Air France 447 - On topic only!

[Evan]

Wrong. You never know when it's cheap french crackerbox composites.

yeah yeah yeah...

[MCM]

Exactly. We know AF pilots flew into severe weather again.

No we don't.

We don't know that AT ALL.

Ever heard of Clear Air Turbulence?

[EconomyClass]

They fly into severe weather all the time, don't they? I don't know it, but I consider it a reasonable assumption. Granted, if I'm on a flight (highly speculative) and they can dodge it somehow, I sure hope they do. Is there ever a time in the ITCZ when the weather is totally calm? Is this line of thunderstorms some kind of freak occurrence?

[Black Ram]

No we don't.

We don't know that AT ALL.

Ever heard of Clear Air Turbulence?

I have, but my impression was they flew into a huge severe weather system, which they should have known about, and/or seen on the radar displays.

[Evan]

No we don't.

We don't know that AT ALL.

Ever heard of Clear Air Turbulence?

MCM, take a look at the radar depiction here:

http://www.avherald.com/h?article=42380873&opt=0e

[guamainiac]

That is not CAT however. My understanding of CAT is that it is a laminar flow perhaps choppy and in an opposite direction. Clear, because during the day it won't be visible as will a cell.

For some graphic radar depictions look at what is in the Boeing manual under convective events .. Google in ... Boeing AERO assistance in recovery Avoiding Convective Weather

What you may find that factors here are several components

The weather that affects the pitots

The weather that through strong up and perhaps downward thermal currents that are similar to classic shear, are enough to upset the apple cart.

It is a Boeing document but has nice graphics.

[Myndee]

I posted my story a while back about how pilots DO fly into thunderstorms and nearly made yours truly a statistic.

As for the ITCZ, it is an active area for thunderstorms all year. The storms pop up and go away, but there are often many of them and the cycle is constant during certain times of the day. The storms can be spread out over hundreds of miles. How far around are the pilots expected to divert? The South Pole?

My thoughts are that it must be pretty common practice for planes in that area to fly through the rough weather, going around larger cells as much as possible. I'm sure they take into account that it is only for a short time, and would be economically unfeasable to divert hundreds of miles around the complex of storms.

History shows us that most flights in that part of the world get through okay. If this is an issue of faulty pitot tubes or the supercooled rain - why hasn't it happened before? Many questions. Few answers.

[EconomyClass]

Wish somehow they could really answer those questions, not just "why did AF447 go down?"

[Fear_of_Flying]

new information to be released next Fri. May 27

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/20/us-france-brazil-crash-idUSTRE74J60020110520

New factual information on the crash will be released next Friday. The BEA will not provide an analysis of the information, or attempt to explain the cause of the crash.

My take: the information will speak for itself; this will be the smoking gun, inasmuch as there's going to be one.

Note the original controversial Figaro article had reported that this information would possibly be released by this weekend... maybe it was put off a week, so as not to validate that leak.

I am inclined to believe at this point that we are going to see information that reflects quite unfavorably on the piloting of the aircraft.

[EconomyClass]

The logic escapes me. Pilots are hired by and trained by an airline. To try to blame them solely for something like this is like saying "We (Air France) did all we could, and still these guys failed". Maybe that works in aviation, but it seems to me in the Enron scandal it didn't work. They tried to blame the CPAs and no one bought it. Oh well, it is a crazy world.

[Fear_of_Flying]

The logic escapes me. Pilots are hired by and trained by an airline. To try to blame them solely for something like this is like saying "We (Air France) did all we could, and still these guys failed". Maybe that works in aviation, but it seems to me in the Enron scandal it didn't work. They tried to blame the CPAs and no one bought it. Oh well, it is a crazy world.

The logic of what escapes you? Who is trying to blame anybody? The investigation is a fact-finding mission, to determine what happened and hopefully prevent future occurrences. In most plane crashes, there will be several contributing factors, and perhaps a primary cause as well. If, after the speed sensors failed, the pilots made critical mistakes, it will be necessary to determine what those mistakes were and why they made them. I really can't find any comparison to the Enron scandal here.

[guamainiac]

My God, and air crews have been known to bust regs despite training. It is what it is so the cliche goes but if they did something so be it.

Something may have just happened at the just the wrong moment. The airline, crew, and aircraft are all suspect till the reasonable facts are known.

[EconomyClass]

French newspapaer Le Figaro is reporting that sources close to the investigation of the crash of Air France flight 447 say an examination of the data from the aircraft's cockpit and flight data recorders have determined that a fault with the aircraft did not lead to the crash and that fingers are being pointed at the airline's flight crew.

Read more: http://blogs.star-telegram.com/sky_t...#ixzz1N2YEGWLL

OK, they have a link the French article. I read French. What I read in the article is that BEA is considering whether Air France or the pilots are primarily at fault. Of course, that only means they issued a clean chit to their plane producers. Doesn't, as I read the French, say they've already decided it is the pilot's errors.

And I really don't think this report is going to silence the controversy completely. Because not all the world agrees with how Airbus builds its systems. I don't think you can ever make that argument go away. For sure, I don't think the safety experts in the USA are going to just sign on to whatever BEA says. Or I'll be surprised if that is the outcome. As for passengers, they must, as always, decide when and how to take risks. Nothing anybody does will ever change that, IMO.

[Black Ram]

Because not all the world agrees with how Airbus builds its systems. I don't think you can ever make that argument go away. For sure, I don't think the safety experts in the USA are going to just sign on to whatever BEA says.

Hmm, so that's why the FAA grounded indefinitely all the A330s and A320 family in the US.

[Black Ram]

If this is an issue of faulty pitot tubes or the supercooled rain - why hasn't it happened before?

Unreliable airspeed has happened before, but crews managed not to crash their planes. Why in this case it happened is what we are going to find out soon, given that it was an UAS. If it wasn't, we should still find out what happened, but there would be more waiting.