Plane crash in Southern France.

[Grayfox]

At least investigators can find out what happened quickly and unimpeded unlike with MH flights

 

[Omnis]

I saw at the gym on CNN the headline: "Plane Obliterated" When do they ever say that? Probably just flew right into the mountain in a possible low visibility situation. What a tragedy.

 

[Dennisch]

I saw at the gym on CNN the headline: "Plane Obliterated" When do they ever say that? Probably just flew right into the mountain in a possible low visibility situation. What a tragedy.

They tracked it going down from 11500 meters for 8 minutes before crashing at 2000 meters.

It also reportedly had a repair done on Monday.

One of the black boxes has been found.

 

[Leadfoot530]

Going back to the speculation of the pilots being unconcious, I'm starting to wornder how fast the depressurization happened, if that is what happened. If air escapes quickly enough, air can't escape the lungs safely, a severe case of rapid depressurization. I'm wondering if this would have knocked the pilots out and hence, the incident. (I read a small entry on Wikipedia about pressure loss after hearing of the incident, so that's where my ideas are coming from.)

Still, all just speculation until we figure out what exactly happened. Sad story, no matter the outcome.

 

[Dennisch]

 

[CodeRedR51]

Yeah, a plane that size hitting the ground intact is going to leave a huge scar, and I don't see any hint of that at all.

 

[Dennisch]

Yeah, a plane that size hitting the ground intact is going to leave a huge scar, and I don't see any hint of that at all.

If it broke into pieces at 10 kilometers up there would be a debris field spanning several kilometers.

 

[CodeRedR51]

If it broke into pieces at 10 kilometers up there would be a debris field spanning several kilometers.

It had to be relatively close to the ground though. If someone can find an impact crater, I'll gladly change my tune, but as far as I've seen there isn't one.

 

[Dennisch]

It had to be relatively close to the ground though. If someone can find an impact crater, I'll gladly change my tune, but as far as I've seen there isn't one.

It seems to be a rocky surface, and rock beats aluminium every time.

At this moment all signs point towards an intact plane going down and hitting the mountain.

 

[SagarisGTB]

It had to be relatively close to the ground though. If someone can find an impact crater, I'll gladly change my tune, but as far as I've seen there isn't one.

A sub-sonic low-density 50-ton passenger jet isn't going to cause much damage to the Earth's surface if it collides directly with a granitoid stock/batholith. Even if there's overlying soil, the bedrock is usually close to the surface in orogenic regions so there won't be much of a crater.

 

[TenEightyOne]

If the plane suddenly lost all power before it fell down, can black boxes still record something useful?

Yes, a number of automatic operations will provide power to systems. Planes don't have a single source of power.

Didn't see an impact crater though.

Witnesses report seeing the plane flying low. It looks (to me at least) like a severe decompression event occured that still left the plane fundamentally intact. The debris field is too small for a large-scale disintegration at altitude.

The lack of a distress signal could mean the pilots were unconscious or the there was an electrical failure and the pilots couldn't send one.

Or simply too busy. Most setup is done before take-off, a severe emergency.reconfiguration in the air can keep both pilots very busy. Aviate, navigate, communicate.

If they'd reach the Communicate stage there are a number of systems that would enable them to even if the main radio buses were dead. Even mobile phones could be used.

 

[CodeRedR51]

A sub-sonic low-density 50-ton passenger jet isn't going to cause much damage to the Earth's surface if it collides directly with a granitoid stock/batholith. Even if there's overlying soil, the bedrock is usually close to the surface in orogenic regions so there won't be much of a crater.

Ok, let me rephrase: I don't see an impact site. No news sites have pointed one out either. Rock or not, you're going to see right where it impacted the ground.

Please, someone point it out.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

It's a terrible tragedy and I can imagine this is surely starting to dent peoples confidence in the airline industry.

What's puzzling is the crew reported 'Emergency Emergency' rather than the standard Mayday call. Could it be that there was some instant event which totally blind-sided them to the point they didn't even carry out standard procedure?

Don't see why (I mean if you don't give in to the knee jerks of life) it the same pandamonium people were doing when major airline crashes of the 90s happened as I recall, and more importantly 9/11 as well. People tend to not realize that at a given time how many planes are up in the air around the globe and get to their destination safely is far more massive than the blips when things don't go right. It's easy to broadcast about these because it's a multiple loss of people sadly, but that loss shouldn't hurt an industry whose safety is far more obvious than its failures.

