June 1 plane airlines Air France, flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, fell into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. According to experts, the causes of the worst plane crash in the history of Air France, which claimed 228 lives—neither the French nor the Brazilian authorities expect to find anyone alive—will remain unsolved.
“I dial his mobile number, and I get long beeps in response. Only then the connection is cut off. But the phone cannot receive signals under water. Therefore, I still hope that he is somewhere on some raft in the middle of the ocean, that his They just haven’t found it yet. But deep down I know he won’t come back.” Patricia Coakley talks about her husband Arthur, one of the 216 passengers Airplane France, operating flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Like the vast majority of relatives of those on board, she knows she will likely never know how her husband died.
It is assumed that modern planes do not fall for nothing. And the ultra-reliable Airbus A330-203 of Air France, where plane crashes occur extremely rarely, certainly does not crash. Yet that's exactly what happened with Flight 447.
Disappearance
Brazilian air traffic controllers learned that something had happened to the plane a quarter of an hour after its mark left their radar. “At 1.48 am GMT, the plane left the coverage area of our radars. Shortly before this, the commander reported that the plane was on a given course at an altitude of 10,670 m at a speed of 840 km/h and that it was preparing to enter the area of responsibility of Senegalese air traffic controllers in 50 minutes. This was the last voice contact with the aircraft,” says one of the Brazilian Air Force officers. “We had no reason to worry until about a quarter past three, when we began to receive messages about problems in the system. These were messages that were automatically sent from the aircraft in cases of emergency.” there was no voice communication."
According to representatives of the Brazilian Air Force, the first signal arrived at 2.10 and indicated that the autopilot had been turned off. Then, within three minutes, 11 more messages were received about the failure of various monitoring and control systems, including two of the three on-board computers, as well as a decrease in pressure on board. The last such message was received at 2.14. “When at 2.20 the crew did not show up for the scheduled communication session, and a few minutes later did not report, as they should have, that they had entered Senegal’s area of responsibility, we contacted Dakar and found out that the plane did not communicate with them either. and then did not appear on their radar. After this, a search operation for the aircraft began."
Several countries took part in the operation, organized long before the sign “Delayed” appeared on the board at Charles de Gaulle airport opposite flight 447. The Brazilian Air Force scrambled planes from its base in the Fernando de Noronha archipelago. A French reconnaissance plane flew from Dakar towards Brazil. Soon the Americans joined in with data from satellites. "The search was made more difficult by the fact that we didn't really know where to look. At the time of the last signal, the plane was about 100 km south of the Cape Verde Islands, but even this did not help us much. The search area was huge."
Air France officially announced the loss of the plane only six hours later, when the plane failed to land at the Paris airport. The passengers' relatives were not told anything definite, but they were prepared for the worst. In the afternoon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived at the airport to meet them. He announced that there was virtually no hope of saving anyone on board.
Following the French president, the head of Air France made a statement in which he admitted that the airline was faced with “the biggest disaster yet.” Airline representatives suggested that the cause of the tragedy was lightning striking the plane as it flew through a thunderstorm zone. Experts immediately refuted this theory. "On average, every aircraft is struck by lightning once a year. Modern aircraft are adapted to this. A lightning strike simply cannot lead to the destruction of the aircraft," says British expert David Gleave.
The fact that the plane collapsed very quickly is evidenced by signals received from the board. “The signals were sent automatically. This suggests that there was no sudden and complete power outage on board the plane,” says American expert John Cox. “However, if the plane did not break up in the air, the crew had time to send a distress signal. Airbus has a spare one.” power supply system, which is designed almost exclusively to give this signal. However, it was not there.”
At present, no expert dares to say with confidence what happened to the plane. "It could be anything. Even a collision with another plane - a military one or, for example, a small plane that drug traffickers like to use. Naturally, they will not report the plane missing," says former Air France pilot Cédric Magnez. The possibility of a terrorist attack is also being considered, although this version is not considered the main one. “We cannot, naturally, exclude the version of a terrorist attack, because terrorism is the main threat to all Western democracies,” said French Defense Minister Hervé Morin, who noted, however, that the French authorities do not yet have any reason to consider the disaster the result of a terrorist attack and that no organization has taken responsibility for it.
