Air France plane missing?

[Evan]

1)The fin did not break off in flight - inspection shows that it failed in a forward, slightly twisting manner. This officially ends that discussion.

I knew that was wishful thinking. There is some sort of conspiratorial dogma in the fin theory that some people just don't want to let go of. They must see things through a lens of their own belief, because even the photos from weeks ago clearly show that only the front two lugs failed an we still have people claiming here that four failed. I mean, are you actually looking at the photos? Or just typing what comes into your head?

I'm sorry if you find the investigation's report 'unsatisfying', but here it is:

1.12.3 Visual inspection

A first visual inspection brought to light the following.
The tail fin was damaged during its recovery and transport but the photographs available made it possible to identify the damage that was not the result of the accident. The middle and rear fasteners with the related fragments of the fuselage hoop frames were present in the fin base. The distortions of the frames showed that they broke during a forward motion with a slight twisting component towards the left.

(or, the rest of the plane left the fin in a backwards motion and a slight twisting to the right. Your choice.)

Here's your 'clean break'. Note the distortions. Are you beginning to get it?:

[WhiteKnuckles]

I just looked a bit into the position and speed table I posted above and inserted average speeds calculated from travelled distances between the given locations and times. The time is in fractional hours, but it appears that they slowed down significantly - is this normal in heavy turbulence? When was that pilot report about heavy turbulence?

m.

Air Emergency (natgeo) showed how two 737's dove into the ground vertically. But this was due to a failure of the rudder control system. In fact, the pilots were attempting to bring the planes out of a roll which exacerbated the problem and caused the planes to plummet straight down. I'm not sure this is typical of a stall. It seems to me the plane would need to be unbalanced over the wings to automatically descend vertically out of a stall.

(Waits eagerly for someone to correct this impression)

[Theoddkiwi]

Well i am quite content with the report so far. I hate reading the information about the crew.

Something that always gets me is how these poor folk would feel if they were alive to see their every professional detail and actions pieced togeather in meticulous detail.

You can see how the "Air Crash Investigation" can portray things so comprehensively.

I am more than convinced the entire aircraft was in one piece when it hit the water. The debris map to me helps clarify it. The Vstab is where you would expect it to be. I would expect the majority of the aircraft structure is nearer where the Vstab was found corrected for currents and surface winds.

Like most crash sites the VStab is nearly always the closer to the point of impact with the remainder radiation out in the direction of travel at time of impact. So ideas that it was found well away from the rest of the debris field i think is unfounded.

The photos in the report when put into context show the high vertical impact.

I am also comfortable with the fwd shearing of the Vstab from the frame. A flat but nose high impact would likely snap the fuse fwd of the stab possibly tearing the fwd attachment lugs and pulling the stab fwd and over the top ripping it from the tail cone area still atached to the fuse, leaving the piece of structure remaining on the Vstab and splashing safly in the sea. Perhaps the damage to the rudder was secondary impact damage.

I strongly suspect the actual main struture is probably in fairly large sections. This backed up by the intact galley structures, and reports that the bodies were in mostly clothed and good condition.

I suspect impact relatively slow, like the Turkish 737 but maybe a bit faster, just a bigger aircraft with more mass.

I doubt anyone had life jackets on, and more the media adding some interpretation

I do think an erroneous Pitot signal has started the chain, and i still think that crew error is likely to have a larger part than many would like to think.

Like it or not its very rare for a plane to develop a problem then crash all by itself. They are usually helped along.


This is just my quick and completely unqualified interpretation of what i have read.

[CockpitCat]

If the plane did hit the sea in one piece, why was the rest of the wreckage not found below the point where the vstab and bodies were found (taking into account the speed & direction of sea currents since the time of the crash)?

Apparently the widow of the only South African victim on AF447 was quoted as saying that her husband's body would probably never be found, because "the bodies recovered thus far were all seated in the rear of the aircraft", whilst her husband flew business class (i.e. he was seated in the front)...

[swissair]

High velocity impact and water - debris

Here the gripping pic of our doomed SR111 Halifax MD11 that darted in to the water. As you can see the debris are rather small, the plane has been literally pulverized at impact. The BEA report is not only non conclusive but is in my view contradictory. Large pieces of debris are normal for mid air break up. But then we saw entire galley floating around on AF447? No need for me to repeat what I think is being hidden from all of us. A fiasco of quite a sinister dimension.

