Air France 447

[Adrian B]

A french dive vessel is steaming to the area as we speak. Her subs can reach 4km depth.

[Philip Argy]

Here's an extract from another news report:

Military planes saw metallic objects and plane seats 650 kilometres north of the islands of Fernando de Noronha near Brazil's northern coast, but it is not known if it came from flight AF 447.
The area is near where the last contact was made with the Airbus A330 that took off for Paris from Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night (local time).
"The plan now is to focus our efforts to collect the debris and try to identify if they belong or not to the Air France plane," Brazilian Air Force Colonel Jorge Amaral said at a news conference.
"We can't really say this is part of the airplane. The command centre needs to have at least one piece of the debris with a serial number to confirm that it belongs to the airplane."

A bit curious to me that an Airbus seat found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the area of AF447's last reported location might have its presence treated so equivocally.

Also puzzling is a report that a turbine had been found floating. Given the rough seas and storms, what turbine would float - are there plastic turbines in the air conditioning system for example? Or could it have been the pop out turbine that provides emergency power in the event of power failure?

[Philip Argy]

Here's one person's comments that may be of interest:
http://trueslant.com/milesobrien/

[Philip Argy]

Originally Posted by NickN

The pressure at 4,700m would be equivalent to approximately 234kg/cm2 or 6,783 PSI.

I can't find the exact parameters of what the black box can handle in terms of deep sea pressure. If anybody has them please post them up.

See specs halfway down the page: http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/CVR_FDR.htm

Basically both the FDR and the CVR are designed to withstand an impact of 3,400 Gs and survive to a water depth of 20,000 feet or 6,100 metres.

[Greg McDonald]

From NEWS.COM.AU this morning:

Air France has said it received a bomb threat about a flight from Buenos Aires to Paris just days before one of its planes crashed into the Atlantic with 228 people on board.

Argentine police received an anonymous telephone warning on May 27 and searched the plane before passengers boarded but found nothing and it was allowed to take off with a delay of 32 minutes, a spokesman said.

There appeared to be no link between the alert and the crash Monday of the Air France flight between Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Paris, he said.

[Philip Argy]

This Brazilian report adds a few snippets of extra information to what we already know:

According to the report in Brazil's Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, citing an unidentified Air France source, the doomed airliner's pilot first sent a message that he was entering thick black clouds of a type normally associated with violent winds and lightning.

Ten minutes later a series of electronic messages were sent from the plane indicating that the autopilot had disengaged and that a computer on board had switched to an alternative power system.
The controls needed to keep the aircraft stable had also been damaged, the newspaper report says, and an alarm sounded, suggesting the situation was becoming increasingly grave.
This cascade of messages ended with one pointing to a loss of air pressure and electrical failure.

The French authorities who are leading the investigation into the causes of the crash declined to comment.
A US aviation safety expert, Bill Voss of the Flight Safety Foundation, said the Brazilian newspaper account strongly suggested the plane had broken apart in the air without explaining why.
"This is the documentation of the seconds when control was lost and the aircraft started to break up in air," he told the Associated Press.
It is clear, our correspondent says, that the only definitive explanation will come with the recovery of as much debris as possible and, crucially, the flight data recorders.

[David Knudsen]

There's a pretty solid analysis of the weather AF447 was flying through, done by an ex-air force forecaster available here ; http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/

[Montague S]

man vs mother nature...mother nature always wins out!

[Darren Butterworth]

Just listening to 2GB (David Oldfield show) and they are trying to link the bombing threat of a Buenos Aires to Paris flight two days earlier (as outlined by GregMc) to this flight. The scare mongering is amazing; the very tipply old folk are ringing in to comment in good numbers.

Darren

[Gerald A]

I've been getting questions from many corners asking how it's possible that Air France 447, or any commercial aircraft for that matter, could cross an ocean without air traffic controllers knowing the exact location of the flight at all times?

Right now the only ubiquitous way to have a real time track of an aircraft is with a traditional radar system over or nearby land. Oceans present a unique challenge to aircraft crossing without radar coverage, even though it is done without incident hundreds, if not thousands, of times per day.

http://www.ozelwebtasarim.com/index....-447-and-ads-b