Soon after the plane's wreckage was found - this happened on the afternoon of June 2 - experts had reason to believe that the crew was trying to either turn the plane around, or at least get around some obstacle. “We found debris much south of where the plane was when the last signal was received. Perhaps the plane was trying to turn or turn around to go towards the Fernando de Noronha islands. But this, of course, is only a hypothesis,” said a representative of the Brazilian Air Force.
Even more mysterious story made a statement by the Brazilian airline TAM. It said that the crew of a plane flying from Paris to Rio de Janeiro noticed flames approximately in the place where the French plane was routed. However, a little later, a French search vessel set off to the place indicated by the pilots, which did not find any traces of the disaster there.
The unattainable truth
The only thing that can shed light on the disaster is data from the so-called black boxes. However, according to one expert, it's easier to find a needle in a haystack. “Most likely, the “black boxes” have been preserved. The whole problem is to find them. The search for the Titanic took decades. And we are talking about wreckage that is several times smaller,” says British expert Derek Clark, who runs the company that manufactures diving equipment for British naval sailors.
According to another expert, Nigel Dee, there is only a month to search for the “black boxes”: “Usually such systems are equipped with beacons that emit signals. They can also be heard in the water. If the beacons are not damaged, they will emit signals for 30 days.” France has already sent perhaps the most modern research ship of the Navy, Pourquoi Pas ("Why not"), built in 2005, to the site where the wreckage was discovered. On board there are two mini-submarines capable of conducting search operations at a depth of up to 4.5 km. However, experts say the problem is not just one of depth. “In the place where the plane supposedly fell, the topography of the ocean floor is monstrous. Any researcher will tell you this. There are real mountains down there. The depth difference can be a kilometer. And a huge number of places that are simply impossible to reach,” says one of the researchers. Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borlot also expresses doubts that the “black boxes” will ever be discovered. He recalled that even after the crash of a French plane in the Red Sea in 2004, when the crash site was determined very precisely, the “black boxes” were lifted from a depth of 1000 m only after 15 days. “What can we say about a place where depths range from 3,000 to 6,000 m, the search area is a huge area, and underwater currents are unusually strong?” - says the minister.
Relatives of the victims are also getting used to the idea that the mystery of the plane’s death will not be revealed. According to psychologists now working at Charles de Gaulle airport, this is “one of the two topics that cause people the most suffering.” The second is the thought of how the passengers felt in the last minutes and seconds of the flight.
“It happened at night, when the plane had already been in flight for long hours. I hope that he was sleeping, that it all happened quickly and he didn’t have time to get scared. If I can find consolation, it’s only in this,” says the wife of one of the passengers.
ALEXANDER IZYUMOV
Airplane: Airbus A330-203, registration number F-GZCP. General Electric CF6-80E engines. Began flights on April 18, 2005, total flight time is 18,870 hours. The last scheduled inspection was carried out on April 16, 2009.
Crew: 3 pilots, a crew of 9 flight attendants.
Passengers: 216 people, including 126 men, 82 women, 8 children from 32 countries.
Departure time and place: 19.03 (22.03 GMT) May 31, Galean International Airport.
Expected time and place of arrival: Estimated arrival at Charles de Gaulle International Airport is 11.15 (9.15 GMT) on June 1.
Today, the world's media are commenting on the mysterious disappearance of an Air France plane over the Atlantic with 228 people on board. The Airbus A-330 was caught in a severe thunderstorm with thunder, lightning and turbulence, but its design was considered very reliable. The first interviews are given by the lucky ones who were not allowed on the fateful flight.
Watching in horror the progress of the search for the missing Air France plane over the Atlantic, Dane Stefan van Oss thanks God for saving him from death. The fact is that Stefan was also supposed to fly on this plane.
Three weeks ago he decided to go on vacation to Brazil. He really liked the country, and really wanted to extend this vacation, but he had to return. On Monday Stefan had to fly back to Europe and he bought tickets for flight AF 447.
As van Oss said in an interview with the Danish TV show Hart van Nederland, he was saved by a miracle - a very good friend called and said that something bad would happen and Stefan should not fly on this flight. He obeyed and did not board the plane, which he did not regret later.
