Not nice news at all.

Looks like a major storm caused the accident. Although we cant be 100% until they recover the BB. A bomb? Pilot error? the captain might not even been at the controls (quite common on long haul) although highly unlikely due to the magnitude of the storm they were heading into.

To me it looks like the plane was hit by lightning which fried the FBW controls. Maybe lightning destroyed the planes radar (as daft as it sounds, thats the weakest part of the aircraft) so they may have been flying blind into the storm.

Quote from D.Zanetti :

Looks like a major storm caused the accident. Although we cant be 100% until they recover the BB. A bomb? Pilot error? the captain might not even been at the controls (quite common on long haul) although highly unlikely due to the magnitude of the storm they were heading into.

the pilot isn't actually at the controls for much of the long haul flights, autopilot is engaged and they can override it or something if it appears things are about to go tits up, one of the automated messages sent out by the plane said the autopilot had been disengaged so the pilot was flying the plane

or it just automatically disengaged when the plane hit certain bank angle/pitch/sink rate.

i may be going all conspirocy thery bnut i thnk there is more to this than meets the eye tbh

Quote from james12s :

i may be going all conspirocy thery bnut i thnk there is more to this than meets the eye tbh

Well theres not very much meeting the eye at all at the moment.

There's a brazilian ship at the area searching for survivors and then anything else. Since the area is massive, this will take a while. Another four ships will arrive eventually.

Anyone has any other informations?

On a side note, Air France said it would announce the names of everyone that was on the plane today (4th June).

I doubt that a lightning strike alone would have brought the plane down.

The captain wasn't at the controls, and AFAIK, autopilots are programmed to keep a selected speed/heading/altitude/etc, no matter what, it's like putting a car's cruise control on then going on a cobbled road.

IMO I think that the plane got into the storm and broke apart trying to stay within the programmed limits.

Also the electrical message may have said that, but I doubt we'll ever know what happened.

RIP to everyone on board.

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

I doubt that a lightning strike alone would have brought the plane down.

The captain wasn't at the controls, and AFAIK, autopilots are programmed to keep a selected speed/heading/altitude/etc, no matter what, it's like putting a car's cruise control on then going on a cobbled road.

IMO I think that the plane got into the storm and broke apart trying to stay within the programmed limits.

Also the electrical message may have said that, but I doubt we'll ever know what happened.

RIP to everyone on board.

On the BBC News videos, it says these planes are built to withstand a lot of trumours. Was saying that it will take a lot to cause these planes to crash.

Wonder how long it will take them to find the black box.

Quote from sam93 :

Wonder how long it will take them to find the black box.

Probably never.

Even if they do find it, the chances of being able to retrieve it or any useful information from it, are low.

Quote from samjh :

Probably never.

Even if they do find it, the chances of being able to retrieve it or any useful information from it, are low.

Hmm, I watched a video saying that they are built to recieve a beating and still be able to work. But, they fear that the beacon may have came off of the black box. Who knows

The black box itself should survive an aircrash. However, if it's down in the ocean, without any sort of communication device aviable.. the chances to find it will be slim

Quote from The Very End :

The black box itself should survive an aircrash. However, if it's down in the ocean, without any sort of communication device aviable.. the chances to find it will be slim

I heard that they put a microphone in the water and listen for the sound of the beacon.

Quote from sam93 :

I heard that they put a microphone in the water and listen for the sound of the beacon.

Yep.

And the beacon is inside the nearly indestructible black [but actually orange ] box, they should at least know [vaguely] where it is, even if it's bloody hard to get to.

But how high is this sound? Probally something that canot be heared by human ears, but there must be a limit on this? If it's deep down in the ocean there must be like a million things that can disturb this sound

Quote from The Very End :

But how high is this sound? Probally something that canot be heared by human ears, but there must be a limit on this? If it's deep down in the ocean there must be like a million things that can disturb this sound

According to wikipedia its radio and sonar signals. And seeing as its going through water, probably not [sound travels quicker and more easily through water than air].

