Air France 447 wreckage found in Atlantic

cyrusdvirus

A320 wrote: »

I believe a real time link is possible,sure look at acars and acms.it could be transmitted and also kept in the solid state physically

I don't think a real time link for every passenger a/c, transmitting data that would normally be kept in the data recorders is feasible.

How many a/c are in the air at any one time? All of them transmitting info to a central repository, be it the airline HQ or some independent off site place doesn't sound feasible.
And if it was then some gobsh1te hacker would break into it, just to prove it could be done, and do god knows what damage....

I think it would be a better solution, yes, but i don't think we are there yet.

On a related note, do you honestly think that Air France and Airbus would be spending the money on searches for the wreckage of the plane if they had real time recordings?

At least this way, as a side affect of the need of the airline and the manufacturer to find out what the hell happened the jet, some families are going to be able to bring their loved ones home.

Dacian

David086 wrote: »

Flight attendant's not in their seats? Weird

Not really, they could have been in the cabin reassuring pax when the events got out of hand.

I have read the ACARS messages transmitted by the aircraft and its chilling to read. Pretty much, multiple failures in the cockpit in a 10 minutes timeframe, then nothing. The flight deck may not have had the chance to inform the cabin crew to take their seats, the cabin crew may well have taken cabin seats if the turbulence got so bad.


Its pretty amazing that they found the wreckage and judging by the pics looks good that they will find most of it close by.


In terms of cause, there was a very good doc on about 6 months ago that examined the possibility of super cooled water blocking the pitots which caused the a stall in the storm cell. This doc didn't speculate, just examined the possibilities, it also had a younger actor as the pilot in left seat to illustrate that investigatiors believe the captain was not on the flight deck at the time. (This is normal procedure on long flights with an extra pilot)

roundymac

Would it be possible for you Dacian to put up what some of the ACARS were transmitting please.

A320

gatecrash wrote: »

How many a/c are in the air at any one time? All of them transmitting info to a central repository, be it the airline HQ or some independent off site place doesn't sound feasible.
And if it was then some gobsh1te hacker would break into it, just to prove it could be done, and do god knows what damage....

Well many large airlines have plenty of aircraft in the air at once and use ACMS and ACARS systems to constantly transmit data to their headquarters not authorities,i think it would be up to every individual airline to provide such a system,basically its only transmitting 1's and 0's to a server,it would be easy to track ,inking in with each aircraft having their own Hex address,which they have(mode s anyway),the hacking would be stupid as the data would still be held physically,i know its a bit off but its feasible.

Link from other tread
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news/awx/2010/07/21/awx_07_21_2010_p0-242592.xml

savagecabbages

In that picture showing landing gear, is that gear extended or stowed?
I'm not familiar with what way it folds/extends....

It looks to me to be extended, which is unusual no?

refusetolose

when i first saw this thread i thought it said Air France 447 wreckage found in Atlantis

i was like,cool,they found atlantis then

roundymac

savagecabbages wrote: »

In that picture showing landing gear, is that gear extended or stowed?
I'm not familiar with what way it folds/extends....

It looks to me to be extended, which is unusual no?

It's broken out of it's houseing, it may even be detached from the wreckage,same as the engine. While they said they can see part of the fuselage they have not stated it is compleate, which it is unlikely to be.

Dacian

Here is an explanation of the ACARS received, taken from this website:
http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2009/06/11/af-447-acars-messages-reading-tea-leaves/
I originally saw a printout of the messages with no explanation and the rapidity of the failures scared me. They start at 0210, approx 3.5 hours after take-off.