Let us recall that in Atlantic Ocean The search continues for the Airbus 330-200 airliner that disappeared from radar screens during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, the Washington Post reports. “On board were 12 crew members and 216 passengers - citizens of 32 countries,” write correspondents Edward Cody and Sholnn Freeman.
At 4:00 am Paris time, the aircraft encountered a severe thunderstorm with thunder, lightning and turbulence. From 4:14 a.m., the airliner sent several automatic signals about a power outage and a drop in air pressure in the cabin, after which the connection was lost.
“If a plane sank in the middle of the Atlantic, finding material traces of the disaster will not be easy. The central regions of the oceans are one of the most remote corners of the world from civilization,” an expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explained to the publication.
Modern airliners typically avoid the front of a thunderstorm, even though they are designed to withstand lightning strikes. The Airbus 330-200 is famous for its reliability, and yet the plane, flying at an altitude of 35 thousand feet, could have landed directly in the most dangerous part of the thunderstorm front, which in this area stretched up to an altitude of 50 thousand meters, the publication cites the explanation of a meteorologist.
It is unclear how long the plane remained in the air after the last automatic message or why the crew did not issue an SOS signal. The "black boxes" are equipped with radio beacons that operate for 30 days, but it will be difficult to detect them in the water, the newspaper adds.
According to The Times, the most likely cause of the A-330 crash appears to be turbulence. For 40 years, there has not been a case where lightning was the main cause of a plane crash, writes the author of the article, Charles Bremner.
Lightning strikes airliners with some regularity, but this does not pose a significant danger. According to recent American statistics, each commercial aircraft is struck by lightning once on average every year.
On the other hand, severe turbulence poses a threat even to large aircraft, the correspondent points out. Small planes caught in a storm periodically find themselves broken into pieces and crashed to the ground. The most famous case of such a disaster occurred in 1966 in Japan, near Mount Fuji: then 124 people died.
The German Der Tagesspiegel, reporting on the plane crash, quotes the words of the head of Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon: rescuers “localized the search area” for the airliner flying across the Atlantic. "The disaster occurred halfway between the coast of Brazil and the African coast."
Gurzhon named a lightning strike as one of the possible versions of the crash. However, the publication comments, experts refute this version, pointing out that modern airliners are equipped with special devices that protect against lightning strikes.
This is the worst and by far the most mysterious disaster in the history of French aviation, writes Le Temps. So far, Air France is putting forward a hypothesis that explains the incident by meteorological conditions. As Météo France meteorologist Etienne Kapikian notes, “this is one of the areas where the most thunderstorms occur in the world.”
According to Francois Grangier of the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis, Flight 447 appears to have been the victim of "something extremely sudden and powerful", so the pilots did not have time to report the problem. The emergency beacons did not signal, which means they were damaged before they could send a signal.
Another mystery is that Briton Patricia Coakley, whose husband was on board the Airbus A330-200 that disappeared on June 1 during a flight over the Atlantic, believes that the plane did not sink. The woman motivates this by the fact that when calling her husband on mobile phone she hears beeps. Thus, the phone is still working and within reach, the British woman says, writes NEWSru.com with reference to The Sun.
58-year-old Coakley's husband, Arthur, last called his wife to say he had boarded a plane from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Before this, two flights that the Briton was planning to take were cancelled.
Based on press materials.
Tuesday. August 2, 2005. At Paris airport, 296 passengers boarded an Air France plane. It was flight 358, bound for Toronto.
Passenger: My daughter and I sat separately. She sat in front of us, next to the wing of the plane.
While passengers took their seats, the crew began preparing the Airbus A340 for takeoff. The commander was 57-year-old Alan Rosai. He has worked for Air France for 20 years. His assistant was Frederic Noe. The pilots decided that Captain Rosay would take off in Paris and his assistant No would land in Toronto. Pilots often shared responsibilities among themselves so that the assistants could gain more experience.
The Airbus A340 was one of the safest aircraft in the world. A few minutes before noon, Flight 358 took off into the skies over Paris. The flight from Paris to Toronto took approximately 8 hours. The plane was approaching Canada, and it seemed that nothing unusual could happen.
Passenger: The company's service was excellent, the food was excellent. There were many students from France on board.
