Air France A332 Missing over Atlantic

umar744 · Post by **umar744** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 8:55 pm

yes true thunderstorm and black cloudy high up to 50,000feet but all commerical aircraft only maximum 45,000feet but if heavy weight up to 35,000feet but Concorde and TU144 can fly more than 60,000feet no problem never turblance. I flew Concorde twice time. After take off bad weather concorde through black cloudy and thunderstorm during 29,000feet then reheat wing mach 1.00 then full powerful mach 2.23 and 62,000feet 1490mph only 2hours 56mins from New York to LHR. I like Concorde No.1
A330 aircraft body weak broke up during storm and turblance but PIA good luck NOT buy A330. PIA bought 777 better type.
Please tell me what kind of aircraft type good for thunderstorm and turblance?

Abbas Ali · Post by **Abbas Ali** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:56 am

Airbus A330 has excellent safety record. The tragic Air France accident is the very first A330 accident with human fatalities.

Let the investigators find out exactly what caused this accident.

Abbas

Pineapple · Post by **Pineapple** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:08 am

That is a big generalisation umar744. The A-330's body is weak and broke up during storm / turbulence.

Some people even say B-777 is bad at handling turbulence. I am not ready to believe this. It could be any aircraft.

Lufthansa Cargo · Post by **Lufthansa Cargo** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 6:06 am

Pineapple Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 12:08 am Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is a big generalisation umar744. The A-330's body is weak and broke up during storm / turbulence.

Some people even say B-777 is bad at handling turbulence. I am not ready to believe this. It could be any aircraft.

Id have to agree with the comments about the above a/cs in regards to handling. I have flown both a/c types in storms and you could tell by looking out the window how much the wings are being stressed and also in very very quick movements. But then again yes, this could happen on any aircraft type. Personally I still preffer the 777 anyday over the A330.

Lufthansa Cargo · Post by **Lufthansa Cargo** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 6:47 am

Today at the office many were talking about this incident. Amongst the conversations people have mentioned A/C fluids and debri were found on the runway at GIG but this information is not yet confirmed. Have you guys heard anything similar? Could something as simple as a hydraulic leak cause this problem while going through a severe thunder storm?

The news agencies are now reporting that the aircraft sensors were possibly frozen over due to weather and tempratures at the cruising altitude causing the aircraft to receive wrong information especially regarding speed. They are now saying that this aircraft was either going to slow and stalled or was going to fast for the weather condition up there. It was reported that this bizzarre weather was sucking up water from the ocean and into the air causing water to freeze on the aircraft.

Source Fox news and Yahoo news.

Zulfiqar · Post by **Zulfiqar** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 9:16 am

Debris recovered from the Atlantic by Brazilian search teams is "sea trash" and not from a lost Air France jet, a Brazilian air force official has said.

mohammed younis · Post by **mohammed younis** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:42 pm

Bermuda triangle Scenario?

pk363 · Post by **pk363** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 11:10 am

BRAZILIA/PARIS: French and Brazilian search teams have found no debris confirmed to have come from the Airbus A330 that vanished over the Atlantic, officials said on Friday.

Confusion broke out after Brazilian officials said on Thursday that a helicopter had plucked from the sea an aeroplane cargo pallet from the Air France flight - only to retract the claim hours later.

France's Transportation Minister, Dominique Bussereau, suggested on Friday that searchers were back to square one in the hunt for Flight 447 bound from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, which went down off Brazil late Sunday.

"French authorities have been saying for several days that we have to be extremely prudent," Bussereau told France's RTL radio.

"Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing."

A French Defence Ministry official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter, said French teams "cannot precisely confirm the zone where the plane went down." Also on Friday, Brazil's Air Force was flying designated relatives of victims from Rio de Janeiro to the military's search command post in the northeastern city of Recife so they could tour the operation and ask questions.

Recife has a large air force base where debris and any human remains will be brought after being picked up at sea.

The pallet Brazilian officials initially said came from the plane pallet was made of wood, and the plane was not carrying wooden pallets, Brazilian Air Force General Ramon Cardoso told reporters.

He did not say where the pallet might have come from.

"So far, nothing from the plane has been recovered," Cardoso said.

Cardoso said a large oil slick spotted by search plane pilots was not from the Airbus, but that another slick of kerosene found may have been from the downed passenger jet.

