shamrockLooking at what is being SUSPECTED…
Could this have been a similar accident to that of Southern 242 in 1977?
The plane went into a thrunderstorm, the engines were severely damaged along with the windscreens by hail which resulted in a double flame-out, emergency landing et al.
If this had happened on AF447, there would have been nowhere close to land…although they are saying it appears the plane was turning back – the large piece of wreckage is to the south of the rest of the debris field, which sort of goes along with that theory, perhaps.
Would it be possible for hail to have rendered the engines useless – ie fatally damaged, which if the hail was so severe it could well have done – as per Southern 242 case?
And as for the loss of pressurisation, that same hail could it break the windshields – as per the Southern 242 case?
Southern 242 was over land so was able to find a highway and get down, granted still with loss of life, whereas in the middle of the Atlantic the crew of AF447 had no such luxury did they?
shamrockOK…technical question for those ‘in the know’
There have been comparisons drawn tween this accident and that of the two Qantas incidents last year. The reason why pundits are saying there can be no real comparison is that the Air France ADIRU was a Honeywell and the Qantas were Northrop-Grumman.
Is it possible to fit the NG part into the space taken by the Honeywell, do they have they same wiring etc?
Could they be fitted by mistake…as per the case with the crashed Tunisian ATR 72 that had an fuel gauge that belonged in an ATR 42 by mistake…?
Is it at all plausable that a genuine error such as this could be made?
shamrockFrom the BBC this morning
shamrockDon’t you think speculating such things is somewhat inappropriate at the moment?
Paul
I did say ‘tenuous’.
shamrockTenuous…I know…three of the passengers listed above are members of the Courts of Justice in Rio de Janeiro, they do not appear to be related but are all involved in children’s type services.
The French are not completely dismissing terrorism with this incident, and Rio does have more than the average amount of ‘domestic problems’.
Is it possible that someone could have had a grudge against the Rio de Janeiro justice system, especially in the child services section, that they would purposely sabotage an airliner?
People have sabotaged planes before, afterall.
shamrockArticle from the Guardian discussion the implications of retrieving the black boxes from deep water..
shamrockA Brazilian newspaper has now published names of passengers who were on board the flight, some of whom were working for companies such as Michelin, ThyssenKrupp CSA.
O voo AF 447 decolou por volta das 19h de domingo do aeroporto do Galeão (Tom Jobim) e deveria pousar no aeroporto Charles de Gaulle, em Paris, por volta das 11h local (6h de Brasília). O último contato com o comando aéreo brasileiro ocorreu por volta das 22h30.
Em nota, a empresa afirma que a aeronave “cruzou uma zona com forte turbulência” por volta das 23h (horário de Brasília) e enviou alerta automático sobre problemas no circuito elétrico às 23h14.
Os nomes confirmados até agora são:
* Adriana Francisco Van Sluijs, 40, da área de comunicação corporativa da Petrobras
* Agostino Cordioli, 73, empresário italiano da região de Verona. Viajou a negócios para Fortaleza
* Aisling Butler, 26, médica irlandesa
* Alexander Paulitsch, 35, consultor comercial italiano de San Candido (Bolzano)
* Ana Carolina Rodrigues, 28, integrante da ONG Viva Rio
* Ana Negra, 28, espanhola
* Andrés Suárez Montes, 38, engenheiro espanhol que trabalhava no Brasil
* Angela Cristina de Oliveira Silva, responsável por uma organização internacional de orientação e defesa da mulher estrangeira com projetos no Brasil, Itália, Nigéria e Espanha. Vive em Veneza com o marido italiano
* Antonio Gueiros, diretor de informática da Michelin
* Bianca Machado Cotta
* Carlos Eduardo Macário de Melo, recém-casado com Bianca
* Christin Pieraerts, funcionária da unidade Paris da Michelin
* Claudia Degli Esposti, 55, italiana, responsável pela área de marketing de uma empresa. Retornava de uma feira do setor têxtil no Paraná
* Deise Possamai, 34, funcionária da prefeitura de Criciúma
* Eithne Walls, médica irlandesa
* Enzo Canaletti, italiano, marido de Angela Cristina de Oliveira Silva, militar reformado do Exército italiano, vivia na região de Veneza
* Erich Heine, presidente da ThyssenKrupp CSA – Companhia Siderúrgica do Atlântico
* Francisco Eudes Mesquita Valle, viajou ao lado do filho, da mulher e da nora
* Georg Lercher, 34, empresário italiano do setor florestal de San Candido (Bolzano). Viajou ao Brasil com amigo Alexander Paulitsch em férias.