The weather was beautiful throughout the flight. The sun was shining brightly and white clouds were floating across the sky. The autopilot did most of the pilots' work. The crew regularly received new weather reports. The new forecast called for the possibility of heavy clouds and thunderstorms in Toronto.
A few hours later in international airport Toronto was in full swing with a thunderstorm. The leadership declared combat readiness. The likelihood of a lightning strike was so high that ground staff were prohibited from working on the planes. As Flight 358 approached its destination, it began circling the airport. The plane was delayed.
Passenger: I was very surprised when I heard the commander’s announcement that the landing was delayed.
The plane's alternate airport was in Ottawa, 300 kilometers away. There was still enough fuel in the tanks to fly there.
Expert: Typically, a pilot must think about the economics of flying to an alternate airport. But still, he is not the one who makes the final decision. The pilot only offers his option. After all, if you change course, how can you then deliver passengers to their original destination?
Flying to Ottawa could be a logistical nightmare. At the same time, the crew could not endlessly circle in the air and wait for the weather to improve. Half an hour later the delay was canceled and the plane began to descend to land. However, the weather did not improve. The merciless summer storm was in full swing. Gusts of wind and lightning thundered over the airport. This created difficulties for arriving aircraft. Including for flight 358. The pilots continued their descent straight into the thundercloud. There were only a few minutes left before landing, and co-pilot Noe tried to keep everything under control. Everything around was getting darker. It seemed to passengers that hundreds of lightning flashes were flashing around them. So they got pretty nervous.
In front of the Air France jet, two other planes had already landed on the same runway that Flight 358 was scheduled to use. The crew was ordered to fly to the left of runway 24. This allowed them to land into the wind. Lane 24 was also the closest to the city's largest thoroughfare, which was already experiencing evening traffic jams. Coping with unpredictable winds around the runway, the crew prepared to land.
Passenger: The last minutes before landing were terrible. The turbulence was very high. You could feel the crew struggling with the plane, trying to keep it parallel to the runway. My children were very scared.
Passenger: I tightened my seat belt even more. Everyone was expecting a very hard landing.
At 16:02, Flight 358 managed to land. But as soon as he leveled off on the runway, all hell broke loose. The plane began to swing violently up and down. A few seconds after landing, at a speed of 146 km/h, the airliner left the runway.
Passenger: Through the porthole I saw the crimson light of a flame. My daughter, who was sitting in front of us, turned to us in horror. At that moment I thought that we would all die. It was obvious that no one could survive this.
Finally, the landing gear broke and the plane stopped. All the passengers were scared to death. However, this was not the end. The smell of aviation fuel began to permeate the cabin. In addition, one engine of the plane was on fire. Panic spread quickly. Everyone wanted to quickly get out of the burning plane. The flight attendants opened the doors and began evacuating people. But the fire was already raging all around. In the cockpit, Captain Rosai was seriously injured. This happened when his chair fell to the floor due to the impact.
Passenger: I pushed my family down the emergency ramp. We ran past the wreckage as fast as possible.
Rescuers were able to reach the burning plane within a minute after the crash. However, due to the threat of an explosion, it was dangerous to get close. The situation was also complicated by heavy rain. It was very difficult to see anything.
Rescuer: The rain didn't stop. Large clouds of smoke enveloped the plane. Some parts of the airliner could be seen to have fallen off. Some wheels were lying on the side of the road.
As the passengers were climbing the hillside, away from the plane, an explosion was heard. Soon the entire fuselage was engulfed in flames. Rescue services arrived and began extinguishing the fire. Doctors also began examining passengers.
Lifeguard: The people were wet from the rain and dirty from climbing the hill. Some were crying and overexcited. Others looked around for other passengers.
Footage of the accident immediately began to be shown on local television channels. Thousands of cars were parked on the highway nearby, and drivers watched a terrible picture of a burning plane. Motorists began picking up victims to take them to the airport. As people began to arrive, airport workers struggled to count whether all the passengers had made it out of the burning plane. Finally, several hours later, the passengers were able to see the relatives who met them.
Passenger: We saw our son who was meeting us. These are indescribable feelings. We were so happy! It was a very touching moment, penetrating to the core.