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/images/swissair_photos/wreckage/recovery/full_size/recov43.jpg

http://images.google.com.my/imgres?imgurl=http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/SwissAirFlight111c.jpg/SwissAirFlight111c-full%3Binit:.jpg&imgrefurl=http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/flight93page2&usg=__lGkCeWX64nMnOgYbFhJMpGVcsHE=&h=492&w=585&sz=109&hl=en&start=28&um=1&tbnid=nUf_xbZz7lU7pM:&tbnh=114&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dswissair%2B111%2Bdebris%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dcom.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial%26sa%3DN%26start%3D18%26um%3D1

[WhiteKnuckles]

Read an interesting article about the replacement of metal with alternative materials in the search for less weight and better fuel efficiency. The unspoken question is "how much tradeoff between reduced weight and crash-worthiness". That is, the fuselage is more and more likely to fly into a million parts when crashing instead of landing. Don't really know the answer on this. We expect cars to crash. We don't really expect planes to crash since its not a common event (there must be hundreds of thousands of automobile crashes every year). I've read a number of descriptions of plane crashes where few or no fatalities occurred. Planes break in half and burst into flames and yet few passengers die.

Anyway, given the rockhard quality of water when you hit it, recent-vintage planes probably have a propensity to shatter. I wonder how mild the crash has to be for the plane to be intact.

[Evan]

Anyway, given the rockhard quality of water when you hit it, recent-vintage planes probably have a propensity to shatter. I wonder how mild the crash has to be for the plane to be intact.

This is getting ridiculous. They claim the plane was intact when it hit the surface, not after. It did shatter on impact. That's a bit obvious isn't it?

[Theoddkiwi]

Err, the survivability of the airframe on impact is determined by many aspects most notably speed and angle of impact. You simply cannot build and airframe that can survive impacts over say 250kts, it would be too heavy and wont fly anyway.

Thery are designed to hopefully stay intact at landing speeds 140 -180kts and a slight nose up angle of attack.

The higher the impact speed and steeper the impact angle the smaller the bits. I have seen photos of an A4 Skyhawk that crashed into a farmers paddock and it was a just a big crater with no obvious aircraft debris on the surface, the entire airframe had shattered and buried itself inder the ground. It hit at near vertical angle and near supersonic speed. The Engine was the biggest piece and had dirt rammed into it from one end to the other and it was a tad shorter.

But i have also seen in real life an A4 Skyhawk that had ploughed through a forest leaving an 800m scar through the trees. The main centre wing section was largely intact, the rest varied from tiny fragements to complete assemblys. I picked up the IFF transciever which i had done some repairs on a year earlier and it had just a few scratches. It looked like you could use it fine. This aircraft hit at about 200 kts with a nose up attitude in a very flat impact with the trees as he tried to climb out a botched low level barrel roll. The trees caused it to cart wheel and tumble which did all the damage, with out the trees he may well have survived. Very surreal surveying a crash sight.

I dont think the airframe has shattered into tiny pieces in this case, its just broken up and quickly sunk to the bottom of the ocean. So i am pretty confident once they do identify some large pieces they will quickly find the rest. The investigator showing us the A4 crash site above said "Find the Tail, the Nose and the wingtips and the rest will be somewhere in the middle"

The debris field they have indicated is in a 40 mile radius. So identifying the exact point of impact wold probably be i would imagine and area of a number of miles, which is a big area in itself.

Also they are not looking for the Aircraft structure yet, they are looking for the recorders. The next set of searches sounds like it will involve searching for the aircraft structure as when the find the tail they will find the recorders.

[Deadstick]

Air Emergency (natgeo) showed how two 737's dove into the ground vertically. But this was due to a failure of the rudder control system. In fact, the pilots were attempting to bring the planes out of a roll which exacerbated the problem and caused the planes to plummet straight down. I'm not sure this is typical of a stall. It seems to me the plane would need to be unbalanced over the wings to automatically descend vertically out of a stall.

(Waits eagerly for someone to correct this impression)

If the rudder were to deflect to one side and the pilot tried to correct the resulting roll with opposite aileron, you would have crossed controls and what I would consider a major "slip." A slip is a maneuver used in light aircraft to either lose altitude or keep the aircraft aligned to the runway in a landing rather than use a "crabbing" technique. I would think a fully crossed control situation in a 737 would cause a rather rapid rate of descent and would not be something normally done in a large aircraft.

