Today we learned that Air France lost contact with an Airbus A330-200 on a non-stop fllight between Rio De Janeiro (SBGL) to Paris (LFPG). I am sure you are on it as well.
So far they have not found the plane or the wreckage, but some are hoping for a miracle landing in the ocean with survivors. Even though the hopes of finding survivors now are quickly fading for each hours that goes.
The aircraft is said to have been hit by severe turbulence and thunderstorms, and that the aircraft itself has suffered a hit from a lightning. It has been confirmed that the flight crew transmitted to brazilian Air Traffic Controllers that they had hit turbulence, but not that they had been hit by lightning although the aicraft itself had sent to the mainland and Air France that it had encountered an “electrical failure” and “pressure loss”.
An aircraft of this type certainly is equipped for handling situations like these, so people are wondering how the plane could vanish like this without leaving enough time even for the pilots to send out a distress message or mayday. The Air France flight 447 travelled in airspace with lots of other traffic crossing the atlantic at the same time, and they were not affected by the bad weather not more than that there is not a report on it as we have heard.
I know two of my friends have been on planes that has been hit by lightning and both of the times the flight crew was very relaxed about it as it can knock out one system, but like the A330-200, most jetplanes today have plenty of backup systems.
This aircraft was just 4 years old (picture) belonging to some of the safest airliners in the world, and one of the most sofisticated and reliable jets itself. A long-range stalwart, as CNN`s air travel expert Richard Quest put it. It had a maintenance check only a month ago, on 16th of april as well. And if we look at what phase the flight 447 was in, they were at cruise (FL350) when disappeared. That is definately the safest phase of the entire trip making this even more and more unlikely to have happened. As we know the take-off and landing phase is the most critical one during flight.
At about 0200 GMT, the captain reported entering heavy turbulence caused by Atlantic storms, French media report. At 0214 GMT a data message transmitted by satelites reported electrical and pressurisation problems. This suggests whatever happened, happened before the crew could put out a mayday radio call. It was likely a sudden and catastrophic emergency. Even a double engine failure at cruising altitude would normally give the crew around half an hour’s gliding time.
And I would like to point out that a landing on water has a very low success rate – like the one in the Hudson river, he landed there with optimum conditions during day. The flight 447 was in the middle of an atlantic storm – in the middle of the NIGHT. No visual reference points – and if he had electrical problems the whole flightdeck would be pitch black you would not be able to see your own hand there- during the wild turbulence they would not know if they were upside down or not. Falling down from 35 000 feet does not take that long time – if this aircraft was out of control. 30 seconds perhaps. If you want to go to Air France`s own page for information, you may do so by clicking this link.
It`s true though, that most aviation accidents are the result of the combination of several adverse circumstances which by themselves would not ordinarily be dangerous. That is just a shame, hope this was not the case with flight 447.
LINKS
Official Air France Information regarding flight 447
2 Comments
June 1, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Drop the Flight 447 (last link) as they are profiting from the tragedy through the ad on the page.
June 2, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Thanks, will do