GlamFM
Banned
It never slowed down though - so I guess not.
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A320 Crash in Southern France
- Thread starter itsgreen
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It never slowed down though - so I guess not.
UnluckyKate
Member
no. First thing you learn is that when you do an emergency descent, you turn 90 degree left or right, because these are very busy sky roads and there could be someone behind or right under you, so you have to brake of your trajectory.
Plane never slowed down. Plane didn't nor barely changed its nose pitch. No, it wasn't trying to land. It dive down straight from 36 000 feet to that mountain, under 10 minutes.
The plane stayed perfectly one course all along. I guess the pilot couldn't do a thing. That plus radio silence : probable quick cockpit decompression. But who knows yet.
Yeah, I've been on a plane where one engine failed to start on the ground, so the crew decided to push-start the engine during lift-off. Worked fine, we got off the ground and the second engine started. It wasn't fun for those who were afraid of flying though.
Airplanes are generally very robust pieces of machinery and can cope with most situations safely.
I just checked in to my flight to Düsseldorf. It'll be interesting to see if this crash has affected the mood on the airport there.
Smells like BS.
No safe airline would try start it during take off, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work and they stop the flight and not hope they can get it working after. Who did this? Also if the engine can't start by itself on the ground with APU power there's something even more seriously wrong.
Edit: They also do safety checks before take off on engine parameters, oil pressure, temperatures, idle speeds and such, even before take off they will spool the engines up to a set rpm before going to take-off speed.
BBQMan
Member
Thats not a huge issue because those Airliners are designed to fly on one engine if need be.
GlamFM
Banned
Mood in the entire city is affected - felt it on the subway this morning.
Was taking a shower when my bullshit alarm went off... apparently it was for this.
Yeah. That doesn't happen.
Care to elaborate on why the didn't use their oxygen masks, why they had to disconnect the autopilot, why they descended to less than 10.000 feet, why they didn't change their heading and why they didn't contact ATC or at least change their squawk?
GlamFM
Banned
My use of the world "could" is key.
DrROBschiz
Member
Exactly.... only thing I can think of is that the decompression happened fast
But even then they should have had sufficient time to put on their masks
Naked Snake
Member
Because physics. Can't avoid wear in systems of moving parts, and with a large enough sample (number of planes in operation around the world) and economic factors (a drive to minimize maintenance and other costs) there will always be a number of systems that will fail mid-air. And system failure in an airplane is far more consequential and dangerous than say in a car or a boat due to altitudes and speeds involved.
Yeah, and I'm saying that it doesn't make sense.
GlamFM
Banned
Feel free to come up with a better theory.
I honestly feel like this one is the only one that somehow connects everything we know.
Another thing I´ve been thinking about is a broken windscreen.
Any thoughts on that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_5390
The opposite of that, if it happened slow is that you end up not actually capable of knowing what is happening or doing anything about it until it's too late. Though I'm not sure what kind of sensors the cabin has for slow loss of pressurization/errors.
What's the point in coming up with a theory that doesn't answer some of the most basic questions?
I'm not saying hypoxia is completely unimaginable, but it really doesn't fit what we know so far because nothing about this seems standard procedure for a loss of cabin pressure. Even the rate of descent is too low.
At this point, it could be anything, even deliberate action.
Not per flight, only per crash, or at least per dangerous event. It can be configured to only transmit data in the case of an emergency - obviously, codifying what constitutes an emergency is hard, so I don't know how often false positives occur. Still, if it was wired up to only start sending on cabine depressurisation or squawk 7700, it would already be worth it in my mind.
However, that doesn't take into account the cost of the unit or the maintenance required to keep it functional. Which will add up over time and with the size of the fleet of a typical airline. A meager 3k per emergency data burst is nothing, but it's not the only cost incurred by such a system.
I'll be going on a family vacation where we'll all fly over the Mediterranean Sea in a few weeks, and an - extremely unlikely, basically impossible - crash could strand us right in the middle of nowhere with rescue parties scouring vast areas because they only have a vague understanding of where we touched down... Heck, make it twenty bucks per passenger and trip. I'd pay that for our entire family just for the tiny boost in survivability in case of an emergency, however unlikely it may be in the first place. My dad has a weak heart, there's the three kids of my step sis and her partner, not to mention they're all people I hold dear. If all an emergency system did was get rescue teams to the location one single minute sooner I would consider it a great investment.
Oh well.
Ok, I'll backpedal a bit. This was well in the last decade, on Brussels airport with SAS. The human memory is a fickle thing, and as soon as you told me that's suspect, I really didn't give it much thought how I interpreted the situation.
The captain announced that the engine had problems starting (the flight was late), and although we were moving there was a possibility we'd have to go back. "Push-start" was one thing we interpreted what the pilot was talking about. Though, none of us had real knowledge of the inner working of airliners then (or now).
I sense a conspiracy theory coming in 3 ... 2 .... 1 ....
GlamFM
Banned
The fuck? I'm saying it could be almost anything, including hypoxia, but there's nothing about this that screams "It this!" or "It's that!". Maybe they did loose consciousness and, for some reason, only could initiate a "normal" decent instead of an emergency decent but if that's the case, there would have had to be additional factors because a loss of cabin pressure usually doesn't end this way.