It took time to find and identify all the passengers. However, late in the evening, Air France made an incredible announcement. Surprisingly, all passengers and crew members of Flight 358 managed to escape the burning wreckage.
The next day, the plane left a burning smell and charred debris. The Airbus A340 airliner burned down. Transportation Safety Canada immediately began an investigation into the accident. Rain and lightning actually made it very difficult for the plane to land. Only if bad weather was the cause of this crash? Air France has banned all crew members on board flight 358 from speaking to the media.
Expert: The weather was very difficult. Countless lightning bolts literally blinded the pilots. In turn, the turbulence was also a distraction. It made it difficult to read instrument readings.
Investigators determined that the crew did everything possible to control the situation in their cockpit. But, on the ground, instruments for determining wind strength on the runway were damaged by lightning. With ground instruments damaged, the pilots could only rely on the instruments in the cockpit.
Expert: On-board instruments provided information only about the actual direction of the wind and the speed of the aircraft. The crew could not predict anything. They didn't know what lay ahead.
But two planes landed on the same runway just minutes before Flight 358. The crews of those planes reported difficult landing conditions to ground crews. They were talking about 20 knot winds. 20 knots is a strong wind, but such conditions were within the technical capabilities of the Airbus A340 to land. After studying the airport radar readings, experts reconstructed the picture of what was happening. As Flight 358 landed, a strong rain squall moved along the runway. The wind force reached 33 knots. It turned out that the crew of the crashed plane had to face much worse conditions than they expected.
Expert: 33 knots is defiantly the maximum headwind speed for an airplaneAirbus A340even if the landing strip is dry.
Having studied the surrounding area of the airport in more detail, experts discovered another strange feature. Technical requirements and weather conditions forced flight control to use runway 24 for landing. This was the shortest landing strip at the airport. It is shorter than the others by almost 650 meters. As a result, heavy rain, gusts of wind, lightning, and the fact of landing on a short runway caused problems for the crew of Flight 358.
Investigator: It was clear that the pilots did not fully accept the information received. Not realizing how threatening the situation was, they tried to sit down.
But even in difficult conditions and on a short landing strip, the crew had 3000 meters to land their plane. This should have been enough. To understand why this happened, experts delved into the past. In 1999, to horror. Then, in the fight against unpredictable weather, the American Airlines plane landed after leaving the runway. 11 people died. One of the investigators participated in the investigation of that disaster.
Investigator: The first thing I thought was: “I’ve already seen this.” The first information about the plane crash "Air France"was strongly reminiscent of the disaster with the American airliner in Little Rock.
During an investigation in 1999, investigators determined that the crew had made a fatal mistake. They did not follow all the actions established by the rules. In that case, ground spoilers remained unreleased. This significantly reduced braking efficiency. Spoilers are just one of the tools pilots use to land a plane. Spare traction motors are also used. They redirect the engine's action as the plane lands, and then the braking system stops it. All aircraft landing systems were carefully studied by experts. They soon learned that the brakes were working properly and the spoilers were fully extended. There was no talk of any technical malfunction.
While the investigation was ongoing, the French press released a sensation. The newspaper Le Figaro published an article about the crash of Flight 358. It said that the spare thrust engines, which help the plane brake, did not turn on while the plane was on the runway for 12 seconds.
Expert: Captain Rosai confirmed what was written in the newspaper. He explained this by the fact that the co-pilot was tense and could hardly control the lateral movement of the aircraft. With this wind and this speed, his hand pressed hard on the control levers. This prevented the captain from reaching them himself. Therefore, the spare thrust engines were not fired.
After this, the investigators made their report. In many ways it was similar to the version set out in Le Figaro. Transportation Safety Canada determined that while the thrust motors were in the ready position, they were not fully engaged. In fact, it took 17 seconds for them to work at full capacity.
Expert: Delay was the problem identified in the report. It is very difficult to understand why it happened. All I know is that usually, pilots try to run the engines as quickly as possible to stop the plane.
The examination revealed other confusing facts. As Flight 358 approached the runway, the plane was at twice its normal altitude. When he landed, he was in the middle of the runway. This is one of the reasons why the pilots were unable to stop the plane in time. From the moment the plane touched down, he had only 1,500 meters left.
