Air France plane lost: Gordon Brown fears Britons were on board – Telegraph Two-engines, fly-by-wire, short-circuit. This is a formula for disaster.
The Prime Minister said that he feared that there were Britons on board the Airbus A330 which dropped off the radar after hitting turbulence over the Atlantic.
Air France officials said privately that they had “no hope” for Flight 447 which lost contact with air traffic control part way into a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
As the Brazilian air force mounted a search and rescue operation in the waters around the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, families of passengers gathered at a crisis centre in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport awaiting news.
The Foreign Office said it was “urgently” seeking news on whether there were any Britons on board.
Mr Brown said: “I do fear that there may be some British citizens on board.”
Although the airline said that it could not rule out terrorism, the indications pointed to a serious electrical short circuit which crippled the jet after it passed through storms near the equator.
related link:
Airbus Safety Record
Then there is this:
Probably the most memorable A320 crash to experts was the June 26th 1988 one when an Air France A320 crashed during an air show in France, killing 3 passengers. Officially the crash was blamed on pilot error, many questions remained unanswered including a bizarre development where Switzerland’s institute of forensic evidence and criminology determined that the plane’s flight data recorder had been substituted after the crash, placing doubt on the entire investigation.
And yes, this article is not about the 330. It’s about Airbus ethics.
It’s never too soon to jump to conclusions.
Airbus ethics indeed. I see only one case, 20 years ago when a pilot who didn’t know what he was doing crashed a plane (he also did time for that stunt as well)
Maybe I am biased because I fly the 320 full time, but I fly a Boeing 737 in my Navy Reserve job and the bus is a far better machine in my opinion. Boeing is not high on my list also after the tanker situation (now the AF tankers will be more than 60 years old before they are retired) with high level execs doing time, tank 5 fuel explosions in the 747’s and rudder hard overs in the 737 that Boeing blamed on pilots (who were dead) in the 90’s until one survived and told the tale.
I will stick with an Airbus product any day of the week.
Oh yeah. The accident- its less than 12 hours old and people with a thimble full of aircraft knowledge already know what happened. I’m impressed. The professionals will take a little longer to get to a conclusion.
The reports i’m reading say the aircraft sent out an automatic message reporting loss of power AND CABIN PRESSURE. This suggests some kind of structural failure and not a loss of instrumentation or control.
Fly-by-wire has been around for ages. Has there ever been any accidents where it has caused structural failure in-flight?
# 34 interglacialman said, “The reports i’m reading say the aircraft sent out an automatic message reporting loss of power AND CABIN PRESSURE.”
Where did you read about a cabin pressure problem?
“Two-engines, fly-by-wire, short-circuit. This is a formula for disaster.”
Dave,
with respect, you are misinformed. In large 2 engine airliners, the engine MTBF + the permitted running time of the other engine running under stressed usage while operating alone all convert into a max time, and this is taken into account when planning routes so the aircraft is never at a location where it cannot land within this time. This catastrophe would probably have happened no matter what aircraft or how many engines. Force Majeure my friend. Though I much love your column, you are outside you knowledge level with this comment. Grumpy is grumpy, misinformed is another!!
#35 Patrick
Google: “Brazilian ministry details last track of missing Air France A330” Should get you to the article.
I’m trying to find other references to this info so maybe I shouldn’t have said ‘article’ rather than ‘reports’…
#37 Thanks, I checked again after you 1st posted. It was left off the initial reports I read early a.m.
Simultaneous electrical & pressure loss could point to a possible explosion.
What a bunch of whining crap in their pants babies. This is a blog. A place to have fun, share ideas, links, humor, personal insanity.
What do we “know” about this incident? Airplane has not reported situation by radio. Aircraft reported loss of electrical and pressure failure. Aircraft is past its fuel reserve and has not landed.
How “crazy and uniformed” is it to conclude the a/c has crashed?
And from there, educated guesses about causation are natural. I’m surprised Busdriver320 as an experienced pilot has no opinion, ideas, contribution, imagination at all to contribute. Not the kind of pilot I would want to fly with.
What educated guesses? I see about 4 posts here with any knowledge of the craft in question.
The fly-by-wire system in the A330 has a second independent redundant fbw system + the manual systems backing both up which were mentioned once or twice.