As for this, I wounder how much the age of the aircraft played, but then again their are plenty of planes used by Military and Private Airliners that are older than this in operation.

Didn't see an impact crater though.

You wont always get one though. You may get indications of the epicenter of the crash yes, but you're not going to get a dug ou...I mean hole in the ground in a Pennsylvania field type indicator. The point of impact can be found through the debris field and how exactly it scatters out.

We don't know the angle of attack as it came down or the gradient of the surface it struck nor the velocity. These are all somewhat hard to obtain at this time and not having them at this point in time doesn't indicate a mid air explosion and then scatter of debris. Which is what I think you're trying to get at.

Also since the weather conditions have changed in the area, that would also help mask the point of contact.

 

[Grayfox]

Or simply too busy. Most setup is done before take-off, a severe emergency.reconfiguration in the air can keep both pilots very busy. Aviate, navigate, communicate.

If they'd reach the Communicate stage there are a number of systems that would enable them to even if the main radio buses were dead. Even mobile phones could be used.

Or something happened to cut power to radios, radar, cockpit computers.

 

[20832]

Or something happened to cut power to radios, radar, cockpit computers.

Yeah, but every plane has failsafe hydraulics and electronics, right?

To be honest, since the guy from Germanwings said that it took about 8 minutes for the plane to descent and indefinitely crash into the mountain I cannot think of anything other than both engines failing leaving it in a glide.

 

[eran0004]

Yeah, but every plane has failsafe hydraulics and electronics, right?

To be honest, since the guy from Germanwings said that it took about 8 minutes for the plane to descent and indefinitely crash into the mountain I cannot think of anything other than both engines failing leaving it in a glide.

It shouldn't drop 24 000 feet in only 8 minutes even if both engines are failing. If the glide ratio is 20:1 and the speed is 400 km/h it would take 22 minutes to make that drop.

There was an incident with an Airbus A321 that has a couple of sensors frozen. It made the computer think that the angle of attack was such that the plane could stall, so it pitched down and made the plane descend at 4000 feet per minute. The crew had to shut down the computer to regain control of the aircraft. Perhaps this case could be something similar?

http://avherald.com/h?article=47d74074

 

[TenEightyOne]

Or something happened to cut power to radios, radar, cockpit computers.

Extremely unlikely. Even with hugely unlikely loss of all cockpit functionality the ram-power will run the radios. They also carry a battery-powered radio, and there are battery options to run parts of the glass panels. To stop the radios from being used you have to either incapacitate the cockpit crew or occupy them otherwise.

There was an incident with an Airbus A321 that has a couple of sensors frozen. It made the computer think that the angle of attack was such that the plane could stall, so it pitched down and made the plane descend at 4000 feet per minute. The crew had to shut down the computer to regain control of the aircraft. Perhaps this case could be something similar?

http://avherald.com/h?article=47d74074

That was my first thought, sensor icing. That was also significant in the Air France Airbus 330 loss. In this case the aircraft was in clear, daylit sky so it's less likely that the aircrew were fooled, there's also no reason why they couldn't have flown the plane out of it in that case.

 

[Dennisch]

The found black box is in usable condition.

 

[eran0004]

That was my first thought, sensor icing. That was also significant in the Air France Airbus 330 loss. In this case the aircraft was in clear, daylit sky so it's less likely that the aircrew were fooled, there's also no reason why they couldn't have flown the plane out of it in that case.

It also doesn't match the A321 incident because the sensors froze while ascending so they were locked in a "climb" state. In this case the aircraft had been flying level for some time before the descent started.

Looking at the altitude and speed data it does appear as if a computer is in control of the aicraft, because the descent and the speed is steady. The graphs level out in the end, I don't know if that indicates that the aircraft leveled out or if it's just indicating missing data.

I was comparing with a couple of earlier flights of the same aircraft and the descent rate is usually around 2500 feet per minute. One exception was a flight to Vienna where the descent rate was about 3500 feet per minute.

 

[Grayfox]

Yeah, but every plane has failsafe hydraulics and electronics, right?

To be honest, since the guy from Germanwings said that it took about 8 minutes for the plane to descent and indefinitely crash into the mountain I cannot think of anything other than both engines failing leaving it in a glide.