"The oil was not from the plane because there wasn't oil of that quantity (on the plane) to cause that slick," he said.

Bussereau called the false finding of debris by the Brazilian teams "bad news ... We would have preferred that it had come from the plane and that we had some information," he said.

Bussereau said the search must continue and stressed that the priority was finding the flight recorders.

The plane went down with 228 people on board in the world's worst aviation disaster since 2001.

French officials stopped short of criticising their Brazilian counterparts.

"Brazilian authorities first indeed hoped to have found parts of the plane, then unfortunately, arriving in the area, realised it wasn't the case," said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier. "Unfortunately that can happen."

Terror possible

French Defence Minister Herve Morin and the Pentagon have said there no signs that terrorism was involved, but Morin declined to rule out the possibility.

From the start of the investigation, "I've said we can't exclude terrorism," Morin told reporters on Friday. "We have no element which allows us to corroborate that."

"The inquiry that is taking place has never excluded this thesis," he said.

Brazil's defence minister said the possibility was never considered.

Investigators are looking into whether malfunctions in instruments used to determine airspeed may have led the plane to be travelling at the wrong speed when it encountered turbulence from towering thunderstorms over the Atlantic.

Source: http://www.godubai.com/gulftoday/articl ... tion=World

So the missing plan is still a mystry, although they have officially involved the families of those onboard that no hopes of survival anymore

raihans · Post by **raihans** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 11:24 am

it is really a mystery now, one time they claimed and now they are not!!!

may be we will never ever be able to find the truth behind this mysterious vanish of flight AF447

umar744 · Post by **umar744** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 11:54 am

Wish Air France Cockpit crew and cabin crew and all passengers should always please pray God for flight before go inside aircraft and before take off because
my most many friend different airlines details
1. British Airways Concorde Captain and First Officer and Flight Engineer and cabin crew pray God for flight safety before board
2. Qantas my good friend Captain told me to please pray God for flight safely
3. ALL Thai Airways cockpit crew and all cabin crew pray for Aircraft.
4. Most PIA cockpit crew pray For aircraft in cockpit
5. some USA United Airlines and AA some crew pray God for safely inside aircraft.
I asked question to my friend many airlines why pray God in Aircraft even Jews, Christian Muslim, Hindi, Sikh, Budda. They said GOD love all world and people. GOD favour all world people to please pray God. They MUST always pray God before aboard flight.
Maybe Perhaps Air France cockpit crew forgot pray God before Take off or perhaps maybe Air France crew did NOT believe God? IF something wrong it big problem without pray God.
ALL Thai Airways cockpit crew and cabin crew are excellent to always Pray for passenger and aircraft and safely. Thai Airways are excellent service God bless Thai Airways and other airlines.
We Pray for Air France aircraft and passenger and crew to recovery inshallah hopefully.

Abbas Ali · Post by **Abbas Ali** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 6:59 pm

French authorities are still investigating the cause of the crash, but are focusing on messages sent by the plane that show it may have been receiving incorrect airspeed readings.

Investigators said Saturday that the airline appears not to have followed up on a manufacturer's recommendation to replace a part that monitors speed, called a Pitot tube.

A Pitot tube can fail if it becomes covered in ice.

Source: www.ctv.ca

Probably heater of pitot tube not replaced according to maintenance schedule stopped working causing pitot tube to become covered in ice that resulted in incorrect airspeed readings.

Abbas

zainmax · Post by **zainmax** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 7:07 pm

There is a possibility of freezing conditions on pitot tubes.
Thats why sensors feed incorrect speed readings which led to stall and eventually crashed into the Atlantic.
Due to large area and wreckage laid down to more than 15,000 feet.
It is nearly impossible to find black box.
French submarines are on their ways to Atlantic waters to start search operation for the remains of AF447.

zainmax · Post by **zainmax** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 7:08 pm

Abbas Ali wrote:

A Pitot tube can fail if it becomes covered in ice.

But there is an indication in the cockpit in case of failure/icing of pitot tube.

Abbas Ali · Post by **Abbas Ali** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 7:24 pm

French authorities are still investigating the cause of the crash, but are focusing on messages sent by the plane that show it may have been receiving incorrect airspeed readings.

Investigators said Saturday that the airline appears not to have followed up on a manufacturer's recommendation to replace a part that monitors speed, called a Pitot tube.

