Air France Passenger Aircraft Missing

*Kol*

Just on the news. An Air France aircraft has disappeared off radar screens while enroute from Paris to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. No more details yet.

Edit. Rio to Paris not Paris to Rio. A330 with 228 pax on board.

PCros

An Air France plane on its way from Brazil to Paris has not arrived and has disappeared from radar screens, a spokeswoman for the Paris airports authority said.

The plane was expected in Paris at 9.10am Irish time.

Its last known location was unclear.

Flight AF 447 had 228 people on board. An Air France-KLM spokeswoman in Amsterdam said there had been no radio contact with the missing plane 'for a while'.

RTE

*Kol*

Missing 3 hours already is not good. The search and rescue operation has started according to some of the news sites.

ch252

More details here: http://www.aviationandaircraft.com/index.php?topic=67.0

It's not looking good at all, though off the coast of Brazil in the south Atlantic there is no Radar cover only positions reports are done via HF or VH so it will be tough to organise a SAR mission in such a vast area

futura123

not lookin good!!! missing since 3am this morning

upthedub

futura123 wrote: »

not lookin good!!! missing since 3am this morning

Folks only post accurate information here.:rolleyes:

kgpixels

Ch 4 expert said that any plane to date that has gone missing over the Atlantic was as a result of a bomb. . .

futura123

upthedub wrote: »

Folks only post accurate information here.:rolleyes:

it is missing since 3am (accurate)
it would have run out of fuel by now hence doubtful outcome

Mmcd

Was it anywhere near the bermuda triangle?

jhegarty

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0601/airfrance.html




An Air France plane on its way from Brazil to Paris has not arrived and has disappeared from radar screens, a spokeswoman for the Paris airports authority said.

The plane was expected in Paris at 9.10am Irish time.

Its last known location was unclear.

Flight AF 447 had 228 people on board. An Air France-KLM spokeswoman in Amsterdam said there had been no radio contact with the missing plane 'for a while'.

Brazilian television said the Brazilian air force had started a search mission over the Atlantic Ocean for the plane.

An air force spokesman said planes had taken off from the island of Fernando de Noronha off Brazil's northeast coast to look for the Air France jet.

Air France said relatives of people travelling on board flight AF 447 were being taken care of in a special area of Charles de Gaulle airport.

The plane was an Airbus 330-200.

irlrobins

kgpixels wrote: »

Ch 4 expert said that any plane to date that has gone missing over the Atlantic was as a result of a bomb. . .

Nonsense, what about Flight 111 , Flight 990 and flight 800?

Victor

irlrobins wrote: »

Nonsense, what about Flight 111 , Flight 990 and flight 800?

All were coastal.

Mr Benevolent

Damn. Poor feckers. Not a chance of anyone surviving now. Fire, fuel exhaustion or structural failure (unlikely as it's an Airbus). Or terrorism.

Ponster

My next door neighbour is the "chef d'escalade" for Air France and had to leave our lunch together to head back to CDG to help sort things out. He just got back and said that they have no news as to what may have happened but they don't have a lot of expectations regards survivors.
I'll post anything "confirmed" if he hears anything...

Reoil

BBC are reporting an electrical short circuit, possibly after being sturck by lightning.

irlrobins

Victor wrote: »

All were coastal.

But over the Atlantic nevertheless

Foggy43

Reoil wrote: »

BBC are reporting an electrical short circuit, possibly after being sturck by lightning.

Lightning will not bring down an aeroplane. Aircraft are struck every day.

It appears Air France received messages from the Airbus reoprting faults hat had developed shortly before disapearing off radar, from Air France press conference. BA aircraft have this facility also. Any faults that develop particularly with the engines will be received in engineering control at Heathrow before they appear on the pilots 'status page' no matter where in the world it happens.

Tenger

Pretty shocking incident.
No communication most likely means castastrophic electrical/structural failure. This and the location means chance of survival is minimal.
My only hope is that all on board were dead before they had to plunge 8 miles into the Atlantic. That is one of my greatest fears ever since the Swissair ditching in 1998.

Don't know about the rest of ye but I'm feeling very mortal just now.


Edit to answer Trotter below:
"Under what circumstances could a lightening strike take down an aircraft of this size though?"
Modern aircraft are designed to cope with lightening strikes,I have personally been on at least 5 aircraft hit by lightening. Normally it sounds more serious than it actually is. The problem is that the area of 'thunderstorm activity' may have had severe turbulence/wind shear which caused structural damage to the aircraft. Someone with more enginerring knowledge could shed more light on this.