* Georg Martiner, 24, de origem brasileira, foi adotado com dois irmãos por uma família italiana de Ortisei (Bolzano)
* Giovanni Batista Lenzi, deputado da Província Autônoma de Trento
* Gustavo Peretti, 30, brasileiro, funcionário da petrolífera norueguesa StatoilHydro.
* Harald Maximillian Winner, 44, alemão que iria providenciar documentos para se casar
* Hilton Jadir Silveira de Souza, 50, engenheiro da Petrobras que viajou a trabalho
* Izabela Maria Furtado Kestler, professora de alemão da UFRJ
* Isis, francesa, mulher de José Ronnel Amorim
* Jane Deasy, médica irlandesa
* João Marques da Silva Filho, 67, gerente de interface do Estaleiro Atlântico Sul
* José Roberto Gomes, 50, professor de administração da PUC-RJ
* José Ronnel Amorim, casado com Isis
* Juliana Aquino, 29, cantora, mora na Alemanha e passava férias com a família em Brasília
* Kristian Berg Andersen, 37, norueguês, também funcionário da petrolífera norueguesa StatoilHydro.
* Koo Hak-rim, 40, sul-coreano
* Leonardo Veloso Dardengo, 31, oceanógrafo e doutorando da Coppe/UFRJ
* Letícia Chem, 36, gerente de roaming internacional da operadora Oi
* Luciana Clarkson Sebá, psicóloga no Rio, viajou ao lado do marido, Paulo Valle Brito, e dos sogros
* Luigi Zortea, prefeito de Canal San Bovo, em Trento (Itália)
* Luis Cláudio Monlevad, 48, funcionário da empresa de tubulações Saint-Gobain
* Luiz Roberto Anastácio, presidente da Michelin para a América do Sul
* Marcela Marques Pellizzon, 29, geóloga; viajava para fazer curso na Noruega e era funcionária da petrolífera norueguesa StatoilHydro.
* Marcelo Parente, 38, chefe de gabinete do prefeito do Rio, Eduardo Paes (PMDB)
* Marcos Mendonça, diretor de manganês da Vale
* Marcia Moscon de Faria, funcionária da Vara da Infância, Juventude e Idoso na Praça Onze do Tribunal de Justiça do Rio
* Maria de Fátima Brito, arquiteta, viajou ao lado do marido, do filho e da nora
* Mateus Nazareth Ceva Antunes, 3, filho de Octavio e Patricia, também no voo
* Mulher de Marcelo Parente, cujo nome não foi confirmado
* Martin, 29, médico alemão em férias no Brasil
* Nelson Marinho Filho, 40, mecânico de engrenagens
* Octavio Augusto Ceva Antunes, professor do Instituto de Química da UFRJ
* Pablo Dreyfus, 38, argentino integrante da ONG Viva Rio
* Patricia Nazareth Antunes, viajava com o marido, Octavio, professor da UFRJ
* Paulo Valle Brito, empresário, viajou ao lado da mulher, Luciana Sebá, e dos pais
* príncipe Pedro Luis de Orleans e Bragança, 26, descendente de dom Pedro 2º
* Rino Zandonai, diretor da Associazione Trentini Nel Mondo
* Roberto Corrêa Chem, 66, cirurgião plástico e professor universitário
* Silvio Barbato, ex-diretor artístico da Orquestra Sinfônica do Teatro Nacional
* Simone Jacomo dos Santos Elias, funcionária da Vara da Infância, Juventude e Idoso na Praça Onze do Tribunal de Justiça do Rio
* Sonia Maria Amorim, 40, funcionária da Vara da Infância, Juventude e Idoso na Praça Onze do Tribunal de Justiça do Rio
* Valnilzia Betler, 44, casada com um alemão
* Vera Chem, 63, psicóloga, casada com Roberto Chem
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/cotidiano/ult95u574778.shtml
Yesterday it was brought into stark reality when it was announced by Air France that there had been 32 nationalities on the plane, now as the names are slowly being released by their respective countries the true human toll of this accident just makes you shudder.
