Air france flight from Brazil to Paris

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Well we do not know how deep the wreckage will be found. There is waters there as deep as 14,000 feet, but who knows where it lies.

Edit: Plane Crash site has been found, it looks like she is somewhere between 6000 and 9000 feet deep.

Brazil confirms Air France jet crashed in ocean

By FEDERICO ESCHER and ALAN CLENDENNING, Associated Press Writers Federico Escher And Alan Clendenning, Associated Press Writers – 21 mins ago

FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil – Brazilian military planes found a 3-mile (5-kilometer) path of wreckage in the Atlantic Ocean, confirming that an Air France jet carrying 228 people crashed in the sea, Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said Tuesday. Jobim told reporters in Rio de Janeiro that the discovery "confirms that the plane went down in that area," hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha.

He said the strip of wreckage included metallic and nonmetallic pieces, but did not describe them in detail. No bodies were spotted in the crash of the Airbus in which all aboard are believed to have died.

The discovery came just hours after authorities announced they had found an airplane seat, an orange buoy and signs of fuel in a part of the Atlantic Ocean with depths of up to three miles (4,800 meters).

Jobim said recovery of the of the plane's cockpit voice and data recorders could be difficult because of the depth of the ocean where the debris was found.

"It's going to be very hard to search for it because it could be at a depth of 2,000 meters or 3,000 meters (6,500 to 9,800 feet) in that area of the ocean," Jobim said."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/brazil_plane

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Thanks for the news Adler. Sad to hear nobody survived.

 

[The Basket]

I think this incident is so unusual that even giving a possible cause cannot be justified.

And to say the EU and Airbus will do everything to cover up the cause of the crash is pure X-files.

 

[pbfoot]

I believe they got the data recorders from about 6000ft in Air India 182

 

[syscom3]

And to say the EU and Airbus will do everything to cover up the cause of the crash is pure X-files.

Agreed.

 

[Matt308]

I suspect that all assets will be used to retrieve the recorders before the ULDs are inactive. That likely means that an international effort will be made with to even include robot devices, if needed.

 

[Stitch]

I suspect that all assets will be used to retrieve the recorders before the ULDs are inactive. That likely means that an international effort will be made with to even include robot devices, if needed.

I think they're going to have to use DSRV's; the depth of the Atlantic Ocean where the plane went down is measured in thousands, not hundreds, of feet.

 

[Burmese Bandit]

According to latest news, they are.

 

[syscom3]

Retrieving Air France black box will be epic task - Yahoo! News

Retrieving Air France black box will be epic task
By Tim Hepher and Jason Neely Tim Hepher And Jason Neely – Tue Jun 2, 3:57 pm ET

PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – The first sighting off Brazil's coast of possible wreckage from a missing Air France jet signals the start of what could be one of the most challenging operations ever mounted to retrieve the tell-tale "black box."

The box, which is in fact two separate devices containing cockpit voice recordings and instrument data, offers the best chance of finding out why the Airbus jetliner vanished in an Atlantic storm en route to Paris with 228 people on board.

The devices are designed to send homing signals when they hit water, but merely locating them presents one of the most daunting recovery tasks since the exploration of the Titanic and barring good fortune, could take months, experts said.

If they are in waters as deep as some people fear, 4,000 meters (13,100 ft) or more, unmanned submersibles would be tested to their limits. Yet past disasters have led to advances in equipment which do give hope for finding out what happened.

"There is a good chance that the recorder would survive but the main problem would be finding it," said Derek Clarke, joint managing director of Aberdeen-based Divex, which designs and builds military and commercial diving equipment.

"If you think how long it took to find the Titanic and that the debris would be smaller, you are looking for a needle in haystack. You are very quickly looking at a large area to survey and could spend months running sonars down to a deep depth."

Black boxes have an underwater beacon called a pinger which is activated when the recorder is immersed in water. The beacon can transmit from depths down to 14,000 feet, according to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

RECORD DEPTHS

Clarke spends time preparing for the unthinkable as part of an industry network on stand-by to help rescue submarines.

But the depths in this stretch of ocean far exceed the 600 meter maximum at which any navy could attempt a useful submarine rescue, a senior diving expert at Britain's Royal Navy said.

Brazil said on Tuesday its military planes had spotted wreckage 400 miles off its northern coast.

Speaking beforehand, based on reports of the plane's probable location, Neil Wells, senior lecturer in oceanography and meteorology at Britain's National Oceanography Center, said the black box could be more than 4,000 metres below the surface.