[wannabe_A&P_girl]

Nor was Navydudes comment that this forum held better answers than the BEA investigation report. I'm no francophile given the French were letting off nukes in our backyard only 15-20 years ago - but fair go, he's the second to rubbish the BEA report after A&P Wannabe's comments in post 2202. Clearly she also has a better idea of what caused the crash than the experts - and by her own admission, she knows nothing here.

I know some things, but clearly not everything. I do not see any reason to be ugly.

You guys are more than entitled to your theories. I am basing my opinions from information given to me by two A&P men. They work at two different major airlines, but it seems that they, their co-workers, as well as a number of pilots they have spoken with, are not buying this.

I am going to give the BEA the benefit of the doubt by saying that this info is very early, and they still have time to change their statements when/if the FDR and any additional wreckage is found. I mean no disrespect for the man because I'm sure he is a fine person and all, but Alain Bouillard is not the man for this job. He lost my respect as an investgator after Concorde. I would much rather have one of you guys looking into AF447.

[WhiteKnuckles]

This is getting ridiculous. They claim the plane was intact when it hit the surface, not after. It did shatter on impact. That's a bit obvious isn't it?

Is it? I didn't think so. Why is it important that it didn't shatter in the air but the second it hit water? That is not obvious to me at all.

By the way, what is the outcome when modern planes hit the ground in a glide by perhaps at too great a speed? Do they shatter even then? Or is there another pattern of breakage. I've seen stories where planes snap in half.

By the way, judging from different channels I've looked at, the "in case of water landing" speech is somewhat misleading. Evidently no one's going to be in any shape to find the flotation device under the seat.

I hear now there's plans for air bags to cushion passengers forward motion in event of a crash. I wonder how much that will help in having more survivors.

[Evan]

I am going to give the BEA the benefit of the doubt by saying that this info is very early, and they still have time to change their statements when/if the FDR and any additional wreckage is found. I mean no disrespect for the man because I'm sure he is a fine person and all, but Alain Bouillard is not the man for this job. He lost my respect as an investgator after Concorde. I would much rather have one of you guys looking into
AF447.

The BEA report is an interim report. Here is the first paragraph of that report:

This document has been prepared on the basis of the initial information
gathered during the investigation, without any analysis and - given the
continuing absence of wreckage, the flight recorders, radar tracks and
direct testimony - without any description of the circumstances of the
accident. Some of the points covered may evolve with time. Nothing in
the presentation of this interim report or in the points that are raised
therein should be interpreted as an indication of the orientation or
conclusions of the investigation.

What is contained in the report is a summarization of the facts that are known. Only the few conclusions can be made from the available evidence are given, such as the stress indications of the wreckage.

The key pieces of the puzzle that we are given from this:

1) Controllers were communicating with the flight at 1 h 35 min 43 s (the crew thanked the controller). At 1 h 35 min 46 s, the controller asked for their estimate to waypoint TASIL and received no response, then repeated his request three more times to no avail. They were never heard from again. What happened to communications 35 minutes before the ACARS stream even began?

2) The ACARS messages.

3) The weather systems at the time.

3) The findings from the wreckage that indicate a contained grouping and strong vertical impact and a mostly level attitude.

What can you expect him to determine from this? If you are Alain Bouillard, what sort of statement would you make?

[Evan]

Is it? I didn't think so. Why is it important that it didn't shatter in the air but the second it hit water? That is not obvious to me at all.

I'm sorry, your post seemed to imply that you couldn't believe the plane would be intact after hitting the water, which of course it wasn't. I just want to clarify that no one has proposed that. Shatter can mean breakup into big pieces or little ones.

[Evan]

I mean no disrespect for the man because I'm sure he is a fine person and all, but Alain Bouillard is not the man for this job. He lost my respect as an investgator after Concorde. I would much rather have one of you guys looking into AF447.

I hate to scratch at it, but that strikes me as classic equivocation.

[wannabe_A&P_girl]

I hate to scratch at it, but that strikes me as classic equivocation.

OK, please read it again, and pay attention to the italicized words this time.