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Air France jet missing over Atlantic (pg. 8)
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| Igaryok |
| quote: | Originally posted by VDub
No man. That would be the last reason for that plane to go down that way...
If it was the engines, the pilot would have glided down and done a water landing as well as declare an emergency on the radio...
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I think you have been reading too many emergency landing booklets stuffed on the back seat of airplanes.
When was the last time you heard of a plane as large as the Airbus 330 "gliding and doing a water landing"? Maybe the Hudson river landing, but that was under way different circumstances and in an airbus 320 which is a way smaller plane.
Here's a more likely scenerio from that flight as described by a former commercial jet pilot.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...ad.php?t=520166
| quote: |
For whatever reason, the aircraft lost most electrical power and the pilots were flying off standby instruments.
Now it's pitch dark in the cabin (except for the lightning outside). In a cruel irony, the "floor lighting will lead you to an exit" lights will be on. Not that those exits do any good 7 miles up.
Now the pitch and roll gyrations get more extreme. Flying a half-powered airplane off the standby instruments is damn hard.
Maybe they get a little too nose low and within a few seconds are over-speeding. Something breaks off. More likely, they got a little slow and that combined with an updraft caused an aerodynamic stall. if they hit a strong enough updraft, they don't even need to have gotten slow.
Unlike the stalls described by light plane pilots above, stalling a big jet is quite a ride on a good day in smooth air. At night in extreme turbulence, it's the coup de grace.
You'd expect a severe and nearly instant roll one way or the other, easily past 45 degrees, and maybe to 90 degrees or more. (i.e. one wing pointing straight down, the other straight up). Perhaps an engine breaks off as they are designed to do.
Then the aircraft either snaps over the other way, or tries to keep rolling onto its back. Full opposite control inputs may not be enough.
Now the nose starts to fall and the speed pick up. A couple more gyrations and they get it under control. Or they don't, and from on its back they end up diving more or less vertically.
After 10-15 seconds of that, something catastrophic breaks off. A big piece of wing or tail. Now the unbalanced aircraft cartwheels more or less sideways. Within the next few seconds the fuselage breaks into several large pieces. At this point pressurization fails and the people are suddenly exposed to -30 to -50 degree temperatures and low pressure. As well as all the flailing wires and broken airplane chunks whipping around in the 300-600 mph wind. The lightning hasn't stopped either.
Assuming you've got a good heart, are wearing your seatbelt and aren't right at the edge of a chunk, you're still 100% alive, conscious, & uninjured. Scared and doomed, but uninjured.
Due to the extreme adrenaline rush, folks will be using up blood oxygen at a furious pace. Many will lose consciousness due to lack of air pressure at altitude. But far from all.
And because you're falling into thicker air at a pretty good clip, I'd wager all but the elderly will revive to at least a groggy state prior to impact. It'll take 2-ish minutes for the fuselage chunks to fall to the sea. Many will be fully conscious and aware for the entire ride.
The final impact will kill 99% of the people, and critically injure the last 2 lucky (?) souls. Who'll drown as their fuselage chunk sinks with them still strapped in. |
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| VDub |
| quote: | Originally posted by Igaryok
I think you have been reading too many emergency landing booklets stuffed on the back seat of airplanes.
When was the last time you heard of a plane as large as the Airbus 330 "gliding and doing a water landing"? Maybe the Hudson river landing, but that was under way different circumstances and in an airbus 320 which is a way smaller plane.
Here's a more likely scenerio from that flight as described by a former commercial jet pilot.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...ad.php?t=520166 |
What different circumstances???
If you have air flowing over the wings at a certain speed, your wings will create lift. Engines do not create lift. They push the wings through the air so that the wings create lift....
If you have no engines, you point the nose down until you get enough speed where your wings can create lift...
Dude you can glide an A380 if you had too...
Again with the principles of flight??
And yes that's a cool story and all but it's only one scenario. Plus it doesn't explain why the RAT wasn't deployed or why no emergency is declared... |
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| fbgdavidson |
| quote: | Originally posted by iclone
wind shear? |
Don't think so, I recall it was to do with humidity. |
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| _Ocean_Drive_ |
Interesting article in the Daily Telegraph
LINK
| quote: | COMPLEX PROCESS
Investigators said any information gleaned from the black boxes would take months to process and there was no certainty they would determine what went wrong before the crash, when the fully-laden passenger jet vanished in an equatorial storm.
But chief investigator Alain Bouillard told Reuters he was confident part of the data could be recovered. "The recorders have several components so I am fairly confident we can get something, but until we open them we cannot say for sure."
