AirFrance jet lost on way from Rio to Paris

[Don Corleone]

Sad story this morning from Rio...

It would appear an AirFrance Airbus A330-200 was lost sometime early this morning, with 228 souls onboard. The plane sent out an automated distress signal that it was having electrical malfunctions, then 15 minutes later, the radar station in North Africa that was tracking it lost track of it.

Sadly, based on the plane's location at the time of the incident, little to no hope exists for a positive outcome. While it may be premature, my prayers are going out to the 228 souls, and for the comfort of the surviving family and friends they leave behind.

[Hooahguy]

my prayers go out to the families of the deceased.

[Fragony]

Horrible, probably crashed into the sea after a few wires fried, nobody survived this. I must be jinxed, every time I go somewhere (in Paris as we speak) something bad happens.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

God bless and keep them, and I will pray for them and their families.

[edyzmedieval]

It's really sad what happened, I was quite shocked when I read this.
Along with the other nationalities, one Romanian also perished in the crash.

Rest In Peace, Air France AF447.
Sa va fie tarana usoara. (May your death be easy - Romanian)

[Gregoshi]

It is bothersome that a plane can still fly into situation like this with all the technology we have. Was it a negligable risk to fly into storms like that or human error in entering it? Or did something fail?

My thoughts and prayers to all affected by this.

[Don Corleone]

What I find utterly incomprehensible is how we don't have some sort of radio transmitter on board that is tracked. There are what, at most 3000 flights in the air at any one time? We can use GPS technology to find the nearest pizza joint, but we can't track the location of trans-oceanic flights?

[Ronin]

What I find utterly incomprehensible is how we don't have some sort of radio transmitter on board that is tracked. There are what, at most 3000 flights in the air at any one time? We can use GPS technology to find the nearest pizza joint, but we can't track the location of trans-oceanic flights?

we do have that...that´s what the airplane transponder is for.

[Don Corleone]

we do have that...that´s what the airplane transponder is for.

Yes, I know. In a previous incarnation of my job, I helped design components for them.

Now perhaps you can explain to me why the French government asked the NSA to help track down the transponder signal. Not that the French government was wrong to ask... I'm railing against the poorly designed emergency transponder system itself.

Wouldn't you think we'd design those things to be the proverbial sore-thumb of the radio-frequency domain?

[Ronin]

Yes, I know. In a previous incarnation of my job, I helped design components for them.

Now perhaps you can explain to me why the French government asked the NSA to help track down the transponder signal. Not that the French government was wrong to ask... I'm railing against the poorly designed emergency transponder system itself.

Wouldn't you think we'd design those things to be the proverbial sore-thumb of the radio-frequency domain?

Maybe because of the American SOSUS network might help in locating the airplane emergency underwater beacon? it would be the ideal tool for such a task.

[Gregoshi]

From the account I read, they are searching over a very large area. I think what Don is getting at is why don't they have a better idea where the plane went down?

[rotorgun]

Oh Dear, what a tragedy! I know it sounds trite, but I pray that God will be with the families of all concerned. Aviation is so taken for granted these days, that when something happens it is always catastrophic.

[Crazed Rabbit]

A tragic loss. All the more so because it was so unexpected.

CR

[Hosakawa Tito]

A terrible thing for the families to endure, one's life can change in the blink of an eye.

From the scant evidence it seems the plane may have been struck by lightning and suffered damage to their electronic systems, but until they find the wreckage it's all just speculation. That's a big deep ocean out there, and with the strong currents they may never find much, if anything at all.

[ICantSpellDawg]

This is pretty aweful.

[Hooahguy]

heckuva place to post this, but lately ive been watching Air Crash Investigation, a channel on youtube (as ive linked to) as well as an actual show. watching the series gives a lot of insight to these tragic incidents.

[Dutch_guy]

Yes, I know. In a previous incarnation of my job, I helped design components for them.

Now perhaps you can explain to me why the French government asked the NSA to help track down the transponder signal. Not that the French government was wrong to ask... I'm railing against the poorly designed emergency transponder system itself.

Wouldn't you think we'd design those things to be the proverbial sore-thumb of the radio-frequency domain?

I believe that's because the jet went down in a so called 'white spot'. An area in which there was no signal, probably the reason the pilots couldn't inform anyone on what happened in the air, and perhaps why it's so hard to find the jet ?

[Whacker]

I'm not a pilot (amateur in training, technically........), but I can perhaps offer some items for discussion on the technical aspects of this.

