Author Topic: Air France Plane Lost  (Read 5859 times)

Offline Fabo

  • Chicken Farmer
  • Alpha Rooster
  • *****
  • Posts: 967
  • If flying is a drug,then I am a first class addict
Re: Air France Plane Lost
« Reply #15 on: June 22, 2009, 08:54:49 PM »
I was wondering about them frenchie planes for a while, as what good or bad comes from them, but I never stumbled upon this flaw ::thinking::
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."

Offline Baradium

  • Alpha Rooster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1607
Re: Air France Plane Lost
« Reply #16 on: June 22, 2009, 10:18:54 PM »
I was trying not to throw in my personal opinion before folks got a chance to look at the printouts, but guess I'll throw my theory into the hat now.

4 minutes is just about the time it takes to fall ballistically from 35,000 ft.   I personally believe the error messages may have been sent because the plane had started coming apart so the ACARS system was losing contact with all components simultaneously.  Thus, it simply started sending messages as fast as it could.  These messages do not go through very quickly, so it simply ran out of time before it got through all the messages in its queue.   

The "air conditioning" message is a "cabin pressurization" fault. 


Also, losing a  tail in a swept wing jet is a very big deal.  I'm not aware of any swept wing airliners that have lost a tail and come out intact.  I know the JAL747 was able to fly for a fair amount of time before they ended up going into a mountain (there were some survivors).  In that case the tail came off due to an improper aft pressure bulkhead repair after a tail strike.  It took 10 years for the repair to fail, but it took the tail with it when it did, as well as all hydraulics. 

Keep in mind that when you lose a tail in a modern airliner such as an Airbus or 777,  you not only lose control of the tail, you may very likely lose ALL control surfaces.   I'm pretty sure the 777 has no mechanical reversion, and I know the 787 and the airbuses don't.   Multiple hydraulic systems go to each control surface on most aircraft to offer redundancy.   I'm not sure how the hydraulics on the A330 work, but it wouldn't surprise me if all of them went to the rudder.  If you lose all your hydraulics you have no flight controls.    But even with mechanical reversion,  a swept wing plane without a vertical stab does not enjoy the act of flight anyway.



So my theory is:  They got radar attenuation, which tricked them into flying into the strongest storm in the area becuase they weren't pay enough attention and missed the warning signs of attenuation (it can be sneaky).  The aircraft then experienced its inflight breakup due to severe turbulence.

I had a really good example of attenuation this past week flying, but I was a bit busy trying not to fly into said attenuating areas to take pictures to share...


A Qantas A330 also had injuries last night after hitting severe turbulence, people hitting the ceiling etc.
"Well I know what's right, I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin' me around
But I stand my ground, and I won't back down"
  -Johnny Cash "I won't back Down"