* at 3.5 hours before the main events, a 3831 event. Something concerning waste disposal (38 is water and waste, and 3830 is the waste disposal system)
0210, a 2210 event: AP off (22 is Auto Flight and 2210 is the Autopilot system)
0210, a 2262 event (22 is Auto Flight; I have no code 2260)
0210, a 2791 event, flight control switch to alternate law (27 is flight controls; I have no code 2790 or 2791)
0210, two 2283 events, flags raised on CAP and FO Primary Flight Displays (PFD) (22 is Auto Flight, I have no code 2283)
0210, a 2230 event, autothrust off (2230 is the auto throttle system)
0210, a 3443 event, a TCAS problem (34 is navigation; 3443 is the Doppler system. The Doppler system here is used to measure relative motion of another body, in this case another aircraft, for TCAS).
0210, two more 2283 PFD flags
0210, a 2723 rudder travel limiter fault (27 is flight controls, 2720 is the rudder control system). At higher airspeeds, the rudder travel is limited by the Rudder Travel Limiter; far less movement is allowed than at lower airspeeds.
0210, a 3411 event with EFCS 2, reported by EFCS1 (3411 is the pitot/static system. I understand that on these airplanes, the system is divided into the pitot subsystem and the static subsystem).
0210, a 2793 event involving EFCS 1. (27 is flight controls. I understand from colleagues that, on the A330, 2793 is the Flight Control Primary Computer, FCPC, also designated PRIM)
0211, a couple more 2283 PFD flags
0212, a 3410 event. A disagreement between the air data units, the AD part of the ADIRU (34 is navigation; 3410 is flight environment data). An “ADR disagree” can only occur when one of the three ADIRUs has already been designated as faulty by the FCPC, and the two remaining ADIRUs yield discrepant readings (this information from the Aircraft Operating Manual of the A330)
0212, a 3422 event in the standby flight instruments (ISIS) (34 is navigation, 3422 is directional gyro and indicators)
0212, a 3412 event involving IR2, the inertial reference part of ADIRU2 (34 is navigation; 3412 is the outside air temperature sensor and indicator). Reported by IR1 and IR3 and EFCS1.
0213, two 2790 (EFCS) events, FCPC 1 and Secondary FCC (FCSC) 1 faults (27 is flight control; I don’t have the 2790 designator)
0213, a 2283 event, reported by FMGKC1 (22 is autoflight, I understand from colleagues that 2283 is the Flight Management and Guidance Computer, FMGC)
0214, a 2131 event (21 is the air conditioning, 2131 is the cabin pressure controller).

I'm not 100% but I think the last message, referring to cabin pressure initially led to the theory of an inflight breakup. However the wreckage found 2 years ago indicated a horizontal impact onto the ocean surface.

cyrusdvirus

Dacian wrote: »

ACARS STUFF

Not quoting the whole thing for size reasons, but thanks for putting that up.

I can't remember what flight level AF447 was travelling at but 3 minutes isn't a long time when you are dealing with multiple failures and attempting to diagnose and fix them.

roundymac

Thanks for that Dacian.

christy c

Haven't been watching much news or browsing the web recently so only after hearing this now. This is great news, I thought they might as well be looking for a needle in a hay stack. Hopefully they find the black boxes and find out what really happened

JonathanAnon

Not sure whether you've all seen this before (or whether I'm allowed to post links here), but the NOVA documentary tried to recreate the accident by putting two pilots in an aircraft simulator and then triggering the exact ACARS errors that were received from AF447

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTL3WfpMOM0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDsy-TCLfwg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otkPewDA-6E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ0ScIg04pw

Trotter

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Not sure whether you've all seen this before (or whether I'm allowed to post links here), but the NOVA documentary tried to recreate the accident by putting two pilots in an aircraft simulator and then triggering the exact ACARS errors that were received from AF447

Really interesting stuff. It was unnerving watching how easy it was to recreate the problem that potentially caused the pitot tube failure.

JonathanAnon

Trotter wrote: »

Really interesting stuff. It was unnerving watching how easy it was to recreate the problem that potentially caused the pitot tube failure.