The automatic report of loss of cabin pressure is scarier than any of the flights of fancy about lightning. Damned near every transoceanic aircraft in the business catches minimum one strike per year.
You lot must get all your info from Bing. Har!
Number 1..it dd not take long to get allot of response on this blog today!!! Number 2 its always sad to see such tragedy, god bless them all.
However… (A330) The Aircraft has 5 Flight Control Computers 2 PRIMs and 3 SECs Each type of computer will automaticaly take over part of the workload of any failed computer up until the last computer workng, then the crew will have Manual control over the trim (elevator/stabilizer MHS) thru atleast 1 hydayulic pump operating and the same for the Rudder, however, no Aileron Control will remain. All of that said, their is allot of speculation here,,,but if Cabin Pressuer was suddenly lost it sees to point to a structural failure. And YES ALL Large Modern Aircraft are FLY BY Wire… it all started with the F16 and the Space Shuttel programs back in the 70’s and the Boeing 777 is an all FBW Aircraft as well…
I have a friend who was operating an A330 and was climbing thru 8000 feet out of London Heathrow 6 months ago… it was struck by lightning and the FCU Failed (Autopilot Controller)..and the crew were temperarily Blinded, but it all ended safely after a few moments of uncertainty… These things do happen… but Aircraft Engineers and Manufactures do their best to prevent them from becoming catstrphic by design. I have even Experienced Cabin Pressure Failure on A B737-400… The Airbus Technology is Good and its modern, So is the Boeing B777 and Beyond..(Dreamliner…) We will have to wait to see what happened today…and maybe a few more safety lessons will be learned…
40,
good points..
Another point..
EVEN if the craft LOST all its power and such During take off…most companies will fire the pilot if he returns.
To many of these planes have NO MANUAL OVERRIDE, if the computer system fails. As seen in alot of recent crashes. An altimeter goes out and the plane thinks its landing and shuts down in mid air.
The only choice he had, was to FIND LAND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE…and pray.
The information about this crash is sketchy indeed. Does anyone have any links or know more about the automated message that was sent out by the aircraft?
Specifically, the news articles I can find imply that there was just one message reporting power and pressure loss – or was power then pressure lost like in the possible scenario 777Driver described?
#40, #41, or anyone else… Would the message have been sent out by a transponder on the flight-data-recorder (i.e an emergency distress signal when power was lost) or would it have been sent from another system on the plane?
Does anybody rememebr the A330 that flew from Canada and lost all fuel in Mid Atlantic due to a Fuel Leak. It was a night time flight… The Pilot was able to find land in the middle of the Atlantic on the way to Spain (or Portigal..) and landed safely… this was a huge and remarkable feat of good airmanship. This was as I say again an A330… No Engines.. and along way from Land was able to Glide to an Airfield on an Island… It was sunrise when he landed. I have forgotten all of the exact details… However it proved the aircraft can be flown in extreme circumstances..although in these conditions I mention, the FBW was still operational… but the Aircraft would have been hand flown.
I only mention this story here due to the relevance of the A330.
God Bless the 228 Soles Lost today.
To Answere question No. 43
All Modern Aircraft are Equiped with an ACARS System this is an Automatic Reporting system used to convey realtime information back to the Company Computers to Assist in Monitoring the Aircraft, both in Aircraft subsystems health ie Computers on Board individual failures or even a clogged drain in the LAV. A manual Key board based system is also available to crew members to type messages..(although Cumbersom)/… How this all works is slightly different for each company and what equipment they use..but normally this data is tranmitted (squitter) out of the aircraft and linked to Ground station on the VHF Band…ie 134Mhz etc or about.. But in trans oceanic aircraft, this can be via SAT tranceivers etc… Most Aircraft even still have the Old HF Radios on Board, although not used so often any more. The Aircraft Can be monitored via many methods today.. One technology is ADSB this will replace..or may replace Radar in the Future and you can monitor aircraft in realtime from any ADSB decoder and this provide position/altitude/speed/direction etc… But ACARS equiped aircraft provide system data and position data… Number of Pax. amount of Fuel.. Etc Etc… Destination… I hope this answers your question
#44
That was Air Transat 236 a few weeks before 9/11. Ram turbines powered minimal systems to maintain control on that aircraft until it glided to the Portuguese Azores.