From BBC World:

2200GMT- last night take off.

0133GMT- last radar contact.

0200GMT- According to AF aircraft entered a "thunderous zone with strong turbulence"

0214GMT- Automated message received by AF stating "electrical circuit malfunction"

0910GMT- Today. Scheduled arrival time.

0935GMT- Officially declared missing.

1213 GMT- AF suggests the electrical fault was probably caused by the plane suffering a lightning strike.

Trotter

Under what circumstances could a lightening strike take down an aircraft of this size though? In these days of increased safety, we almost take it for granted that every flight will land safely. I hope the flight can be located in the coming hours so the engineers can learn from this and make sure it does not happen again, whatever the cause.

donvito99

What would be the optimal/regular flight path of that aircraft at that stage of the journey? Is it possible that it could have crashed in the Amazon?

Our man in Havana

Nope. See here.

The route would be mostly over water until it reached Europe.

Foggy43

The last news report said the flight disapeared of radar on the African side?
What exactly was on the ACARs message Air France received. What was the abnormality in the message?

I suppose it is still too early and the media are still speculatiing, although Air France have admitted receiving the ACAR's. Saying it was an electrical fault means nothing. We need a location, maintenance manual reference....

Our man in Havana

So they flew that plane into a radar and radio blackspot? Surely that would not be permitted for a passenger jet?

Mr Benevolent

It'd need to be an extremely serious electrical fault - permanent loss of all generators, and even then it wouldn't stop the aircraft flying. It's possible the aircraft broke up in turbulence, but again very unlikely.

So they flew that plane into a radar and radio blackspot? Surely that would not be permitted for a passenger jet?

Most oceans have no radar coverage and very little radio coverage except for ACARS and HF.

Lastly, lightning can't bring an airliner down. Turbulence can though.

Foggy43

Bond-007 wrote: »

So they flew that plane into a radar and radio blackspot? Surely that would not be permitted for a passenger jet?

There has been no report of this that I am aware off?

Our man in Havana

France 24 reporting that Dakar ATC lost contact with the jet.

Mr Benevolent

Source

Air France regrets to announce the loss of flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro - Paris-Charles de Gaulle, expected arrival this morning at 11.10 am local, as just announced to the press by the Director General of Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon.

AF447 Aircraft F-GZCP A330-200 departed Rio de Janeiro on the 31st May 2009 at 19:03 Local time (00:03 paris time).


The aircraft went through a thunderstorm with strong turbulence at 2 am (universal time) or 4:00 GMT. An automated message was received at 2:14 (4:14 GMT) indicating a failure of electrical system in a remote area off the coast.


All civilian air traffic control Brazilian, African, Spanish and french have tried in vain to make contact with the flight AF447. The french military air traffic control tried to detect the aircraft without success.

216 pax onboard, 126 men, 82 women, 7 infants and babies.

12 crew (3 pilots, 9 cabin crew)

Captain 11,000 hrs TT (1700 on Airbus A330/A340)
Copilot 3,000 hrs TT (800 on Airbus A330/A340)
Copilot 6,600 hrs TT (2600 on Airbus A330/A340)

Aircraft equipped with engines General Electric CF6-80E.


Airframe had 18,870 flight hours since commencing service on 18 April 2005.

Last visit maintenance hangar dated 16 April 2009.

Oh well. Looks like it broke up in turbulence.

Edit: AF says the aircraft reported loss of pressurisation and electrical problems. Loss of pressurisation can indicate loss of structural integrity after severe turbulence.

Our man in Havana

We can't be sure it did break up.

Foggy43

Bond-007 wrote: »

France 24 reporting that Dakar ATC lost contact with the jet.

Thank you.

The ACAR's messages did get through and they use VHF, but not ATC VHF

Grim.

the aircraft involved http://www.libhomeradar.org/aircraft/F-GZCP.html

Vain

The plane is just over a year old so is it?

Grim.

Vain wrote: »

The plane is just over a year old so is it?

na it was built in 2005 so still pretty much brand new

http://www.airframes.org/reg/fgzcp

cojomo2

Grim. wrote: »

na it was built in 2005 so still pretty much brand new

http://www.airframes.org/reg/fgzcp

wow, kinda freaky...the picture in your link above shows it on its very last take off , full of people that are most certainly dead now.not a nice thought...

