Airbus Missing

The flight path of the missing airbus is maked in red the dotted line was the intended route landing at Paris. The circle indicate the point of search and where flight AF447 chrased.
This flight was a disaster, literally, as it left Rio de Janeiro on route for Paris with a full load of passengers and crew. It was flying at 35000 feet heading across the Atlantic Ocean, after about four hours flighting time it ran into trouble. The plane headed into a storm, and it was this storm that caused the disappearance of the plane. However, as always its never that easy as there was other contributory factors to take into consideration.

The plane was an Airbus A330-200 that was, comparatively new, it was four years old but had only clocked up 18000 flying hours against the designed mileage of something like 11million miles. So why should a plane like this suddenly fall out of the sky, That is the big puzzle.
the big puzzle.

Will There be an Answer?
All the answers concerning flight AF447 crash may never come out into the open as they will be 4000Meters under the ocean and even if they were recovered now they would be of little use as the black boxes holding the secrets would not withstand the pressure at that depth. So all there is in the way of evidence is the wreckage, bodies, and the last minute flight data transmissions.

The weather was also a factor in the accident but not necessarily a major one. This type of plane has flown through storms before and was designed to fly through lightening. It would seem obvious to lay folk that if you knew the storm was coming you would avoid it. But evidence so far, what there is of it, suggests that the plane did not break up in the storm. So what has caused the flight AF 447 crash

The possible problem
the Pitot tube used on the flight.

Flight Arrivals.
The flight arrivals board at the Paris airport, where flight AF 447 was due to land on 1st June 2009, indicated a worrying red message,to those people waiting to greet the passengers, that the flight was delayed. The people waiting for the arrival of this flight would not be greeting their relatives and friends. The plane carrying these passengers had disappeared off the radar indicating that it had met an unseemly end in the course of its flight.

The Aircraft.
An Air France airbus A300-200, flight AF447 crash, had mysteriously fallen out of the sky. This is not an adequate description of what had happened to this particular plane, and the relatives would require a better explanation. Planes do not disappear out of thin air there must a be reason, an explanation, why this has occurred. This Airbus A330-200 was, comparatively new, it was four years old but had only clocked up 18000 flying hours against the designed mileage of something like 11million miles.

The Crew aboard the flightAF447 crash.
The plane was piloted by Captain Marc Dubios who had been flying jets for Air France 20 years and had 11000 flying hours with the airline and 1700 on A330. The first officer also well experienced but, the junior first officer qualified in 2008 to fly A330`s was relatively inexperienced. The captain set the North Easterly course across the Atlantic, a suggestion was made that the captain then took pilots rest, the junior first officer found himself in the Captains seat..

Weather Radar
The radar is essential for detecting the weather ahead and therefore it is depended upon, it also relays the position of other aircraft. Bad weather was detected and message was sent to this effect, other aircraft diverted around the storm but not flight AF447 that flew on even though the crew would have seen lightening flashes at their cruising height of 35000feet. The crew found itself boxed in by the weather and now had no option but to fly on.

The Pitot Tubes.
It was during this passage through the storm that things went wrong, but there is evidence that the aircraft did not break up at this point. It is reported that the pitots may have failed. There are three of these tubes fitted to the outside of the plane to give indication to the control systems of forward air pressure and static air pressure. If these devices fail the controls of the aircraft malfunction and false indications are relayed to the pilots.Cpuld this br the cause of flightAF447 crash.

Computers.
The brains of the aircraft are called Adiru (Air data Inertial Reference Unit) and there are three of them that ensure that the pilots get the essential flying information and also ensure that the aircraft is kept within its flight perimeters. There has been incidents where these systems have malfunctioned, on other aircraft, in these instances the planes were landed safely. Should the information being received by the Adiru`s be compromised by pitots freezing or filling with water then the control of the plane will also be compromised.

Possible Malfunctions.
Information reaching the pilots will be false and, possibly cause them to make a wrong decision, also if the plane was to raise the nose it would slow, or lower the nose, this would have the effect of accelerating the aircraft and therefore, both actions will, in effect, move move the aircraft out of its flight perimeters, thus causing the plane to stall. This means that flight AF 447 will fall out of the sky.Much of what I have written is expert opinion based on some evidence that has been collected from the crash site and also previous experience of in flight problems by pilots of A330`s. This does not imply anything detrimental concerning the design or operation of these aircraft by operators in general.



References.
This lens has used information published by The Sunday Times for relating subject matter for this article but is not a copy of the Magazines article.
The Sunday Times Magazine Dated 15/11/2009.

The picture shows the recovery of some of the wreckage following the airbus missing flight AF447 crash.

The wreckage seen in the picture is the rudder or otherwise called the tail fin of, AF447, being recovered from the sea by rescue teams, their job was to recover all the wreckage and bodies that would be found floating on the surface. How the the rudder broke away from the plane is not yet known but what has been discovered is that certain componants of modern aircraft use, what is called composite materials, fibre glass that can be less structually sound than aluminium.

The BEA (Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'aviation civile) is the French body responsible for technical investigations into civil aviation accidents or incidents and also acts in this capacity abroad.