🙁
[quote]
shamrockWell, no-one can say that Air France are not trying to be there for the families and friends affected by this tragedy. An announcement has been posted onto their main website in both English & French…
Paris, 02 June 2009 – 14:20 local time
Press release N° 10
Homage to victims in ParisAn inter-religious ceremony for the relatives and friends of the victims will be held on Wednesday 3 June at 4pm at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Note for media: practical information will be sent later.
http://www.airfrance.com/indexCOM.html
The airline are reacting very quickly and in my view very sympathetically towards everyone concerned in this and are themselves struggling to come to terms with what has happened.
Kudos to them for how they are behaving. They took alot of flack in the aftermath of the non fatal Toronto Pearson accident a few years ago in respect to post accident organisation, and as an outsider looking in, they do genuinely seem to be trying their best to be as supportive as they can, afterall they too lost employees, ‘friends’.
I do hope, however, that the media do not turn the memorial service into some sort of ghoulish spectacle and that they give those who are in such unimaginable grief the utmost respect at this incredibly tough time.
shamrockOn the BBC website they have similar reports regarding wreckage but won’t confirm it is that of the 330 due to the size of whats there and the spread compared to the size of the plane…..which, and I dare say someone with a physics background can say yay or nay here…if the plane went down from FL350 at or around 500mph the pieces would be, relatively speaking, tiny and unlike on land, the spread could well be small?
Air force spokesman Col Jorge Amaral said the seat had been spotted by search planes early on Tuesday.
There were also small white pieces of debris, material that may be metallic and signs of oil and kerosene, which is used as jet fuel.
“The search is continuing because it’s very little material in relation to the size [of the Airbus A330],”Col Amaral added.
Officials, he said, needed “a piece that might have a serial number, some sort of identification” to be sure it came from the missing jet.
……further down the article…
Col Amaral was quoted by the Associated Press as saying a life jacket had been spotted amid the debris.
“The locations where the objects were found are towards the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted,” he told reporters in Rio.
“That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis.”
Searchers now planned to focus their efforts on collecting the debris and trying to identify it, he said.
shamrockShamrock,
Your post #121 has a map attached (rather than linked to) that you say was handed out to journalists by the Brazilian Air Force.
Are you a journalist, by any chance?
No, not a journalist at all…it’s in all the main online versions of the British press such as Telegraph, Mail, Sun, Express et al. Also on many of the mainland European/South American press too.
shamrockIf some of the passengers did make last minute calls and texts can the authorities not just get the phone companys to trace the last known position of the signal?
I think that is why they have requested assistance from the US in regards to their satellites, to see what they picked up Sunday night/Monday morning. Obama has said he will have his people assist in any way they can to find out where the plane was so hopefully they will have the technical know-how to pinpoint the area for the searchers.
shamrockThe Brazilian air force has been handing out the diagram below to journalists to show where the plane was effectively lost from radar screens…pretty much right in the middle of the Atlantic and far away from landfall…
(Click to enlarge)
shamrockIncase anyone was wondering how the Air France crisis center works, the airline have put this on their website…
Paris, 02 June 2009 – 10:12 local time
Press release N° 8
How are Air France’s volunteers trained to assist relatives and friends of victims?Overall, 4,000 Air France staff members are part of the voluntary programme to help in case of a crisis.
