Missing Air France jet 'hit by electric fault'

[Locutus]

What the hell does this mean?

"Based on visual study of the physical remains of the Airbus A330 that have been recovered, "we were able to see that the plane hit the surface of the water flat. Therefore everything was pushed upwards -- everything was pushed from the bottom to the top" of the plane, he said."

That sounds odd.

[Palehorse]

What the hell does this mean?

"Based on visual study of the physical remains of the Airbus A330 that have been recovered, "we were able to see that the plane hit the surface of the water flat. Therefore everything was pushed upwards -- everything was pushed from the bottom to the top" of the plane, he said."

That sounds odd.

Same reaction I had when I first read it.

It sounds like the aircraft may have gone into a "flat spin" and hit the water wheel-side first; which strikes me as very unusual. Even if the aircraft had lost enough thrust to maintain height and forward motion, it would have adopted a nose first attitude during stall and the resulting descent. No?

I do not understand how an aircraft of that size could have struck the water wheels first, with the direction of "travel" being straight down. . .???? Yet the physical / forensic information is indicating that is exactly what happened?

Even in wind shear I don't see this happening!

Maybe they lost power and went into a steep dive, regaining power near the deck, but not in time to overcome the inertia. This would have enabled them to lift the nose and smack the water wheel side first?

[Exterminator]

Maybe they retained some control of the aircraft and were trying to ditch it in the drink but misjudged their altitude?

[Palehorse]

Maybe they retained some control of the aircraft and were trying to ditch it in the drink but misjudged their altitude?

Possibility I am thinking. We have to assume they had no instruments at all with which to gauge attitude,altitude, and airspeed.

In that scenario I'm betting all aboard were pulling a few G's just prior to impact! Maybe some of them blacked out. . .

[Locutus]

If they pulled too many Gs (as in a steep enough dive), it would have led to structural failure of the aircraft and it wouldn't have hit intact.

[Palehorse]

If they pulled too many Gs (as in a steep enough dive), it would have led to structural failure of the aircraft and it wouldn't have hit intact.

Yeah, which is what is really strange about the whole thing. I cannot imagine a flat spin from 35k to 0 though. At some point you'd either break up or fall into a nose first attitude based upon the aeronautics. . .

A dive would overstress flight surfaces if you tried to pull out of it too quickly and result in the same thing; breakup. But, if you had no idea what your altitude was and timed it incorrectly it is possible. . . I think.

I once saw a P-38 do something similar and smack the deck wheels first. . . But that's a much smaller aircraft. . .

Their description makes it sound like they fell out of the sky like a brick. . .

[Exterminator]

Possibility I am thinking. We have to assume they had no instruments at all with which to gauge attitude,altitude, and airspeed.

Even if they had an altitude reading, they aren't exact enough to be able to tell exactly when you're going to make contact.  A friend of mine who flies an Airbus said that Sully had an ideal situation landing on the Hudson since he could look out of the window and judge his altitude by the buildings and whatnot on either side of the river.  He said it would be a completely different scenario ditching in the ocean and he was apparently correct.

[Locutus]

Exactly.  Plus it was in bad weather and it was dark.  Not a good situation to be in.  The seas had to be rough in that weather as well.

[Palehorse]

Plus they already knew they could not trust any instruments in the first place. (I assume when the aircraft began sending messages it also triggered cockpit warning signals. . That may be incorrect though).

Unless they find those black boxes we may never know. It'd be a bitch for this to be Honeywell's first loss.

[Locutus]

Yeah, that article said they're only going to keep looking unti July 10th.  After that, they're giving up.

[Palehorse]

Even if they had an altitude reading, they aren't exact enough to be able to tell exactly when you're going to make contact.  . . .

Oh yeah. I found that out during the little time I spent in the right seat as a kid!    I remember watching that altimeter and waiting for contact and getting the crap scared out of me when it came well before that instrument said it should have!

[Palehorse]

Yeah, that article said they're only going to keep looking unti July 10th.  After that, they're giving up.

Some fishing vessel or Ballard will dredge them up in a few years. . . Probably long after the information dissolves though. . .

[Exterminator]

Oh yeah. I found that out during the little time I spent in the right seat as a kid!    I remember watching that altimeter and waiting for contact and getting the crap scared out of me when it came well before that instrument said it should have!

An altimeter is, of course, only accurate at the last location and barometric pressure at which it was zeroed.

[Palehorse]

An altimeter is, of course, only accurate at the last location and barometric pressure at which it was zeroed.

So what you are saying is if you zero it in Indiana and then fly to Denver, you might expect a little "variation"! 

[Exterminator]

So what you are saying is if you zero it in Indiana and then fly to Denver, you might expect a little "variation"! 

Ya think?  Of course, airliners have fairly sophisticated systems that calculate AGL based on location and I'd guess they correct for differences in barometric pressure as well but they still aren't exact.  In the skydiving world we have no such luxuries so any time we do a demo jump where we aren't landing on the airport where we took off, we open a little higher to allow for a margin of error.