The interim crash report has been bublished by the BEA in respect of the accident involving the airbus missing flight AF447 crash, it is several pages long and takes a lot of interpretation but there are certain aspects of it that are of particuler interest to those people that are following this subject.
Auto Pilot.
The auto pilot dissengaged so the crew would have to fly the plane by hand and, as previously stated by experts, in this lens, it would be difficult to fly the plane in these conditions.
FCSC1 Stopped functioning
I am not sufficiantly able to interpret what this entry into the flight log means but it serves to indicate, together with the other entries that things were going wrong.

Attude Variation.
This I interpret , rightly or wrongly, that the aircraft has increased or, decreased, its height, it could also mean that it had banked to left or right.

Decrease in Speed.
A decrease in speed is not necessarily critical unless the decrease was putting the plane in jepardy by exceeding the flight peramiters but, it is possible that this was the point where trouble began.

Rudder Trim Fault.
Again I am not able to give expert comment on this entry but, if this was excessive then there could be problems controlling the plane.

No Auto Thrust.
I take this to mean that there was no automatic control of the engine speed, that is to say that emgine thrust adjustment would be necessary to keep the plane speed at a steady rate. This would be vital to keep the plane flying through adverse weather conditions as well as to ensure economy of fuel.

Summery.

Wheather.
Further entries in the flight log noted that the plane diverted to steer a course that cleared the worst of the weather and, did not go hurtling through the centre of the storm. The weather encountered by other flights about that time indicated that the weather was not so bad as to make flying through it hazardous.

Failures.
The failures obviously mounted up as the flight progressed This does not mean that they were the cause of the the crash but possibly contributary factors. However these failures do seem to bear out the conclusions of the experts as related in the text module.

Debrie.
The parts of the plane that were found afloat was recovered over a large area and included such items as galley equipment, the tail and rudder
Together with various items from the passenger cabin there were also a number of bodies. The assessment of these items led the investigators to conclude that the plane did not break up in the air but hit the sea with considerabl. force enought to buckle some the cargo hold and lower deck. The rudder and tail units were examined and various constituant parts were found to be in tact but I am unable to comment on this report as I am not familier with the construction of the aircraft.

Flight Recorders.
The search for the flight recorders is to resume at some time later in the year presumably by mini submarine, The BEA is enlisting help from a number of organisations in the search for the flight recorders.

The information has been taken from the BEA official interim crash report bublished on their official web site.

A press report date 30 May 2011 made metion that some information had been obtained from one of the black box flight recorders this is good news as more accurate data can now be forth coming on the events of June1 2009. There were other comments made concerning the piloting of the plane just before the crash but, I think now would be the time to wait for the official crash report before making any more comments.

Efforts to try and pinpoint the crash site has become impossible and trying to find the flight recorders was like finding a needlle in a hay stack.Yet Frances Bbureau d`Analyses pour la Securitite de Civil working with the American Marine Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Istitutionin Massachusetts managed to find the crashed plane with the help of three deep sea robots that were equipped with sonar, strobe lights and, high resolution digital cameras. Two engines were found, landing gear,and, most of the fuselarge with a number of passengers sitting in their seats.

The discovery was made six miles North of flight AF447 crash last known site and, was located on the 10th day of the teams last mission.There is now a chance that how exactly they had died in 2009 although there is doubt about the effacacy of the pitot tubes there is also a theory that the number of alarms and the efforts made by the crew to fly the plane without the auto pilot may have resulted in the crash.

It appears that flight AF447 did not spiral down into the sea but landed on the sea at an angled presumed to be about five dgrees and therefore avoided a complete destruction.This information should hasten the final crash report but with out the black box flight recoders I wouldnt hold your breath.

This infromation has been extracted from the Sunday Times News Paper published written by Chris Ayres on Sunday 10/04/2011.

One of the Black box recorders recovered from the stricken plane.

This may be the best piece of news that you have been waiting as it will hasten the full crash report and provide news of why the accident happend. In the Daily Mirror 4/05/2011 a press report stated that the black box flight recorders following the flight AF447 crash have been found and. contry to expectations were in good enough condition to be able to extract the information about the crash on 31 May 2009. We now have to sit back and wait untill the experts have deciphered the information and, publish it in readable form. Hopefully this will bring some closure to those people who have a close interest in this tragic event.

News from ITN states that a body of a passenger has been removed from the sunken airliner, the name of the person has not been published but the next of kin has been informed. It has not been stated wether the remainder of the passengers will removed.

The Picture shows the tail of a easy jet plane from below.

An artical in Der Spiegal publishes comments by Gerald Traufetter himself a pilot on aiir bus A330. His remarks concern the malfunction of controls and the one of the problems that were encountered by the flight crew.The BEA report makes mention of the horizonal stabliser was at 15 degrees forcing the the nose of the plain up and, it was this attitude of the plain that caused the crash. Why the nose of the plane was at this angle is unknown but the result of this situation was that the horizontal stabiliser was found imposible to function. Unfortunately it was too late to be able to adjust the angle of the stabiliser manually thus preventing the accident. This is another angle that has arisen over this crash and concerns not only the pilots actions but, also the operation of the automatic controls.

Tthe horizontal stabiliser is the tail plane of an aircraft that enables the pilot to dive or climb on this type of plane it is normally operated by the automated controls. However should there be a problem with these controls there is a manual mode of operation that can be used, why this was not used raises a new question.

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