Air France A330 vanishes off brazilian coast!

[abd zibdeh]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/0...index.html

may god be with them !

[elfamoso2020]

yea, Cnn saying that something serious happened on board, but no1 knows yet....

*smh*

[the_nick]

I heard that they had an electrical failure of flying through turbulence

E: ooh it's also written on the CNN article



Post Edited ( 06-01-09 19:37 )

[abd zibdeh]

i dont believe that an A330 would suffer from a failure do to turbulence ! its one of the best aircrafts out there!

[Steven Tan]

A Yahoo! headline says that their might have been a loss of cabin pressure onboard. Could be a factor?

[Tracker801]

Gentlemen,

It is dramatic enough this happened to a trustworthy plane, good airline but most of all all those aboard.

Shall we wait for a little more info from investigators and other people that know a lot more about aircraft instead of relying on media
reports from reporters that do not even have a single clue as to how an aircraft operates?
The fact that it is now on the ocean floor makes it already hard to come up with sufficient evidence. The clock is ticking now to find the
black boxes before they go silent.

[iflyfsx]

Can we talk about what we do know about this airplane?

But about 4:15 a.m. Paris time, Flight 447's automatic system began a four-minute exchange of messages to the company's maintenance computers,
indicating that "several pieces of aircraft equipment were at fault or had broken down," he said.

That's pretty cool, so how come this airplane has automatic systems that dial home, but can't relay its location? And if it can, how can it be
"missing"? It seems to me, if the airplane could still communicate automatically, its position would be one of the first things it would transmit, so
they would have some idea of where to look for it.

Does anyone know how that works?

Also, the redundancy in the all-computerized modern airplanes can take care of single point failures, but what if the electronics are fried? (solar flare, EM pulse, whatever). Is there a "manual override"?



Post Edited ( 06-02-09 00:15 )

[whiskey-zulu]

iflyfsx wrote:
Also, the redundancy in the all-computerized modern airplanes can take care of single point failures, but what if the electronics are fried? (solar
flare, EM pulse, whatever). Is there a "manual override"?

Boeing aircraft are outfitted with a mini wind turbine-generator that can be deployed from the underside of the aircraft should all electical back-ups
disappear; not sure if Airbus adopted this though.

[Anastasios]

@whiskey:
Airbus has this as well. Remember the Air Transat.
But this only works if you have control of the airplane.

@ifly:
Every airplane has at least one ELT (Emergency Location Transmitter).
If a succesful emergency landing is made, cabin crew should take one ELT with evacuation and switch it on.
An ELT can be activated by help of it's own battery or by putting it in water.

Most airplanes also have build-in ELT's which will activate automatically when a plane crashes.

Anastasios.

[whiskey-zulu]

Anastasios wrote:
@whiskey:
Airbus has this as well. Remember the Air Transat.
But this only works if you have control of the airplane.

I have a feeling the ones of Boeing aircraft deply automatically should both ( or all engines fail) though of course I may be wrong; it may even be
model specific thinking about the various engine failiure 'incidents' I've read up about.

[Anastasios]

I believe it is the same at Aibus.

Anastasios.

[poden]

iflyfsx wrote:
Can we talk about what we do know about this airplane?

But about 4:15 a.m. Paris time, Flight 447's automatic system began a four-minute exchange of messages to the company's maintenance computers,
indicating that "several pieces of aircraft equipment were at fault or had broken down," he said.

That's pretty cool, so how come this airplane has automatic systems that dial home, but can't relay its location? And if it can, how can it be
"missing"? It seems to me, if the airplane could still communicate automatically, its position would be one of the first things it would
transmit, so
they would have some idea of where to look for it.

Does anyone know how that works?

Also, the redundancy in the all-computerized modern airplanes can take care of single point failures, but what if the electronics are fried? (solar
flare, EM pulse, whatever). Is there a "manual override"?

The data rate for the ACARS can be pretty slow, especially when the aircraft is over the ocean. Sometimes the ACARS uses the aircraft Satcom to send
data, instead of the digital radio, and in that case the data rate is pretty darn slow (I work on Satcom and other avionics s/w). In that time
period, only a very few messages were likely sent. There is currently no FAA or European requirement for aircraft today to encode and send position
and velocity data via something like the ACARS, and if it did, the data rate would still be pretty slow. It is pretty disappointing though, that this
is all that could be achieved with the current technology.

[timtomairways]

Tracker801 wrote:
Gentlemen,

It is dramatic enough this happened to a trustworthy plane, good airline but most of all all those aboard.

Shall we wait for a little more info from investigators and other people that know a lot more about aircraft instead of relying on media
reports from reporters that do not even have a single clue as to how an aircraft operates?
The fact that it is now on the ocean floor makes it already hard to come up with sufficient evidence. The clock is ticking now to find the
black boxes before they go silent.

about how long do the black boxes transmit that "im here" signal before the battery dies

[poden]

timtomairways wrote:

Tracker801 wrote:
Gentlemen,

It is dramatic enough this happened to a trustworthy plane, good airline but most of all all those aboard.

Shall we wait for a little more info from investigators and other people that know a lot more about aircraft instead of relying on media
reports from reporters that do not even have a single clue as to how an aircraft operates?
The fact that it is now on the ocean floor makes it already hard to come up with sufficient evidence. The clock is ticking now to find the
black boxes before they go silent.

about how long do the black boxes transmit that "im here" signal before the battery dies

I think its supposed to last for up to 30 days. I also read that if its in more than 14,000 feet of water, it wouldn't work anymore (I think the
pressure might crush it).

[relichd]

It's not the pressure but the fact that EM waves emitted by the box do not cut through the mass of water... They'll need to deploy submarines or
sonar-equipped ships to find the wreckage...

David