These volunteers have four main tasks: contact with relatives and friends, logistical assistance, back-up at airports and telephone assistance.
This programme was launched in November 1998 by the Chairman of Air France.
Air France offers these volunteers three one-day training modules:
– Theory (explaining what it means to be a volunteer and the commitments involved etc.) and practical training with a psychiatrist,
– Theoretical and practical courses to train leaders whose role is to lead a group of volunteers and liaise with the Air France crisis centre,
– Training on how to handle telephone calls when the Air France toll-free number is available.
Yesterday, as soon as the news of flight AF 447 was announced, around one hundred volunteers were contacted to provide back-up to Air France teams in Paris and Rio. Others will be taking over later.
shamrockThe BBC report states that up to a dozen error messages came from the plane prior to it’s vanishing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8078147.stm
Vessels from France, Spain, Senegal and Brazil are involved in the search, while the United States is said to be offering help with satellite reconnaissance.
US President Barack Obama said Washington would provide “any help necessary” to find out what had happened to the plane.
Plane crews have narrowed their search to a zone half-way between Brazil and west Africa, said Pierre-Henry Gourgeon, chief executive of Air France, late on Monday.
Their work may be aided by the Airbus’s Argos beacons, which will emit signals for several days, he added.
Up to a dozen reports of electrical failures were sent from the plane before it vanished over the ocean.
French officials believe it may have been disabled by a storm. French and US sources have ruled out terrorism as the cause of the plane’s loss.
In relation to mobile phone texts and calls, that was something that happened alot during the 9/11 Shanksville hijack, the calls were not just via the aircraft’s own satellite phone systems, they were from passengers personal cellphones too. I believe something such as a Blackberry can work perfectly well whilst on board an airliner and many airlines do now allow use of cellphones during flights…obviously not during landing or take-off.
Given the weather conditions the very use of the cellphones may even have a bearing on what happened to this plane. From my flights with Air France last year to/from Asia there were people using cellphones quite freely and they didn’t appear to be having any connection problems.
shamrockA Portugese newspaper in Rio de Janeiro has an interesting article regarding the relatives who saw the passengers off. Some seem to have received phone calls and text messages from passengers on the plane shortly before it vanished off the radar screens..
Within this office, I knew then JN, showed amazing things. “Alguns familiares e amigos de vítimas contam que receberam mensagem, por telemóvel, com frases como ‘eu te amo’ ou ‘estou com medo’, e até telefonemas avisando que algo errado estava acontecendo e que temiam pelo pior”, disse o presidente do Sindicato das Empresas Aéreas, Ronaldo Jenkins. “Some relatives and friends of victims have received that message, by phone, with phrases like ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m afraid’, and even telephone calls warning that something wrong was happening and feared the worst,” said the chairman of Union of Airline, Ronaldo Jenkins.
No exterior do gabinete improvisado, uma dentista, com cerca de 40 anos, contou que os pais estavam no avião e nem conseguira despedir-se deles. Outside the makeshift office, a dentist, with about 40 years, said that parents were on the plane and not get off from them. Outra senhora, Ester, lembrou os últimos momentos com a filha. Another woman, Esther, recalled the last moments with his daughter. Sem saber que seriam as últimas palavras, tinha-lhe dito, ao telefone: “Posso dizer que nenhuma mãe tem uma filha melhor do que você”, ao que a jovem, em tom jocoso, respondeu “ámen, ámen, ámén”. Without knowing who would be the last words, had told on the phone: “I can say that no parent has a child better than you,” to the young, in jocular tone, said “amen, amen, amen.”
http://jn.sapo.pt/PaginaInicial/Mundo/Interior.aspx?content_id=1250904
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