First, what I've heard so far is that it was possibly a lightning strike. Generally aircraft will steer away from known areas of inclement weather or systems that would create possible excessive turbulence, etc. Note that turbulence is mainly annoying to the passengers, it would take a LOT to really damage an aircraft. There are two kinds of lightning, that which originates in the clouds and the stroke is down to the earth, and those that original in the earth and strike up. I do NOT know if it's possible over water, but the earth-sourced lightning strikes are generally far more dangerous to aircraft than the cloud generated ones. I don't know why, I could try and find this out again if people are curious, I somewhat am now that I remembered it. Aircraft are capable of flying through lightning strikes, but again the possibility for damage is always there, due to the fact that lightning is basically raw, enormous amounts of energy tearing it's way through near infinite resistance to reach the target. One thing I remember from college and the EE courses on high power... "It's going to go wherever it wants to."

Second, about flying over water. As I understand it, aircraft that fly over blue water and do not have LoS (Line of Sight) communication with land facilities are essentially alone. IIRC, the communication methods used in current airlines do indeed require LoS to function, given a 30-40,000 ft cruising altitude and the contour of the earth, this amounts to anywhere between 50-100 miles of effective communication range barring forms of interference, such as solar storms. As such, aircraft will sometimes use the "relay" system to hop messages over to the various centers and controllers through other aircraft that are within range of land. Hence without communication, the only thing pilots have to work with are their own instruments and the plan they left ground with based on the current TAF or METAR wx reports. Weather can change drastically over 7-8 hours.

Finally, my condolences to the families who lost loved ones as well. Hopefully there will eventually be some closure here for those involved and answers to be had.

[Kadagar_AV]

Thanks for the insight whacker...

It is truly tragic when something like this happens :(

[Viking]

Quite a few nationalities involved:

Air France confirmed 61 French and 58 Brazilian passengers were among the 216 passengers on board flight 447.

A list provided by Brazil's authorities showed 26 Germans were also on board as well as nine Chinese and nine Italians.

Six Swiss, five British, five Lebanese and four Hungarians were on the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

Those on board also included three Irish, three Norwegians, three Slovaks, two Americans two Moroccans, as well as individuals from Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Estonia, the Philippines, The Gambia, Iceland, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Sweden and Turkey.

Eleven of the 12 crew members are reported to be French nationals and the other Brazilian.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8077858.stm

[tibilicus]

There's going to be no chance of recovering the black box either.

My condolences to the families of those lost.

[Hooahguy]

There's going to be no chance of recovering the black box either.

why do you say that? the black boxes have an electronic pinger that pings for 30 days. so getting it shouldnt be too hard. on 11/28/1987, when South African Airways Boeing 747 crashed into Indian Ocean, the water was really deep, several miles deep, but they could still get the black boxes.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Very sad.

The plane simply dissapeared. I can only imagine what the relatives of the victims must've gone through. There was never a 'sorry, your loved ones have died in a plane crash'. Only a 'sorry, they're missing. We don't know were they are. If we don't hear from them before 13:00, we must assume they're dead'.

At 13:00, the fuel would ran out. It must've been agonising. In matters of death, people will hope against hope. Usually in vain.

[Kadagar_AV]

Parts of the wreck has been found, no sign of life :(

Guess we can give up the hope of rescuers finding any survivors...

[Louis VI the Fat]

Two weeks old. Should've posted it then, but the story is timeless:

Johanna Ganthaler and her husband Kurt must have been breathing more than just a sigh of relief last week. The couple had been on vacation in Brazil and they were running late. Despite their best efforts, they missed the plane that was supposed to take them back to Europe, leaving them feeling frustrated.

It was a frustration that turned to grateful amazement - the jet that took off without them was Air France Flight 447, which crashed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 228 people onboard, including a former Guelph resident.

The Ganthalers wound up taking an alternate flight back and arrived safely. They were driving home, when their vehicle veered off the road in Austria and into an oncoming truck.
Johanna, who had managed to avoid dying in the plane crash, was killed in the collision.

The inescapability of fate?

[Lemur]

Maybe they were big fans of Final Destination.

[Beskar]

That was evil Lemur.

Also, why aren't planes attuned to GPS?

[Caius]

There's going to be no chance of recovering the black box either.

My condolences to the families of those lost.

They are having serious problem trying to recover the black box, but... you know, they can find it, they can do. Simply they are running out of time.