you can't trust both?

The main issue was they couldn't trust their readings solely via piteau tube data.

X, Y axis gyroscopes can tell you which way you are headed,

and the mount of change vs stasis that is happening.

Though not exactly the starting reference speed, but a change in speed.

So are you really speeding up or slowing down would have been clearer.

They have inertial navigation systems as back up for satellite and radar navigation.

All deal with direction and speed issues.

I had an acquaintance at Airbus years ago, we discussed this vis a vis redundancy.

Edited June 30, 2009 by animatic

[Datsun240Z]

Now, what inertial back up would that be for airspeed, please elaborate, I am sure the industry will be very interested.

Direct satellite measurement System.

[cloudhopper]

GPS, inertial, Loran, DME, radar etc. all give speed over the ground, which is affected by winds aloft and air density. Flight characteristics however depend entirely on apparent speed through the air in which the aircraft is flying, so unfortunately there is no substitute for actual air data from a pitot tube.

[Datsun240Z]

GPS, inertial, Loran, DME, radar etc. all give speed over the ground, which is affected by winds aloft and air density. Flight characteristics however depend entirely on apparent speed through the air in which the aircraft is flying, so unfortunately there is no substitute for actual air data from a pitot tube.

Not true. GPS is used in secret military usage, you do not know off my friend. It's not only your car TomTom. Did you really think the media tells you everything? One of my friends is a Co-Pilot on KLM, he confirms this.

A measurement with GPS is always correct.

A: Fixed measurement points on land, using mostly around 34 satellites or more.

B: The planes actual speed is calculated up on these reference points, using fixed data.

There is no such thing as land or air speed. An object is always travelling with the same speed.

There no way this can be wrong. Why do you think the U.S.A is building a orbital defence system against rockets, planes and whatever, because the measurements arent correct?

[Datsun240Z]

Flight characteristics however depend entirely on apparent speed through the air in which the aircraft is flying, so unfortunately there is no substitute for actual air data from a pitot tube.

There have been many cases in the past, when pilots had problems with their instrument readings, the used the nearest airport control tower to confirm their readings, which they could make a decission upon and saved alot of lives. Now i'm not making this up, you can find this back in the NTSB logs.

Edited June 30, 2009 by Datsun240Z

[Carib]

An aircraft needs a dynamic speed reference. Not one which relates to stationary / fixed either satellite or earth based objects.

If it was so it would only tell us something about the speed compared to the ground.

We need AIR speed indication, not ground speed.

That is why the airspeed is measured the way it is done as it has been since the beginning.

Non air `driven` systems have been experimented with, but until now not one has proven to be a a real replacement for the one every aircraft is using since day one.

Inertial systems are not a backup to GPS. They could use that as an input, but can do without depending on the total system.

The relation between the crash and the airspeed readings still has to be established, so I am not going there.

Edit for remark. I see that cloudhopper just beat me to it.

Edited June 30, 2009 by Carib

[BigSnake]

Last I heard they still haven't found the black Box. Sad lost of many lifes, RIP ALL

[Carib]

GPS, inertial, Loran, DME, radar etc. all give speed over the ground, which is affected by winds aloft and air density. Flight characteristics however depend entirely on apparent speed through the air in which the aircraft is flying, so unfortunately there is no substitute for actual air data from a pitot tube.

Not true. GPS is used in secret military usage, you do not know off my friend. It's not only your car TomTom. Did you really think the media tells you everything? One of my friends is a Co-Pilot on KLM, he confirms this.

A measurement with GPS is always correct.

A: Fixed measurement points on land, using mostly around 34 satellites or more.

B: The planes actual speed is calculated up on these reference points, using fixed data.

There is no such thing as land or air speed. An object is always travelling with the same speed.

There no way this can be wrong. Why do you think the U.S.A is building a orbital defence system against rockets, planes and whatever, because the measurements arent correct?

Total and utter rubbish.

Since there is no difference between land and airspeed tell me how an aircraft can have in indicated speed of 150 miles, and a groundspeed of 75 miles. ??

I am looking forward to see you explain that with your own theory of course.

[Datsun240Z]

GPS, inertial, Loran, DME, radar etc. all give speed over the ground, which is affected by winds aloft and air density. Flight characteristics however depend entirely on apparent speed through the air in which the aircraft is flying, so unfortunately there is no substitute for actual air data from a pitot tube.

Not true. GPS is used in secret military usage, you do not know off my friend. It's not only your car TomTom. Did you really think the media tells you everything? One of my friends is a Co-Pilot on KLM, he confirms this.

A measurement with GPS is always correct.

A: Fixed measurement points on land, using mostly around 34 satellites or more.

B: The planes actual speed is calculated up on these reference points, using fixed data.

There is no such thing as land or air speed. An object is always travelling with the same speed.

There no way this can be wrong. Why do you think the U.S.A is building a orbital defence system against rockets, planes and whatever, because the measurements arent correct?

Total and utter rubbish.

Since there is no difference between land and airspeed tell me how an aircraft can have in indicated speed of 150 miles, and a groundspeed of 75 miles. ??

I am looking forward to see you explain that with your own theory of course.

The Pitot measures AIR speed, not Airplane speed. And there is no such thing as ground speed, ever seen the ground moving? Air is not an object. The plane is. So measuring from a fix point of the ground, you know the speed which the plane is travelling. For instance 960 km/h. And this is accurate.

The difference in reading ( as you describe above ) is very logic, because you are measuring AIR speed.

v=s/t

Edited June 30, 2009 by Datsun240Z

[Thai at Heart]

So if the plane is travelling at 100mph into a 100mph headwind, is it moving forward or not?

Edited June 30, 2009 by Thai at Heart

[animatic]

75 MPH head wind and 75MPH forward movement against said head wind = 150mph airspeed.

100 mph into 100mph headwind is 100mph airspeed, but zero ground speed.

As reflected in GPS LORAN Radar.

My point was not about air speed or head winds, tail winds, side winds, vortex nor shears,

but strickly reading inertial MOVEMENT of the plane relative to it's previous movement.

Which does have some relevance to what the plane is doing from moment to moment.

Unless the plane is moving 100% into 100% or more headwind, it is making forward progress.

If that progress or is increased or diminished will result in some inertial differentiation.

IMO this could have helped this poor pilot in the video, if displayed in a logical way;

was their progress increasing or slowing, they had no clue.

Edited June 30, 2009 by animatic

[Datsun240Z]

So if the plane is travelling at 100mph into a 100mph headwind, is it moving forward or not?

Sure, you are not using the Pitot, you are measuring the airplanes speed by GPS. Not the AIR speed. So you know, you are moving forward at a precise km/h or mp/h.

So if you are driving 100 mph with your car into a 100 mph headwind, is it moving forward or not?

[Thai at Heart]

75 MPH head wind and 75MPH forward movement against said head wind = 150mph airspeed.

100 mph into 100mph is 100mph airspeed, but zero ground speed.

As reflected in GPS LORAN Radar.

My point was not about air speed or head winds, tail winds, side winds, vortex nor shears,

but strickly reading inertial MOVEMENT of the plane relative to it's previous movement.

Which does have some relevance to what the plane is doing from moment to moment.

Unless the plane is moving 100% into 100% or more headwind, it is making forward progress.

If that progress or is increased or diminished will result in some inertial differentiation.

IMO this could have helped this poor pilot in the video, if displayed in a logical way.

I absolutely agree. It may not have been completely accurate but it would have given an indication as to whether the plane was speeding up or slowing down.