Mark200

cojomo2 wrote: »

wow, kinda freaky...the picture in your link above shows it on its very last take off , full of people that are most certainly dead now.not a nice thought...

When you click on it it says it's from May 3rd though...?

http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=768809

PCros

cojomo2 wrote: »

wow, kinda freaky...the picture in your link above shows it on its very last take off , full of people that are most certainly dead now.not a nice thought...

Its landing, picture is a month old as above stated.

cojomo2

ah ok so.. i was going by the date next to the small pic-must be an error

Silenceisbliss

I've been following this now since it happened, i'm afraid it's going to take a long long time to get a conclusive reason for the failure.

this lighting strike business is rubbish, at the moment in Lufthansa's database of repair approvals, theres roughly 210 lighting strikes in there (last time i checked) lighting strikes happen all the time, they wouldnt result in catastrophic failure.

The electrical short circuit could have started a fire onboard, BUT, i still think there would have been sufficient time for a distress call if that was the case. even by mobile phone.

its a new plane, so structure failure is not going to be due (even partially) to stress or fatigue.

I do however think it was sudden catastrophic break-up at cruise altitude. my two cents are: mechanical failure due to severe turbulance (which subsequently caused the electrical fault) the structural integrity of the aircraft eventually gave in, which resulted in instantaneous break up.

mere speculation I know, but thats all we can do at this stage. id be interested to hear some other opinions.

I really am dismissing the possibilties of lightning strike, ditching, and terrorist attacks though.

Silenceisbliss

oh, also,

The airbus a330 encorporates mechanical linkages to the control surfaces right? implying that even if there was electrical failure, the pilot would still have had primary control functionality. ?

and: (someone said generators gone due to lighting strike), isnt a failure like that covered primarily by the apu, and secondly by the rat?

bushy...

Positive lightning strike maybe ? They're not made to handle that afaik

risteard85

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0601/airfrance.html
3 irish aboard plane

Mr Benevolent

Silenceisbliss wrote: »

oh, also,

The airbus a330 encorporates mechanical linkages to the control surfaces right? implying that even if there was electrical failure, the pilot would still have had primary control functionality. ?

and: (someone said generators gone due to lighting strike), isnt a failure like that covered primarily by the apu, and secondly by the rat?

There is no mechanical control linkage on the A320 and up, they're all FBW. The linkages are electric and hydraulic. The controls will still work with both engines windmilling.

A strike that destroys both generators is likely to take out the APU generator as well. The RAT will only power a few critical items.

This accident is almost certainly not lightning related, it's probably due to extreme turbulence in the ICTZ.

Merch

Confab wrote: »

It'd need to be an extremely serious electrical fault - permanent loss of all generators, and even then it wouldn't stop the aircraft flying. It's possible the aircraft broke up in turbulence, but again very unlikely.

Most oceans have no radar coverage and very little radio coverage except for ACARS and HF.

Lastly, lightning can't bring an airliner down. Turbulence can though.

Any suggestions of what brought it down are speculation, an avionics tech or AME could not definitively say Lightning could not bring down an aircraft, I think it's possible, in this case until the airframe located no one will no. so ruling anything in or out isn't a good way of determining what happened. I've experienced one particularily bad thunder and lightning storm in South America, I'm sure tropical regions or elsewhere are just as bad but I was seriously concerned and I was on the ground. It was one hell of a storm and seriously concerned me.

Silenceisbliss wrote: »

I've been following this now since it happened, i'm afraid it's going to take a long long time to get a conclusive reason for the failure.

this lighting strike business is rubbish, at the moment in Lufthansa's database of repair approvals, theres roughly 210 lighting strikes in there (last time i checked) lighting strikes happen all the time, they wouldnt result in catastrophic failure.

The electrical short circuit could have started a fire onboard, BUT, i still think there would have been sufficient time for a distress call if that was the case. even by mobile phone.

its a new plane, so structure failure is not going to be due (even partially) to stress or fatigue.

I do however think it was sudden catastrophic break-up at cruise altitude. my two cents are: mechanical failure due to severe turbulance (which subsequently caused the electrical fault) the structural integrity of the aircraft eventually gave in, which resulted in instantaneous break up.

mere speculation I know, but thats all we can do at this stage. id be interested to hear some other opinions.