"There is no doubt about it; you will be pushing the limits of the technology. It is not a straightforward operation."

The oil industry has significant unmanned deep-sea capability but only operates down to 3,000 metres, Clarke said.

Such depths are well below the reach of manned craft.

A handful of deep-sea prowlers such as the U.S. Navy's Alvin, which surveyed the wreck of the Titanic at 4,000 metres below the Atlantic in 1986, could be equipped for such depths.

A U.S. Navy report based on similar disasters, released under the Freedom of Information Act late last year, found it was possible to recover aircraft wreckage including the black boxes from depths of up to 6,000 metres.

It cited advances since the 1980s in technology such as sonar for combing rugged sea floors, new software and acoustic beacons or "pingers" which indicate a position under water.

Both recorders were recovered from the crash of Air India Flight 182, which was blown up off the Irish coast in 1985.

They were recovered from some 2,000 metres in a search which lasted more than two weeks.

Two years later, South African Airways Flight 295 crashed into the Indian Ocean near Mauritius, triggering the deepest hunt for an airliner yet undertaken, with investigators recovering the cockpit voice recorder after a three-month search from a record depth of more than 4,200 metres.

Whatever the challenges, industry experts say the stakes are too high to give up on the search. "Not knowing would be totally unacceptable to Airbus and to aviation in general," said David Learmount, safety and operations editor of British-based aerospace magazine Flight International.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul, Helen Massy-Beresford, editing by Janet McBride)

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I am sure they are going to have use a deep submersible to retrieve. I hope they find it soon.

 

[Matt308]

NASA initial report...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Accident description
Status: Preliminary
Date: 01 JUN 2009
Type: Airbus A330-203
Operator: Air France
Registration: F-GZCP
C/n / msn: 660
First flight: 2005-02-25 (4 years 3 months)
Total airframe hrs: 18870
Engines: 2 General Electric CF6-80E1A3
Crew: Fatalities: / Occupants: 12
Passengers: Fatalities: / Occupants: 216
Total: Fatalities: / Occupants: 228
Airplane damage: Missing
Location: Atlantic Ocean ( Atlantic Ocean )
Phase: En route (ENR)
Nature: International Scheduled Passenger
Departure airport: Rio de Janeiro-Galeao International Airport, RJ (GIG/SBGL) , Brazil
Destination airport: Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG/LFPG) , France
Flightnumber: 447
Narrative:
An Air France Airbus A330-200 on transatlantic flight from Rio de Janeiro-Galeao International Airport, RJ (GIG) to Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) went missing around the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, 365 kilometers (226 miles) off the mainland.
The airplane carried 12 crew members an 216 passengers. Flight AF447 departed at 19:03 local time (May 31) with a scheduled arrival time of 11:15 local French time (June 1). The aircraft went through a thunderstorm with strong turbulence at 02:00 UTC. An automated message was delivered by 02:14 indicating a failure of the electrical system.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

More

Air France 447 - AFR447 - A detailed meteorological analysis - Satellite and weather data

 

[seesul]

They say in our news today the debris they found don´t belong to Air France Airbus and the investigation starts from the beginning again...

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Could metal fatigue have played a factor. I'm just speculating, but it might be a reason why no mayday was sent, if the plane broke up in mid flight.

 

[Erich]

Roman is correct they have found nothing except they have found something ~ the wreckage then belongs to whom or what........... ? it is still very conceivable if the jet flew right int a cell that it was torn apart and scattered into a bazillion pieces all over the ocean with nothing apparent

 

[The Basket]

This accident is just unaccountable.

it doesn't match anything I have ever read...

except for an explosive device....

 

[Maximowitz]

This accident is just unaccountable.

it doesn't match anything I have ever read...

except for an explosive device....

Doubtful. Terrorists generally like to announce that they were the cause..... nothing but silence though.

 

[Erich]

no proof yet at all what happened or how it happened, lets not go with the bomb explosion for the time being ok ?

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Roman is correct they have found nothing except they have found something ~ the wreckage then belongs to whom or what........... ? it is still very conceivable if the jet flew right int a cell that it was torn apart and scattered into a bazillion pieces all over the ocean with nothing apparent

So I guess the search area will be large, yes?

Is it true that the black boxes have a transponder, that can last for 30 days?

 

[Torch]

Airbus is telling pilots that they will have new instrumentation in their medium and long range planes, could of been malfunction of actual speed indication .