#43
I dont know, but rumor is that the electrical problems were reported via ACARS to Air France Ops in Paris.
I dont think that Atlantico ACC or Dakar could track transponders out in the middle of the South Atlantic..
Hey, Sims-R-Us and 777Driver. Thanks for the answers and info! I hadn’t heard of the ACARS system – reading up on it now – interesting…
Hey #47 This ole internet thingy is good once in a while ha?… cheers mate…
ACARS (Look up WACARS) for intersting info.
ADSB – Buy a decoder….
I will add that the B777 is a Beautiful Machine… and I prefer it over the A330/A340 any day!!! (but without the Rolls Royce Bits!!!) 🙂
#41
Fly-by-wire actually began with the lunar lander. The first flight of an aircraft using fly-by-wire was in a Navy F-8 on loan to NASA using a lunar lander flight control computer. That same aircraft was used to develop the flight control system for the F-16 and space shuttle.
It was ET, a bomb, pilot error, struturial failure and we don’t have a clue.
What I do know is that it should have had something on board with a battery back up that would have told them where the plane was when it lost power or it should have been a much, much smaller plane and not flying over the ocean.
Cripes! They can track you by your cellphone! The least they could do is use the same tech on planes.
# 50 deowll said, “Cripes! They can track you by your cellphone! The least they could do is use the same tech on planes.”
Umm, where are the cell towers in the mid Atlantic?
Luckily all the passengers had floatable seat cushions . . .
Back in college, I had a software instructor who refused to fly in any Airbus, because he had worked for them for a while, and had first hand knowledge of their software engineering methods. One of the things he mentioned is that in order to save money on software development costs, Airbus had a lot of very green software engineering students on their payroll…yikes!
They’re good planes. That particular one was just four years old and it had a good crew. It takes a lot to bring one of these down, I mean that they are very well designed and proven long haul aircraft with countless millions of flying hours and despite the scurrilous rumors are among the safest planes in the world. A tragedy and a mystery, indeed.
#51. Um GPS? Satellite tracking. Surface ships are not a problem, why would aircraft be? Hello?
The Timeline
The flight, carrying 216 passengers and 12 crewmembers, left Rio de Janeiro at 6:03 p.m. Sunday EDT (7:03 PM local time). It flew beyond radar coverage 3 hours and 33 minutes later (at 9:33 p.m. EDT). A half hour later (10 p.m. EDT) – now four hours into the flight – the plane encountered heavy turbulence. Fifteen minutes later (10:15 p.m. EDT), now a long way out to sea, it transmitted an automated signals indicating the plane was in serious trouble.
“A succession of a dozen technical messages showed that several electrical systems had broken down,” according to Air France CEO Pierre-Henry Gourgeon. He described the failures, which included (most ominously) the pressurization system as “totally unprecedented situation in the plane.”
In other words: gremlins’ fault.
I know exactly where it is. Bejamin Linus has them!
Many modern military aircraft are so complicated that they can only be flow by a fly by wire system. The B2 comes to mind as such.
# 17 Patrick said:
“”# 16 budcanman said, “just reading about this on the internet, brazil looking for downed aircraft that could be closer to africa?”””
“Based on the data to hand, how could it have been closer to Af than Brazil?”
– – – – –
If I read the articles correctly, it’s only about 50 minutes flying time after the plane leaves Brazil Air Traffic Control before it flies into Senegal ATC. Of course, it’s late and I could be mistaken.
Fools! Turbulence followed by an electrical event – they obviously fell through a rip in the spacetime continuum and are now in the deep past.
I hope they found somewhere flat enough to land.
“It is my understanding that the throttles on Airbus planes are not ‘real’ in that sense. If the autoflight system on an Airbus plane commands more engine thrust, but the pilot disagrees, the autoflight computers win the battle and the pilot pulling the Airbus thrust levers back towards idle, will not reduce the computer-commanded engine thrust.”
http://www.airlinesafety.com/faq/777DataFailure.htm
This is interesting. Apparently, the Airbus autothrottle system overrides the pilot’s manual throttle commands. Here’s a scenario; the disruption in the electrical system caused the plane’s instrumentation equipment to think the plane was traveling too fast or too slow and mistakenly forced the throttle too high, or low, causing a crash through stall or through excessive speed/stress on the aircraft.