Rio flight missing?

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Rio flight missing?

Postby Travis » Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:14 am

An Air France A330 flight from Rio De Janerio to Paris was lost last night.  From what I have heard, no one knows what happened.  They simply disappeared . . .

Any info on this is appreciated.
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby charlesed » Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:18 am

I heard it may have been hit by lightning... :-/

An automatic message about electrical malfunction was sent out.

All I know...


edited


Brazil Air Force searching for plane...

Navy too, I think.
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby scalper_old » Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:18 am

I heard it got hit by lightning. and loss power and sent a emergency signal about the power lost. thats what I have heard so far.. very sad. 200 + people on board.
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby expat » Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:57 pm

I would not pay too much attention to the lightning strike reports for two reasons. Firstly aircraft world wide are hit by lightning a 1000 times a day. Secondly lightning strikes are as a rule over land and at relatively low altitudes..........but never say never. This was over the ocean and at cruise altitude. If there was bad weather, then the crew are obligated to fly around it. If they did not, then this would raise more questions. As for the aircraft reporting an electrical malfunction, that could be anything. The aircraft have ACARS and it will automatically send a report to the companies engineering department. This message would have come from the central maintenance computer and it could be anything from a generator that failed to a jammed toilet flush valve. To say it sent an electrical system message without knowing what said message is about is like saying Windows gave you a blue screen of death and asking if anyone knows what that huge error code number means, its pointless.
However what ever there will be if past experience with Air France crashes is anything to go by, the Air France party line reason why it crashed and the other reason put together by respected experts ::)

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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby charlesed » Mon Jun 01, 2009 1:44 pm

Well, I know that a lightning strike will do pretty much nothing to one of these planes. I've seen what goes into the design process to prevent accidents from happening. I was just going on the news I had at the time.

Same holds true for the message behind the error, no one is going to know until after an investigation and the results are released. All that I can figure out is that the message was about an "electrical circuit malfunction".

Although, it does look like the plane did run into storms. And something really bad had to have happened for it to disappear so quickly and without a mayday. :o
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby beaky » Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:44 am

Debris field found... it may have broken up in flight.   :-/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/brazil_plane
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby Alejandro Rhodes » Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:58 am

I feel that there could be persons alive over the watter ,waiting to be rescued :-[
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby DaveSims » Tue Jun 02, 2009 3:24 pm

How long has it been since a major airliner simply vanished like this.  With what we know of weather and communication with aircraft, I am still amazed.
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby U4EA » Wed Jun 03, 2009 12:24 am

[quote]Debris field found... it may have broken up in flight.
Last edited by U4EA on Wed Jun 03, 2009 12:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby Rocket_Bird » Wed Jun 03, 2009 12:45 am

[quote]How long has it been since a major airliner simply vanished like this.
Cheers,
RB

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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby Excalibur372 » Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:53 pm

i hope they find the black box. they said it emits a sonar signal for 30 days. :( so sad
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby U4EA » Thu Jun 04, 2009 1:10 am

I saw an update today that reminded me of an aspect that I failed to take into consideration in my earlier post......there was no communication aside from the auto-gen maintenamce comm(s)!

Which pretty much points toward some sort of catastophic failure that even incapacitated the flight crew.  It would appear that the poor souls did not have a chance to react.  Even if there was a struggle to maintain and/or regain control, it would seem that one of the front-seaters would've tried their best to put out a distress call.

And if I saw a fairly accurate report, a second and possibly third debris field have been located miles away from the first discovery.

HOPEFULLY, one or both of the boxes can be found.....or at least key pieces of debris that point toward a definitive cause.

May they all R.I.P.!  My prayers are with all those affected.
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby The-Black-Sheep » Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:33 pm

Update:

Doomed Air France Flight 447's last terrifying few minutes in the air have already been pieced together by accident investigators.
Aviation sources in France said automated messages sent by the plane's systems had allowed them to reconstruct events which appeared to show the Airbus broke up in mid-air as it flew through a hugely violent storm carrying 228 people from Rio to Paris.

The pilot sent a manual signal at 11pm local time saying he was flying through an area of CBs - electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning.
Satellite data has shown that towering thunderheads were sending 100 mph updraft winds into the jet's flight path at the time, several hundred miles of the coast of Brazil.

Ten minutes later, a cascade of problems began: automatic messages to Air France HQ indicate the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems.

Three minutes after that, more automatic messages reported the failure of systems to monitor air speed, altitude and direction. Control of the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well. The last automatic message, at 11.14pm, signalled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure - catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean.

The French accident investigation agency, BEA, refused to comment on the findings, as did Brazil's defence minister Nelson Jobim who said the "investigation is being done by France; Brazil's only responsibility is to find and pick up the pieces".

Meanwhile, the pilot of a Spanish airliner flying near where the Airbus is believed to have gone down reported seeing a bright flash of white light that quickly plunged to the ocean, said a spokesman for the Spanish airline Air Comet.

"Suddenly, off in the distance, we observed a strong and bright flash of white light that took a downward and vertical trajectory and vanished in six seconds," the pilot wrote in a report for the airline and Spanish civil aviation authorities.

The Spanish plane was flying from Lima, Peru to Madrid. The pilot said he heard no emergency calls.
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby beaky » Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:47 pm

Just read that myself... that's about what I figured happened. If they had all those failures in an area of powerful convection, it would take a miracle to save them.  :(
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Re: Rio flight missing?

Postby The-Black-Sheep » Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:58 pm

I'm only in the learning stages of aircraft maintenance, and I've learnt some pretty horrible things during training, but when I first read that story, my jaw was on the floor. I'm obviously no expert when it comes to pilot training, but surely the weather radar would have built up a nice red picture on the display and the pilot would have changed course.  :-?

So many explanations to this I guess. Some light has been shed on what happened, but it's clearly best to wait for the first official report to come out.

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