Air France 447 Reported Missing

[broompusher]

CNN reporting that AF447 from Rio De Jeneiro to Paris is missing. They were reporting it "dropped off radar" and is now 3 hours overdue.

Godspeed AF447, and to Family & Friends affected.

Edit- I realize that there is no radar environment crossing the Atlantic.*

[Sulako]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ju ... ears-radar


An Air France plane travelling from Brazil to Paris with 228 people on board has not arrived in the French capital and has vanished from radar screens, a spokeswoman for the Paris airports authority said today.

Flight AF447, an Airbus A330-200, left Rio de Janeiro at 7pm local time (2300 BST) yesterday. It had been expected to arrived in Paris at 11.15am.

The plane was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew. The French authorities have set up a crisis centre at Charles de Gaulle airport.

The Brazilian air force told the Associated Press that a search was under way near the island of Fernando de Noronha.

A spokesman said the search and rescue mission was mounted after the jet failed to make regular radio contact.

According to the French media, Paris airport authorities were informed by their Brazilian counterparts that the aircraft had vanished from the radar.

France Info radio quoted an airport authority source as saying that its absence from the radar could be a question of a transmitter failure, but that this would be very rare.

"There is much concern," the source said. "The plane disappeared off radar screens several hours ago."

Chris Yates, an aviation expert, told the BBC: "There is not radar coverage across the Atlantic because it is too far from radar stations.

"But the fact [the plane] has not appeared on radar when it neared land gives me cause for concern.

"Normally, aircraft crossing the oceans are in contant contact with traffic control, updating them with details of their route information or location.

"If there is an emergency on board, they declare that. So it is somewhat surprising that there doesn't appear to have been a warning."

He said that "if we are talking about an aircraft coming down over the ocean ... then survivability is quite limited".

David Gleave, another aviation expert, told the BBC: " We are running out of time for the plane to reappear, given the amount of fuel it had on it.

"Had it been a communcation problem, it would have appeared now on Spanish or French radar or Brazilian, had it turned around.

"The first thing is to find out where it is. It may have been reporting its position by satellite. It is very unusual that there is no location information."

The A330-200 has not had any fatal events involving passengers.

However, in June 1994, an A330 owned by Airbus on a test flight simulating an engine failure on takeoff crashed shortly after departure from Toulouse, killing all seven people on board.

In October last year, a Qantas A330 on a flight from Singapore to Perth reportedly experienced a sudden change in altitude.

The crew issued a mayday call before diverting the aircraft. About 36 passengers and crew members were injured, more than a dozen severely.

[Prairie Chicken]

It doesn't look good. News now reporting the crew reported 'an electrical short' following severe turbulence; also the a/c ACARS link is lost.

[Doc]

There are very few things that can bring a large jet down without comment. Very scary indeed. Lets all hope something goes well here, shall we? Sending out kind thoughts for all involved.

[bob sacamano]

Flight 447 is now over 4 hours late.
It certainly is not flying anymore.
Last message received was that it was hit by lightning.
Crew sent message informing company of an electrical problem after flying through thunderstorms.

Source, Air France.

Search and Rescue airplanes have taken off from Senegal's Cap Vert in search for 447.

Source, BFMTV.fr

[CAL]

Shocked to the core....
My single scariest nightmare going into the ocean at night......hard to believe an airliner of that type and size.
I have been reading recently that Brazil has been experiencing some very heavy rains and thunderstorm activity over the last few weeks.
A sad reminder to all of us that fly around this type of weather....respect it.
Thoughts and prayers to those on board and to their families.

[YHZChick]

WSII nasa june01.jpg (124.73 KiB) Viewed 15067 times

[ez4u2say]

Just checked AF web site and they seem to have absolutely no comment or info about this flight....

[YHZChick]

Air France has posted at least 2 statements, the last of which was:

Air France regrets to announce the loss of flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro - Paris-Charles de Gaulle, expected arrival this morning at 11.10 am local, as just announced to the press by the Director General of Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon.

AF447 Aircraft F-GZCP A330-200 departed Rio de Janeiro on the 31st May 2009 at 19:03 Local time (00:03 paris time).


The aircraft went through a thunderstorm with strong turbulence at 2 am (universal time) or 4:00 GMT. An automated message was received at 2:14 (4:14 GMT) indicating a failure of electrical system in a remote area off the coast.


All civilian air traffic control Brazilian, African, Spanish and french have tried in vain to make contact with the flight AF447. The french military air traffic control tried to detect the aircraft without success.