Yeah, there's also another BBC documentary I watched on youtube a while ago.. It stated that the Air France Pilot's union downed tools completely after this accident, until all the pitot tube upgrades were made to the Airbus A330s in their fleet... So it seems pretty clear what they are blaming for the accident..

xtradel

Flight recorder found...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13218021

refusetolose

xtradel wrote: »

Flight recorder found...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13218021

only a part of it that contains no data..

savagecabbages

refusetolose wrote: »

only a part of it that contains no data..

seemingly so...
I'm still amazed that they found part of it at all!
Does this happen often that an FDR gets damaged/smashed?
Or has one ever been recovered but damaged beyond usefulness?

cyrusdvirus

savagecabbages wrote: »

seemingly so...
I'm still amazed that they found part of it at all!
Does this happen often that an FDR gets damaged/smashed?
Or has one ever been recovered but damaged beyond usefulness?

It happens more often than you'd like to think.

The Lauda Air crash in 1991 is one time that i can remember off the top of my head

brophya2007

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13255673

One of the two flight recorders belonging to an Air France plane that crashed in 2009 off the coast of Brazil has been recovered, officials say.

French search teams last week found the outer casing of the so-called black box recorder, but not its memory.

Experts say the data in the flight recorders is the only hope of finding out why the plane went down.

All 228 people on board were killed when the Paris-bound flight plunged into the ocean in June 2009.

CommuterIE

Great news!

Hopefully the data can be extracted and get to the bottom of what was an extremely tragic event

lintdrummer

Cockpit recorder has also been found and appears to be in usable condition.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13264573

JonathanAnon

Just said on the TV3 News that they've found the CVR. Didnt say whether it was damaged (like the FDR) just that it has been found...

Just found this online:
http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/AirFrance447CVRRecovered_204582-1.html

Air France 447 CVR Recovered

A search team has recovered the cockpit voice recorder from Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009, killing all 228 on board. A remotely operated vehicle retrieved the CVR from the ocean floor, 12,800 feet down, on Tuesday morning, and it appears to be intact and in good condition (more photos are posted online at the French accident investigation bureau). Investigators also recovered the flight data recorder last week, but it is not yet clear how much data, if any, will be recoverable from the two devices after nearly two years submerged at such great depths. The units are designed to withstand impact and immersion, but only for 30 days. French transport minister Thierry Mariani said investigators hope to report on their data-retrieval efforts within about three weeks.

Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon called the CVR retrieval "another decisive step forward in the inquiry" and thanked investigators for "persevering in this arduous search." The Airbus A330 crashed about 600 miles off the coast of Brazil while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Data from automated transmissions sent by the jet in its final moments suggest that the jet's airspeed sensors were transmitting faulty data as the aircraft flew at high altitude in bad weather. In March, a French court filed preliminary manslaughter charges against Air France and Airbus in connection with the crash.

A320

I saw a pic somewhere else,it looks in great condition and its still attatched to its mounting plate

Manic Moran

Got to admit, it's quite the technological feat finding that thing.

NTM

cyrusdvirus

Manic Moran wrote: »

Got to admit, it's quite the technological feat finding that thing.

NTM

Yep, Just hopefully they can get some useful data out of them now.

pclancy

Bloody Hell that is deep, well done to that crew! Robart Ballard would be proud.

pclancy

C:\Mod.bat :AF447 \Merge

Run_to_da_hills

Salvage teams recover decomposed body of Air France jet passenger still strapped into seat

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1383910/Salvage-teams-recover-decomposed-body-Air-France-jet-passenger.html

pclancy

Pretty amazing the bodies are preserved so well still. I'm so happy for the families that will finally get some form of closure from bringing their relatives home and hopefully with the discovery of the black boxes, some final closure to the crash investigation itself.

Killinator

One can only imagine the state of the bodies if some of the experts asked to be released from the investigation, given the kind of things they'd be used to seeing,
Amazing feat, got to hand it to the search/salvage crews, they're doing a fantastic job,
Can only hope now that the monumental effort put in by all involved pays off and we eventually find out what happened, and more importantly, this whole tragic event gets closure.