Investigators said it would take at least three days to extract copies of the data -- one for the investigation team and another for French prosecutors -- from the thin memory boards housed inside the bright orange capsules.
Even then, deciphering the evidence is likely to involve weeks of work to synchronize the data and voice recordings.
Of the two recorders, the one containing read-outs of data from the aircraft systems is the most crucial to unlocking the cause of the crash. "Without these parameters it will be difficult to understand what happened," Bouillard told Reuters.
In the best case scenario, France's BEA crash investigation authority hopes to issue findings at the beginning of 2012.
The BEA said it would never release the cockpit voice recordings in public but may issue transcripts of pilot conversations if they were needed to understand the crash.
The speeding up of the investigation will bring some comfort to some 2,500 family members from 32 nations but could have legal implications for manufacturers or the airline.
A French judge heading a criminal probe into the crash has placed Airbus and Air France under formal investigation, which falls short of charges but can open the way to a trial.
Bouillard said many key cockpit systems had been recovered but the aircraft's speed sensors, initially cited as a possible factor in the crash, had not yet been found.
The data recorder may shed light on why the Thales-built sensors, or pitot tubes, appeared to give inconsistent readings in maintenance records transmitted automatically from the aircraft shortly before it disappeared. |
:( |
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| _Ocean_Drive_ |
Well it appears all the date from both the data recorder and voice recorder is intact. They have the last 2 hours from the flight in audio. That must be incredibly disturbing audio.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...2484813816.html
Still no Pitot tubes found, though. |
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| Lira |
Hi,
My father is a pilot and I lived next to that airport in Rio de Janeiro for about a year. Based on my vast expertise in this area, I can confidently say I know what happened: it was an alien abduction gone wrong. Because, you know, it's hard to suck a big plane into the mothership.
There you go, I solved the problem for you guys. This technique I used is called "inference to the best House Episode explanation": If something can be true, it will be fantastically so. |
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| Meat187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
My father is a pilot and I lived next to that airport in Rio de Janeiro for about a year. Based on my vast expertise in this area, I can confidently say I know what happened: it was an alien abduction gone wrong. Because, you know, it's hard to suck a big plane into the mothership.
There you go, I solved the problem for you guys. This technique I used is called "inference to the best House Episode explanation": If something can be true, it will be fantastically so. |
You've haven't watched that show a lot, have you? Here is what REALLY happened:
On a previous flight to Brazil the co-pilot contracted a rare tropical disease called liraidosis. The most common symptoms include a heightened sense of moral, uncontrolled growth of facial hair, speaking in tongues and logorrhea. This is the worst symptom, because boring rants about no one cares about are also the main way in which liraidosis spreads. So when the co-pilot started to share his views on Buddhist teachings he infected the pilot who soon joined the discussion. With both of them infected the disease impaired their ability to perform any useful task or even bother with it once the discussion reached the subject of the stewardesses . So disaster struck and the plane crashed. It's also quite obvious why the recordings are not released: they're still contagious. |
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| srussell0018 |
| I hear the only cure is Euro dance. |
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| fbgdavidson |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
You've haven't watched that show a lot, have you? Here is what REALLY happened:
On a previous flight to Brazil the co-pilot contracted a rare tropical disease called liraidosis. The most common symptoms include a heightened sense of moral, uncontrolled growth of facial hair, speaking in tongues and logorrhea. This is the worst symptom, because boring rants about no one cares about are also the main way in which liraidosis spreads. So when the co-pilot started to share his views on Buddhist teachings he infected the pilot who soon joined the discussion. With both of them infected the disease impaired their ability to perform any useful task or even bother with it once the discussion reached the subject of the stewardesses . So disaster struck and the plane crashed. It's also quite obvious why the recordings are not released: they're still contagious. |
You're way off the mark. Amyloidosis. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
You've haven't watched that show a lot, have you? Here is what REALLY happened:
On a previous flight to Brazil the co-pilot contracted a rare tropical disease called liraidosis. The most common symptoms include a heightened sense of moral, uncontrolled growth of facial hair, speaking in tongues and logorrhea. This is the worst symptom, because boring rants about no one cares about are also the main way in which liraidosis spreads. So when the co-pilot started to share his views on Buddhist teachings he infected the pilot who soon joined the discussion. With both of them infected the disease impaired their ability to perform any useful task or even bother with it once the discussion reached the subject of the stewardesses . So disaster struck and the plane crashed. It's also quite obvious why the recordings are not released: they're still contagious. |
:stongue: |
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