Investigator: If the spare traction engines had been started in time, this would have speeded up the braking. Another thing is that the plane landed in the middle of the runway, and it was too late to slow down.
Unfortunately, the case of flight 358 is far from isolated. In 2005, there were 37 such incidents worldwide. The most important thing is that the causes of all the accidents were very similar. Every time the weather conditions and condition landing strips played its role.
Expert: You need to take into account everything that happens around you. There are many factors that can reduce the braking performance of an aircraft. In some cases, stopping distances can easily increase by 50%.
Now, to increase security, special devices are installed at many airports. They are built at the end of landing strips and provide a barrier of crushed stone that quickly and safely slows down aircraft.
In conclusion, I would like to note the prompt action of the crew of flight 358. In just 90 seconds, they managed to evacuate all passengers. It was only thanks to this that everyone survived.
It happened due to a lack of understanding by the crew of the situation and a violation of the aircraft’s operating conditions, said the director of the French Bureau of Air Accident Investigation (BEA), Jean-Paul Troadec, who announced the final report on the causes of the crash on Thursday.
Air France flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. There were 228 people on board, all of them died. The French Bureau of Air Accident Investigation (BEA) reported in May 2011 that specialists were able to extract all the data from the plane’s flight recorders, which had lain on the ocean floor at a depth of 3.9 kilometers for about two years.
“This disaster was the result of a deviation from the aircraft’s operating mode by the crew, who ceased to be aware of the situation. This category of accidents has been the deadliest in the world for about 10 years.” public transport. It concerns both classic aircraft and modern models, both Boeing and Airbus,” Troadeck told reporters.
He noted that the investigation into the cause of the crash had been completed.
"Starting tomorrow, the BEA will issue new recommendations (to airlines and aviation safety agencies), including eight on pilot training and five on aircraft certification. Some actions are already being taken; other recommendations may take years to implement. BEA will monitor implementation recommendations," said the director of the Bureau.
In turn, the head of the investigation, Alain Bouillard, said that the BEA had prepared 25 new recommendations.
"Pilots need to become more familiar with the design of aircraft and how performance changes when the situation deteriorates during flight. Practical and theoretical training, basic and technical knowledge of the aircraft and flight mechanics, as well as crew interaction in situations of high emotional stress need to be improved," Bouillard said.
According to the Bureau, problems during the flight from Rio de Janeiro began after ice crystals disrupted the Pitot's speed sensors. Due to a discrepancy between the measured speeds, the autopilot was disabled. At this moment, the commander of the ship was resting, the co-pilot took control, whose actions led the plane to a stall, from which no one recovered the aircraft.
"Twenty seconds after disabling the autopilot, the third pilot discovered that the aircraft was climbing. He asked the acting pilot to stabilize the trajectory, be attentive to the speed and descend back. Although no exact instructions were given, this would be enough to stabilize the situation in the short term," Bouillard said .
The plane rose to an altitude of 38 thousand feet (11.6 thousand meters) with a vertical speed of 6 thousand feet per minute (1.8 thousand meters). According to Brouillard, the co-pilot acted abruptly and without restraint, increasing the pitch angle from 0% to 10% in 10 seconds, whereas at such altitudes the maximum allowable angle is 6%.
"At that moment it was dialed maximum height, a stall warning sounded,” the expert said.
According to the expert, after this the plane began to fall at a vertical speed of 10 - 11 thousand feet per minute (3 thousand meters), the angle of incidence before the crash was 35 - 45 degrees.
Soon the commander returned to the cockpit, but his presence did not change anything. The crew, according to Bouillard, until the moment of the crash did not pay attention to either the aircraft stall signal, which worked intermittently, or the corresponding shaking.
“The acceleration bar was exceeded, the plane went beyond the operational limits. The ship could have been returned to operational limits by lowering the control stick, but it remained in the climb position, which only aggravated the situation,” Bouillard noted.
According to him, the pilots completely lost control of the situation.
“At this stage, only an extremely determined and well-aware crew could return the aircraft to operational mode,” the expert said.
However, the head of the BEA Troadek noted that the Bureau does not establish the legal responsibility of those responsible for the crash of the airliner, which became the largest air disaster in history. Air history France. The perpetrators will be determined by the court, which is conducting its own investigation. On Wednesday, excerpts from a forensic report were released, which noted the loss of data due to frostbite in the Pitot sensors and the lack of response from the crew.