216 pax onboard, 126 men, 82 women, 7 infants and babies.

12 crew (3 pilots, 9 cabin crew)

Captain 11,000 hrs TT (1700 on Airbus A330/A340)
Copilot 3,000 hrs TT (800 on Airbus A330/A340)
Copilot 6,600 hrs TT (2600 on Airbus A330/A340)

Aircraft equipped with engines General Electric CF6-80E.


Airframe had 18,870 flight hours since commencing service on 18 April 2005.

Last visit maintenance hangar dated 16 April 2009.

[flyinthebug]

My sincere condolences to the families and friends of the pax and crew.

This is indeed a sad day in aviation.

God Speed!

Everyone else, please fly safe today!

[Rudy]

Are large airliners not tracked by satellite? There is probably a Caravan going into Cat Lake right now that is but an Airbus A330 isn't worth it? Seems strange.

[flyinthebug]

Yes Rudy they are. Air France is suggesting they received an automated message that states they had a complete electrical failure.. thus no ability to send any further electronic msgs.

That would be my guess.

[jetmech]

"Air France suffered from the Concorde disaster in 2000 and has since had a number of accidents and scares.

On July 25, 2000, all 109 passengers and crew and four people on the ground were killed when an Air France Concorde crashed near Charles de Gaulle airport. All Concordes were eventually taken out of service.

An Air France jet hit stray cows as it landed in the southern Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt in July 2005. No-one was injured.

On August 3, 2005, An Air France A340 with 309 passengers and crew on board skidded off the runway after landing in a thunder storm at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Fourteen people suffered minor injuries.

In December of the same year, an Air France Boeing 777 made an emergency landing at Irkutsk in Siberia when one of its two engines broke down on a Seoul-Paris flight. There were no casualties."

The above quote is from Yahoo News. I don't like how they can make a good airline look bad. Concorde...not there fault nor was a Cow. Engine failure? happens to the best airlines, and I know that you Pilots train for that like it's a routine event. Toronto?...pilot error I guess, correct me if I'm wrong. The media can put a nasty spin on things the general public has little to know knowledge of, and thats dangerous.

[Topspin]

Forgive my ignorance but I'm curious as to why their would be no hit from a 406 elt? I have zero experience with such systems on airliners but I always figured they should at least get something.

[ez4u2say]

Yep..just checked the web site again and its finally shown up in red....

[Rockie]

Forgive my ignorance but I'm curious as to why their would be no hit from a 406 elt? I have zero experience with such systems on airliners but I always figured they should at least get something.

If it's floating I would say yes. Unfortunately that may not be the case. Computerized flightplans are extremely accurate and reliable to within 2-3 minutes even on a 12 hour flight. The aircraft sent a maintenance message regarding the electrical fault at a specific time, so likely the search would be intitiated where the aircraft was supposed to be at the time the message was sent and proceed from there.

[ex-NWT]

Very strange indeed there are no ELT signals.
Looking at a map I would have thought they would be in contact (ADS/CPDLC) with SAL or DAKAR iso Recife or Atlantico?
Not that it matters
(the pics can be downloaded from the Gerd Puppel site and are handy to get a quick overview for enroute alts and freqs)

[invertedattitude]

If the CVR/FDR are really over 13,000 feet under which they very well could be, it will be difficult to locate them, let alone recover them

[sanjet]

That radar image is very interesting. How high would those cells be? I dont fly over the ocean, so I ask: No radar area... Is this area RVSM? What happens when you contour these big cells flying so close to other aircraft?

[Stevo226]

I can't seem to find anything on flightaware. Maybe they took that flight out?

[boeingboy]

Large airliners typically don't have a fixed ELT - Only the portable ones stored in the overhead bins.

However - with the new regs comming in, they are now starting to install fixed 406 elt's.
Personally I think it's a usless gesture as airliners are always followed by ATC, their company and strict flightplans. If anything does happen to them, either SAR is on scene immediately (pass activate the portable units or ATC notifies) or there is nothing left of it - and that would include the ELT.

[c170b53]

The FDR will have an acoustical homing beacon but you have to know where to start looking. The GPS system that sent out the acars report will have an idea as to where to look.

[YHZChick]

I can't seem to find anything on flightaware. Maybe they took that flight out?

That area is not covered by FlightAware.

[canwhitewolf]

carbon fibre and lightning is a bad combination

and troipical weather convergence as well

[L1011]

carbon fibre and lightning is a bad combination

Aeroplanes with carbon fibre parts have been struck by lightning many times before without incident.

Hoping for some good news