Normally planes have 3 or 4 hydrolic lines.
If all are damaged in some manner, you lose all hydrolics, but only way to do that is a S.A.M or maybe a bomb that was placed in the correct location.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident

 

[TenEightyOne]

It also doesn't match the A321 incident because the sensors froze while ascending so they were locked in a "climb" state. In this case the aircraft had been flying level for some time before the descent started.

Looking at the altitude and speed data it does appear as if a computer is in control of the aicraft, because the descent and the speed is steady. The graphs level out in the end, I don't know if that indicates that the aircraft leveled out or if it's just indicating missing data.

View attachment 336912

I was comparing with a couple of earlier flights of the same aircraft and the descent rate is usually around 2500 feet per minute. One exception was a flight to Vienna where the descent rate was about 3500 feet per minute.

That graph suggests decompression rather than stall or engine loss. The stall speed of the aircraft (clean) is around 220kias loaded. That's presuming that this is the data for the crash we're currently discussing?

EDIT: Voice recorder. Case is very damaged, it remains to be seen if the data is intact - it may be.

 

[Dennisch]

Photo from the topside:

 

[Barra333]

@vasiliflame and anyone else declaring that they will never get on a plane again - please read

The data is commercial aviation crashes for 1946 - July 2014 (after the second MH incident, the Taiwan crash and the one in Mali)

Summary:
- in terms of number of crashes for these years, the most recent in the top ten is 1972 (worst overall too)
- in terms of deaths, the most recent in the top ten is 1996
- in terms of fewest crashes, nine of the top ten are since 2003
- in terms of fewest deaths, the top 5 are since 2004

This doesn't even account for the huge increase in number of flights that occur each day.

For 2013, 1 in every 4,166,000 flights crashed. I'm happy with those odds.

 

[Dennisch]

They have found the Flight Data Recorder, heavily damaged and it's missing the memory card?

 

[TenEightyOne]

They have found the Flight Data Recorder, heavily damaged and it's missing the memory card?

Seriously? That's incredible - the memory cards don't dislodge in the case of impact, that has to be human error.

 

[MonSpaNur]

That graph suggests decompression

Not really.
Decompression do not explain the speed and the altitude at impact.

And this is considering only that graphic.
They did not deviate the plane to a nearby airport and failed to answer three attempts to communicate from the air controller, this two facts also negate the decompression theory.

I, as a aviation fan (since my grandfather become a air controller in the late 40`s, the love for aviation is a tradition in my family), I`m very sorry to said this, but all information suggests a suicide.
Hopefully other explanation appears.

 

[Keef]

Photo from the topside:

Rekt.

Too soon?

 

[Dennisch]

Rekt.

Too soon?

No, it's spot on.

 

[Barra333]

Not really.
Decompression do not explain the speed and the altitude at impact.

And this is considering only that graphic.
They did not deviate the plane to a nearby airport and failed to answer three attempts to communicate from the air controller, this two facts also negate the decompression theory.

I, as a aviation fan (since my grandfather become a air controller in the late 40`s, the love for aviation is a tradition in my family), I`m very sorry to said this, but all information suggests a suicide.
Hopefully other explanation appears.

That is quite a leap there.

I agree with the CFIT theory, based on the little info we have - something happened at cruise altitude, plane descended at a fast (but safe) rate, however the target altitude (above sea level) and the altitude of the terrain at that spot were incompatible with each other.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Not really.
Decompression do not explain the speed and the altitude at impact.

And this is considering only that graphic.
They did not deviate the plane to a nearby airport and failed to answer three attempts to communicate from the air controller, this two facts also negate the decompression theory.

I should have been clearer; given a choice between engine failure and decompression that graph strongly suggests the latter.

Decompression (and the initial, potentially explosive failure that caused it) will leave the pilots trying to control the plane. The graph obviates engine failure as the airspeed never drops below optimum for any altitude - in fact as the altitude decreases it exceeds it.

There are many possible explanations for a failure to answer ATC including that the transmissions weren't received or that the crew were too busy flying a badly damaged aircraft. As a pilot you're constantly aware that you're being watched and that in a severe emergency your problems are self-evident. That's shown in this case by ATC calling the mayday rather than the pilots.

I`m very sorry to said this, but all information suggests a suicide.

No.