Air France plane crashA horrific plane crash occurred on June 1, 2009 over the Atlantic when Air France flight 447 Rio-Paris hit air turbulence, according to pilot reports, and then, according to a computer message, several electrical systems failed and the cabin depressurized.
Ocean Search for Air France Aircraft Continues
June 2, 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5501PB20090602?sp=true Four hours after taking off from Rio de Janeiro airport, the Air France plane flew into an area of stormy weather and 15 minutes later transmitted an automatic message indicating an electrical failure. The culprit could have been lightning striking and causing the failure of some mechanisms on the Airbus 330-200, which has a good track record of reliable operation. But aviation experts stated that a lightning strike on an airplane is a normal event, and it alone cannot explain the cause of the disaster. They also said the plane may have suffered an electrical failure, effectively leaving the pilots "blind" and rendering the plane helpless in an area notorious for its bad weather.The plane's black box is unlikely to be found because the Atlantic is three miles deep below the crash site. When speculating about the cause of the disaster, experts take into account the following key points: airliners do not crash due to lightning strikes alone; electrical systems are designed to be redundant to prevent complete failure; storms do not cause electrical failures; fuel films found at the crash site indicate that there was no explosion, such as a bomb, and no terrorist group has claimed responsibility; and depressurization of the cabin may indicate that the plane has broken up into pieces.
What Happened to Flight 447?
June 1, 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5505BF20090602?virtualBrandChannel=10531&pageNumber=2 Four hours into the flight, the plane encountered an area of severe turbulence. Fifteen minutes later, now over the ocean and a long distance from shore, an automatic signal was transmitted indicating that the aircraft was in serious trouble. A sequence of a dozen technical messages showed that a completely unprecedented situation had occurred on the aircraft - several electrical equipment systems had failed, and the failure of the pressurization system posed the greatest threat. It has been four decades since lightning alone caused a plane crash in the United States. Much time and effort is spent protecting aircraft from clear and present dangers. And lightning strikes airliners all the time - you don't hear about it because nothing bad happens. Remember, one thing rarely causes a modern airliner to crash. Experts: Jetliner Crashes Due to Storms Are Rare
June 1, 2009
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-liplan0212831280jun01,0,5886616.story Early Monday morning, 14 minutes after Air France Flight 447 "entered a thunderstorm area with severe turbulence," the plane sent an automated message indicating an electrical failure and cabin depressurization, said company spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand. The Terrifying Last 14 Minutes of the Plane
June 3, 2009
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06042009/news/worldnews/jets_horrifying_final_14_minutes_172538.htm At 11:10 p.m., a cascade of horrific problems began. Automatic messages transmitted by the jetliner indicated that the autopilot had disconnected, suggesting that Dubois and his two co-pilots were trying to navigate through dangerous clouds manually. The main computer system switched to an alternate power source, and the controls responsible for maintaining the plane's stability were damaged. An alarm sounded indicating a malfunction of the aircraft's systems. At 11:13 p.m., other automated messages reported failure of the airspeed, altitude, and direction control systems. Control of the main on-board computer and wing spoilers also failed. The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., indicated a complete electrical failure and severe cabin depressurization - catastrophic events indicating that the aircraft had broken up and crashed into the ocean. New Air France Flight Debris Found, Hardly an Explosion
June 3, 2009
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090603/wl_nm/us_france_plane Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said the presence of large patches of fuel in the water would likely rule out an explosion, quashing speculation about an explosion. The plane sent no distress signals before the accident, only automatic messages indicating electrical failures and depressurization shortly after it entered the stormy weather zone. If the data indicating decompression was correct, then it was caused by problems with structural strength. Aviation trade publications have been paying particular attention to a series of warnings issued in recent months by US and European regulators about electronic systems on A330s and A340s that could send the planes into nosedives. The directives covered ADIRUs - airborne inertial reference units - which transmit to the cockpit important information, helping to carry out the flight of the aircraft.Per the Zetas, the Air France plane failed to withstand the electromagnetic flux, which caused the electrical systems that control the plane to fail.