I really am dismissing the possibilties of lightning strike, ditching, and terrorist attacks though.

They were over the atlantic, there wouldn't be any mobile connection, I'd have thought, I'd say nothing can be ruled in or out. No one really can dismiss any possibility.

Silenceisbliss wrote: »

oh, also,

The airbus a330 encorporates mechanical linkages to the control surfaces right? implying that even if there was electrical failure, the pilot would still have had primary control functionality. ?

and: (someone said generators gone due to lighting strike), isnt a failure like that covered primarily by the apu, and secondly by the rat?

Mechanical linkages to control surfaces, I'd have thought it is fly by wire I cant say for sure, but i'm more inclined to that.

Darwin

Interesting story by Reuters here suggests a Lufthansa 747-400 heading for Frankfurt passed on the same track only 30 minutes before the A330 with no unusual wx reports. This was followed 2 hours later by an MD-11 cargo plane passing south of the location enroute to Africa, again no reports from this aircraft. It is odd though as satellite pictures have shown thunderstorms in the area at the time.

murfie

CNN: The jet had also sent out a warning that it had lost pressure, the Brazilian air force said

CNN are reporting this, have not read it anywhere else i think. I just read about the electrical fault the plane reported.

Its unlikely there are any survivers if it broke up at such an altitude and speed i would imagine.

Mr Benevolent

Lufthansa 747-400 heading for Frankfurt passed on the same track only 30 minutes before the A330 with no unusual wx reports. This was followed 2 hours later by an MD-11 cargo plane passing south of the location enroute to Africa, again no reports from this aircraft.

Thunderstorms form fast and dissipate slowly, they could have been moving fast too. Also, CBs showing up on a satellite photo aren't nessecarily thunderstorms.

There's something odd about this accident and I don't like it one bit.

Foggy43

Yes! This loss of Cabin Pressure I find frightening. Perhaps I should say possibility!

partyatmygaff

Pretty strange accident.

Im not ruling out a lightning strike but the thought of the plane completely disintigerating at cruise altitude over the atlantic sends shivers down my spine. Anyone who survived the plane disintegrating would be falling down from 40000ft to their impending and guaranteed death.
3 minutes of sheer terror and exhilaration. That would be if it just exploded.

One thing I haven't heard mentioning is it being shot down by something, although unlikely.

Can't see this as being a terrorist attack either.
If they ditched in the ocean and somehow people managed to get out to the outside they would freeze to death or sink or at worst be eaten alive by a shark.

Failing that they might be near an uninhabited island.

Scary thought.

highlydebased

A strange occourance.

Indeed as someone said it may have been Dakar ATC who lost contact- However it would have been the Dakar Oceanic FIR and that is not radar controlled- only via position reports. Sal Oceanic would have been the next FIR after that which is largely non radar also. The first radar position after that on its routing is Canarias Control (Canary Islands)

Therefore with lack of radar coverage on the route it is reletively easy to see how it was "missed" as it were until very late...

Nevertheless a scary event. Thoughts to the families of those concerned

netwhizkid

A thought just occured to me, could it be plausible say on the off chance that the plane was hijacked and flown to some remote airport in either Africa or a remote part of South America, there would be plenty political motivations against France to do it and fly it over into say the Congo and use the passengers as human shields or bargaining chips in the conflict there.

Could a rogue pilot or terrorist take over the plane and then fly it silently (radar off) off course and land it without someone noticing? I know it sounds bizarre but when there is no trace of nothing yet it seems like something that could have happened and I hope for the passengers that this is what did happen as the alternative leaves them no hope by now.

pclancy

I seriously doubt it.

You can't fly an airliner that big without somebody picking it up on radar within reach, you can turn off your transponder to stop transmitting information but the basic radar return will still be there.

Tenger

netwhizkid wrote: »

Could a rogue pilot or terrorist take over the plane and then fly it silently (radar off) off course and land it without someone noticing?

In theory yes they could go off course and turn the trasponder off. But getting control of the aircraft is difficult. And then you have to know how to disable the transponder. A A332 is a bit white plane, hard to hide without someone seeing it.

An AF spokesman on BBC World has already stated "A succession of a dozen technical messages" showed that "several electrical systems had broken down" which caused a "totally unprecedented situation in the plane" so unfortunately it looks certain it went down into the ocean.

RIP