Yeah, it transmits a pulse. Any naval units in the area can, as you say, put a mic in the water and try locate it. IRC the battery on the beacon only lasts for 3-4 weeks.

I also heard last night that the debris is spread over such wide area. They are starting to think that it actually disintegrated in the air rather than crashing into the see.

The fact that the debris is spread over a massive area does suggest that it broke up in mid-air which, for me, is very worrying indeed. This is all just speculation, obviously.

Thanks for the clarification about the pulsing/sound thingy, reminds me of a submarine then. Problem will be that the ships that are listening for the signal have to be fairly close to hear it.. or is it longrange?

Either way, the speculations are about a bomb, and such. There could also be possible that something other caused the plane to breake appart in air

Hope they'll find it, the people left deserves a grave to go to.

Quote from The Very End :

Either way, the speculations are about a bomb, and such. There could also be possible that something other caused the plane to breake appart in air

probably not a bomb - the oil slicks on the water indicate that there wasn't actually an explosion

brings me back to my theory that lightning damaged the fuselage and then the violent turbulence combined with the weakened plane to literlaly rip it apart in mid air....not pleasant at all

Quote from The Very End :

But how high is this sound? Probally something that canot be heared by human ears, but there must be a limit on this? If it's deep down in the ocean there must be like a million things that can disturb this sound

It's a 1 Hz signal, when the beacon makes contact with water, the water acts as a switch and starts the operation of the beacon. The beacon is (normally) mounted on the side of the cockpit voice/data recorder, I'm not sure of it's output power. It won't be a lot becuase the battery is only about the size (in fact it probably is exactly the size) of a 'D' type battery (LR20 to those of you younger than me). So range won't be massive, in the order of a few miles.

The problem with that is that the plane might be 5-6 miles down at the bottom of the Atlantic, so a) how do you hear a beacon which can't transmit to the surface and b) even if you did find it, how are you going to recover the box? Only very specialised robotic submarines and diving bells can go that deep I would imagine.

Like Dan said, the battery life is in the order of a few weeks, so time is of the essence to work out it's location from the clues they have - which are it's last recorded position when it signalled the electrical fault, and the debris they have found. There are smart people (oceanographers) who can work out the prior position of the debris, by looking back over the movements of ocean currents in the last few days. 'Timecasting' is the technique they use I believe.

Still, the odds of recovery of the flight data recorderhave got to be fairly slim.

Quote from Joe_Keaveney :

The problem with that is that the plane might be 5-6 miles down at the bottom of the Atlantic, so a) how do you hear a beacon which can't transmit to the surface and b) even if you did find it, how are you going to recover the box? Only very specialised robotic submarines and diving bells can go that deep I would imagine.

Indeed. The beacon range is somewhere around 2½mile and thats probably in perfect conditions. They say the sea around its last known position is around 14,000ft so its really pushing it to the limit.

http://www.pprune.org/rumours- ... ssing-35.html#post4971379

Quote :

Max detection range would theoretically be in the order of 4000 meters, but in case of the Adam Air B734 actual TPL detection of the ULB's was only within a 500 meter range.

The Adam Air B734 was a Boeing 737-400, it's been out of production since 2000 so it probably had older underwater locator beacon (ULB) technology installed. Datasheets have output power and frequency listed (like in the last link below), I dunno but perhaps it's possible to calculate the theoretical maximum range or something, but I suppose it also depends a lot on the environment conditions and the hydrophones used. I'm going to go ahead and pull a random number out of my butt: roughly 1 mile.

Also found this an interesting read:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/black-box.htm/printable
http://www.l-3ar.com/PDF_Files/MKT047_FA2100CVDR.pdf

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8083474.stm

Wonder if they will find it...

Quote from The Very End :

Wonder if they will find it...

seems unlikely they'll find anything major, they have found stuff confirmed to belong to it...if that oil slick was from a ship or something that brings back in the possibility of an explosion too