A Pitot tube can fail if it becomes covered in ice.

Source: www.ctv.ca

Reminds me of problems experienced by PIA Airbus A310-308 (AP-BDZ) in January 2007 due to failure of pitot tube manufactured by Goodrich Sensors and Integrated Systems (GSIS). Quoted below is an old message that I posted in topic related to problems faced by AP-BDZ.

Aircraft Type: Airbus A310-308
Registration: AP-BDZ
Manufacturer's Serial Number (MSN): 585
First Flight: March 18, 1991
Delivery to PIA: June 25, 1991

From a friend, I received a copy of February 8, 2007 report prepared by Goodrich for Airbus Industrie. According to this report PIA Airbus A310-308 (registration AP-BDZ) experienced two events in January 2007 which were attributed to the failure of a Model 0851HV Pitot probe.

Here are extracts from the report.

Background:

PIA experienced two events in January 2007 which were originally attributed to the failure of a Model 0851HV Pitot probe. Airbus asked Goodrich Sensors and Integrated Systems (GSIS) to fully examine the removed Pitot probe from PIA, to determine failure mode and to report any correlation between the probe condition and PIA's January events.

Information Provided:

Information received by GSIS from Airbus on January 16 is indicated below:

"The MSN 585 (Airbus A310-308 - AP-BDZ) has experienced two CAS drop events in cruise, one in late November (causing serious impacts on aircraft navigability and structure) and one in early January (no impact).
We suspect severe icing conditions which have prevented from a correct pt measurement during several seconds or several minutes. But we want to check that this Pitot is correctly operating with the right power consumption.

The CAPT Pitot probe has the following SN: 213667.

PIA will send the unit to GSS in Burnsville soon.

So, please, GSS to provide Airbus Industrie with an investigation report on this unit by February 2nd."

Attached were the PIA conditions at the time of the events. This information was invaluable to GSIS for finding the correlating the failure mode to the events noted by PIA's pilots.

Event 1:

Jan. 8, 2007 Flt PK-315 (Lahore to Karachi).
Aircraft in climb with an altitude of 28,000 feet.
API is engaged (ATHR mode not recorded.)
The Mach starts to increase from 0.815 to reach a maximum of 0.83.
MMO warning for this aircraft type is 0.84 and is not activated.

Event 2:

Jan 11, 2007 Flt PK-743 (Islamabad-Lahore-Riyadh).
Aircraft in cruise at FL 340.
AP2 is engaged.
Mach 0.79 & CAS 275 kt
Around GMT 17:39 abrupt speed variation between 275kt to 75kt during 10 minutes.
ATHR reacts to the speed movement by thrust variation (AP2 remains engaged)
MMO warning for this aircraft type is 0.84 and is not activated.

The information from Airbus notes two events, one in "late November", the other in "early January". GSS does not have information from any November event, but did receive information on the two events mentioned, both having taken place three days apart in early January. This discrepancy did not hamper our analysis or findings.

Initial lnvestigation:

This particular 0851HV Pitot probe was manufactured May 1, 2002. Hence it is 21 months past its three year warranty expiration, so has provided good, long service to PIA since new.

Model 0851 HV SIN 213667 was received by GSIS the evening of January 25, 2007 and was examined the very next morning by our FAA-certified service center technician.

The exterior of the probe's sensing head was in good condition with very little corrosion due to the electroless nickel plating.

It was immediately evident upon initial heater tests however, that the heater was damaged. The unit was transferred to the GSIS Product Improvement Lab (PIL) for a detailed analysis to root cause.

Detailed Investigation:

The PIL issued Report #8346 on February 8, 2007 containing its findings.

The PIL reported evidence that the heater element sheath was severely corroded in the probe's "nose" (just inside the Pitot inlet) leading to moisture and contamination getting into the heater insulation. Eventually, this caused dielectric breakdown to occur. When this occurred the heater wire melted, opening the wire. Subsequently both sides of the open were shorted to the case by the molten material. Thus, the circuit as measured at the connector pins still had continuity. However, it did not have the proper resistance, and likely only a portion of the heater would have been functional - from the voltage input connector pin up to the short.

