Hot: Air France Jet Missing (AF 447)

Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

From one news story I read. Interesting:

Some people just missed disaster. Bernardo Ciriaco said there were two Air France flights leaving Rio for Paris Sunday night — and his brother was on one of them. It was not until hours later that his brother, Gustavo, called from Paris to say that he had been bumped to the missing flight, but then talked his way onto the other one.

"Thank God he complained until he got back on the original flight. Our family is so relieved," Ciriaco said.
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Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

Just remember everyone!

AN ACCIDENT IS NOT JUST ONE EVENT... It is MANY FACTORS leading up to the accident. All of the little things add up.. So lighting may be the icing on the cake, but for example, (I was not there, obviously, so I dont know, but, for example... ) IF going around the Storm was an option, vs going through it, that is added to the accident string of events.

Even though the media has already "taken this over", We can still do Our party, by letting the NTSB/French Authorities run their course, and figure out what happened.

Just my .02!


BC
 
Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

MikeD said:
Lightning strike could've very well happened, they're common. However it being the terminal event is very uncommon.
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Agree!! No question they very well could have been hit by lightning but I also don't see that as the disasterous fingerprint here.
 
Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

Has anybody been on airliners.net? There's like 4 threads with about 1000 responses. That place.....
 
Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

MikeD said:
Lightning strike could've very well happened, they're common. However it being the terminal event is very uncommon.
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Many people (me included, before becoming a FA) assume lightning strikes are uncommon and CAN bring a plane down. I was flying the line for barely a month when our plane was hit and found out that another one of our Q's got hit the same day as well. Outside of the noise the strike made, nothing else about the flight was abnormal.
 
Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

Does this remind anyone of "LOST"? I bet they made it to some island and are running away from the smoke monster.

All kidding aside this is a horrible story and I hope the families can find peace one day.
 
Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

Qgar said:
Many people (me included, before becoming a FA) assume lightning strikes are uncommon and CAN bring a plane down. I was flying the line for barely a month when our plane was hit and found out that another one of our Q's got hit the same day as well. Outside of the noise the strike made, nothing else about the flight was abnormal.
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Check out these videos. Wild pics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX6Xk0DRVvE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=036hpBvjoQw
 
Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

Snoopy2 said:
Agree!! No question they very well could have been hit by lightning but I also don't see that as the disasterous fingerprint here.
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:confused:

I'm not seeing any evidence for or against ANYTHING yet.
 
Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

Socal321 said:
AF said the airplane computer relayed loss of pressurization.
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Pure speculation on my part. Bomb goes off, aircraft does not come apart ala TWA 800 or the Pan Am flight over Scotland, but stays intact enough to have the SATCOM get some signals out.

About the closest to an atlantic crossing I've done is the Q routes across the gulf, and the AR's down the east coast, but I got a little spooked out once I lost sight of land. I can't imagine crossing the south atlantic, at night, in thunderstorms, and then starting to have problems. Really scary .
 
Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

Qgar said:
Many people (me included, before becoming a FA) assume lightning strikes are uncommon and CAN bring a plane down. I was flying the line for barely a month when our plane was hit and found out that another one of our Q's got hit the same day as well. Outside of the noise the strike made, nothing else about the flight was abnormal.
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Yeah I remember getting a lot of phone calls from Colgan guys like S.P. when Colgan had racked up about 7 (if memory serves) of them in as many months. Hehe, I still have yet to be hit (knock on wood).

Anyway, we do our best when certifying the things, but I still remember Senator Kennedy leaving PSF in his citation, got struck, EFIS screens crashed and I heard he (PF)used the standby instruments to get it to BDL for a visual landing. Citation is certified, but sometimes things just go bad *shrug*, lightning is weird.
 
Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

seagull said:
If it isn't above about 25k it is more likely low level rain, not convective. You adjust that altitude as appropriate, lower in the winter in CONUS (not talking FL either, it's more like the tropics!), higher in the tropics, based on the availability of moisture. If you are down in the goo, the best chance is to tilt up high enough to point the beam out of the low level stuff. If you do the math, you'll see that you can't get enough tilt at low altitude to know whether it's convective or not if the wx is closer than 15-20 miles or so.
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Yeah I am aware of Trammell's and Gwinn's recommendations, however they generally mention 18k-25k, which is what I was wondering when you mentioned 30k. One guy I know recommended decreasing the gain -1 for tropical wx and increasing it for places like Denver. What are your thoughts on that?

Or is it better to stick with the altitude method?
 
Re: Hot: Air France Jet Missing

There is a very good article in this months B/CA about using the radar above FL300. Short version is they say you need to tilt it down, because the tops of the storms are mostly ice, and do not paint very well.
 
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