Missing Air France jet 'hit by electric fault'

[me]

I just hope they find out something soon about this plane.  As you can imagine I hate every time I hear about something like this.  I am figuring at this point it was probably the storm that had to do with the disappearance rather than a terrorist attack though.   

[Palehorse]

I just hope they find out something soon about this plane.  As you can imagine I hate every time I hear about something like this.  I am figuring at this point it was probably the storm that had to do with the disappearance rather than a terrorist attack though.

I have some serious doubt about the storm being the driver of this incident. Most (if not all) new commercial airliners are built to sustain a direct hit from lightening, and it would take a very serious storm and conditions to bring one down. . . It may end up being a contributor but I do not see it being the root cause of this incident.

Mechanical or electrical, it will end up being a catastrophic failure of systems being the root cause unless it is a terrorist act. . .

[Palehorse]

Still no sign of this aircraft this morning, and they are asking for U.S. satellite assistance in locating it. . .

[Exterminator]

I may be off on the number of passengers but I know he was headed back to base overseas after a two week leave and there were other military as well as civilian passengers on board.  I know both my dad who had a background in navigation from his years in the Air Force and my uncle did nothing but go over maps for weeks trying to figure out where it might have gone down going from reports where it was last heard from.  Not that they knew anymore than the military and or the others that were looking but it gave them something to do and helped them cope somewhat.

Like I said, I'm interested...try to narrow down the circumstances, time frame, airline, etc. and I'll look for the incident report.  Did the plane go down over the Atlantic or Pacific?  Are you certain there were civilians on board?  I have found an Air Force plane that went down over the Pacific on March 22, 1957 with 57 passengers and 10 crew on board.

[Palehorse]

Reports surfacing that wreckage has been found in the Atlantic and they strongly suspect it to be the missing aircraft. . .

[me]

Like I said, I'm interested...try to narrow down the circumstances, time frame, airline, etc. and I'll look for the incident report.  Did the plane go down over the Atlantic or Pacific?  Are you certain there were civilians on board?  I have found an Air Force plane that went down over the Pacific on March 22, 1957 with 57 passengers and 10 crew on board.

That might be it.  Mom can't remember too many details but I'm going over to get the box down she has the newspaper article stored in.  I know this one was never found. 

[me]

Reports surfacing that wreckage has been found in the Atlantic and they strongly suspect it to be the missing aircraft. . .

I hope it is and I also hope they can rule out anything terrorist related. 

[Palehorse]

Area where debris found is roughly along path Flight 447 would have taken.

Floating objects, seats among items found, say Brazilian aviation officials.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/02/brazil.france.plane.missing/index.html

[Locutus]

I've been following this story with great interest.  What I find interesting is that they don't seem to know exactly where this jet was when it experienced these problems.  I read that the jet transmitted automatic notifications of certain system failures to an Air France maintenance facility.  My question is this.  In this day of GPS, which the A330 would certainly have had, why wasn't position information transmitted with these messages?  If the latitude and longitude of the plane's location had have been transmitted along with the alerts, it seems to me that locating the area where the problems arose would be much easier. 

[me]

I've been following this story with great interest.  What I find interesting is that they don't seem to know exactly where this jet was when it experienced these problems.  I read that the jet transmitted automatic notifications of certain system failures to an Air France maintenance facility.  My question is this.  In this day of GPS, which the A330 would certainly have had, why wasn't position information transmitted with these messages?  If the latitude and longitude of the plane's location had have been transmitted along with the alerts, it seems to me that locating the area where the problems arose would be much easier.

They might know more than the news is reporting because of not wanting every Tom. Dick, and Harry with the means to do so heading for the location until they can check things out. 

[Henry Hawk]

I've been following this story with great interest.  What I find interesting is that they don't seem to know exactly where this jet was when it experienced these problems.  I read that the jet transmitted automatic notifications of certain system failures to an Air France maintenance facility.  My question is this.  In this day of GPS, which the A330 would certainly have had, why wasn't position information transmitted with these messages?  If the latitude and longitude of the plane's location had have been transmitted along with the alerts, it seems to me that locating the area where the problems arose would be much easier. 

I'm like you on this........I would think that the path taken would have been predefined, and simply following the route in which the plane took, and the time it took from it's take of would pretty much pin point it's location....within a few hundred miles anyway....and with today's technology....

[Exterminator]

At the altitude and speed an A330 travels, the difference between the location at which the message was sent out and where the plane impacted the water is a whole lot of ocean.

[Locutus]

That's true, and would be dependent on how much time elapsed between the onset of trouble and the eventual impact. 

[Exterminator]

Yep and whether or not it continued to glide in a straight path or turned and wind strength and direction and the current when it was sinking and...

[Palehorse]

It seems a bit too coincidental that they would just go out of range of radar and then have this happen. . . unless of course they just dropped from 35,000 feet straight down, which is not likely. . .

Then there's the thousands of gallons of jet fuel that you know created an Exxon like slick on the ocean. . . Granted, they have to cover a lot of water but that stuff should have created a really large oil slick out there. . . And given the wind and current it should have spread fairly quickly. . .

But vast spaces of water can trick you too; make you see things that aren't there and miss things that are at times. . .

I understand the oil slick is one of the things that eventually got their attention though. Ships are on their way to the site and should be arriving soon if they aren't already there.

What I heard was electrical system failure was the trouble codes they received. That would include navigations as well wouldn't it? If it were a big enough problem that could have eliminated any EPIRB broadcasts as well. . .