While corrosion of the heater sheath after extended lifetime is a common wear-out mode, it is not common that both sides of the open short to the case, which is required for the circuit to still have continuity. Opens along with shorts do happen occasionally, but usually there would only be one side shorted. Also, sometimes the open may short, but the short is high resistance (kilo-ohms, or megaohms). This probe had both sides short and they were both low resistance. This could explain why the probe might not de-ice properly yet not annunciate a failure in the cockpit.

Regarding failure annunciation in the cockpit, the failed probe would have still been drawing current, but likely a different current than what is normal. If a current monitor is used to check for heater failure (which is typically how it would be done), it may or may not have detected this failure depending on what the current limits are set at.

Even if a failed heater that fused open only had one side of the open short to case, it could possibly still draw current (depending on which side is shorted) but the continuity would read open when tested at the connector pins. Thus, an open and single-side short could cause an undetected failure when using a current monitor to detect failure.

This PIA failure still had continuity at the pins, but it's likely the failure was undetected because the probe was still drawing current (not because it had continuity). GSIS is not sure but does not think a continuity check is the method used for failure detection in service.

Tie Between Failure Mode and Events #1 and #2:

Mach number is a function of Pt/Ps.

Event #1 was represented as an apparent increase in Mach not attributed to intentional aircraft acceleration, and which happened during an increase in altitude. If the heater had already failed (as described above) and the aircraft was in icing conditions, the increase in Mach would likely be attributed to an unchanging Pt (caused by icing of the probe's drain holes and aft onto the strut). The decreasing Ps due to increasing altitude would alter the ratio of Pt/Ps such that Mach would appear to increase.

Event #2, 3 days following Event #1, was represented by a significant apparent decrease in velocity during a 10-minute span of time not attributed to intentional deceleration. In this case and in icing conditions again, were the Pitot inlet to ice up due to heater degradation, the probe's drain holes remained open, and the static pressure remained even (not in climb or descent), then the Mach number would appear to decrease due to the same function of Pt/Ps, and the indicated airspeed would appear to decrease due to the function pt - Ps. In this case, the Ps remained the same, while the pt slowly decreased towards the Ps pressure due to its iced up conditions.

Commonalitv of this Wear-Out Mode:

Corrosion through the heater sheath near the Pitot inlet and resulting dielectric breakdown causing heater failure is a standard wear-out mode of Pitot probes. The sulfur and chlorine components of the corrosion are common to this nickel material in standard aviation (flight) environments. The failure mode described in which both ends of the separated heater element become welded to the case and thus maintain continuity is not common, and further is characteristic only on 28 VDC systems (not 115 VAC systems). In this event the heater element separates and welds its ends to the case, the continuity along the heater element remains, but not all of the current flows through the heater element. Some of it flows through the probe and returns to the source via the aircraft structure. Since less power is dissipated within the probe, it will not be sufficiently anti-iced and can cause events like those described by PIA. Also, the circuit resistance change following this kind of failure on a 28 VDC system is small and the current usually remains within the expected circuit limits. (On the other hand if a failure like this occurs on a 115 VAC probe, the circuit resistance change is very large and the current almost always exceeds the expected high limit. Many times the remaining portion of the heater element will simply burn out before say a circuit breaker is tripped because it cannot handle the large increase in current. In either case this heater failure will be detected.)

Summary:

Model 0851HV S/N 213667 has provided nearly five years of service. The failure mode in which the heater sheath corrodes and admits moisture is a normal wear-out mode. In this case on a 28 VDC probe, the element, once broken, welded itself to the case. This provided continuity, some probe heat, but insufficient heat to achieve proper and total anti-icing capability. Thus, in two separate events, the probe caused Mach changes consistent with partial-icing conditions caused by the heater element failure, and consistent with the mathematical foundation of Mach measurement.

Here are some photos of Model 0851HV Pitot probe removed from PIA Airbus A310-308 (AP-BDZ) and received by GSIS the evening of January 25, 2007.

1

2

3

zainmax · Post by **zainmax** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 7:39 pm

Just saw a slide on Geo News that Brazilian Air Force has found 2 dead bodies of victims of AF447.

The two bodies and a suitcase found on Saturday morning "...about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of where Air Flight 447 emitted its last signals ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Â roughly 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands
Coordinates for the location that the bodies were found: 03 34.08Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Âº N, 030 27.30Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Âº W.
A Swiss newspaper quotes French paper Le Figaro that one of the bodies was still strapped to its seat and carried the boarding pass