RoninChaos
Member
Normally I'm not phased by this kind if thing and have no issue flying. But my wife, son and I are flying to an island next weekend and all I can think about is flight 370. Then I see this. Hope our plane isn't an airbus.
hobblygobbly
Member
Fjolle
Member
The important part (the memory bank) is the "round" thing, which seems fine.
UnluckyKate
Member
They are. They should resist crushing depth, blazing fire, catastrophic crash...
Expert on BFM just said " sure it looks damaged, but from here, I don't see why it couldn't be analysed "
BEA will make a statement in 3 hours. Don't expect much information or details. All these will be locked under the investigation protection.
Klappdrachen
Member
There have been cases where CVRs/FDRs looked even worse, but were still holding all of the data. They are made to withstand extreme forces. BEA will probably be able to salvage everything they need.
And like I say to everyone that says this stupid shit: I don't care. Being in a metal tube where I have no control of shit happening/plunging to my death? That's scary as hell, no matter how "rare" a thing it is.
This shit is why I have an irrational fear of flying and try to avoid it as much as I can.
luso said:
Hell of an impact. That's probably the first "blackbox" I've seen that is nearly flattened.
DrROBschiz
Member
Only the round part of the CVR is supposed to withstand a crash, the rest isn't.
UnluckyKate
Member
Indeed. I hope they will recover the other one soon, but looking at the military looking through the crash site, it looks like tons of some pieces, piling up in very deep and narrow ridges... Will be long and hard to excavate and salvage the orange box
update: Spain' authorities just reported and confirmed 49 Spanish victims (so far), also Spanish police investigating and tracking some Twitter accounts regarding the horrible, full of hate comments when first news of the accident came. Authors can face jail time according to law.
Jezbollah
Member
With 6600 A320 series aircraft around the world, it might just be.
And you'll be fine.
maquiladora
Member
That's the voice recorder. The part with the memory boards looks fine.
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
or a boeing. because you know, the missiles and disappearing flights....
UnluckyKate
Member
Man, the testimony of the people on the crash site are heart breaking : " There is nothing left to see, you can't even see a plane." When asked about bodies, his face closed. " The biggest body part we came across was no bigger than a luggage. "
You and your family will be safe. Planes are ridiculously overengineered and flown by experienced professionals, and no amount of fretting on your part will change that. You're more likely to have an accident while driving to the airport (bus/train/car) than to experience a plane crash, and even if you're unlucky to the extreme and do experience a plane crash you are quite likely to come out with a few bruises, tops. Just chillax, enjoy the flight, and have fun on the island.
If it helps, my dad and his wife flew halfway across the globe to Thailand a few years ago. Cheap as fuck airline, extremely uncomfortable, crap service, dodgy-looking plane. No problem, though. What nearly killed them both was a youngster driving his uncle somewhere in his Jeep that t-boned their (brand new) transfer bus to the hotel. My dad nearly bled out after getting his legs mauled and my stepmom nearly impaled her head on a metal fragment and had her face slashed by various glass and metal bits. They spent most of their vacation in the hospital and then flew back with the crappy airline, again without issues.
Bonus irony of fate: They had kept quiet about the accident so as not to bother their kids, and removed or covered as much of the wounds as possible when I picked them up at the airport. I swear on my life, I was close to passing out and crashing them yet again while I drove them home when the realisation hit me what had happened.
The amount of stupid assholes saying not enough people died on the crash, or complaining that their favourite show was not on the air because they were covering the accident and they didn't give a shit about no plane crash...
My country's future looks bad.
This country is full of retards, thank god for twitter, that way we can identify them quickly.
StoppedInTracks
Member
Holy shit. 27 tons of metal just disintegrated. Incredible.
My heart goes out to the friends and family of all involved.
I won't go into any speculation about the why's and where-fors until more is known.
I was about 13 hours into a 23 hour long haul flight when it happened, a few hours before landing in Dubai from Sydney enroute to London.
I am sure our pilots and crew would have known, which would explain the morose atmosphere on the plane, especially as our route from Dubai took us quite close to the crash site, but the passengers on our flight didn't actually find out until we landed in London this morning.
I won't go into any speculation about the why's and where-fors until more is known.
I was about 13 hours into a 23 hour long haul flight when it happened, a few hours before landing in Dubai from Sydney enroute to London.
I am sure our pilots and crew would have known, which would explain the morose atmosphere on the plane, especially as our route from Dubai took us quite close to the crash site, but the passengers on our flight didn't actually find out until we landed in London this morning.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
If there were any politicians or businessmen on the plane then I expect at least a 5000 word Wikipedia page.
Insane Metal
Member
Wow those pictures of the crash site are insane. There's nothing left. I can't wait to find out what actually happened.
Ollie Pooch
In a perfect world, we'd all be homersexual
Can only hope hypoxia, and not some kind of control failure because the thought of all those people being aware of their own descent at speed into a mountain is completely horrifying.
I'm not sure how it is internationally, but German media repeatedly and deliberately stresses how helpful and selfless the local populace is, offering to house families of victims in their own homes and generally going the extra mile. Suffice it to say my impression of the French has gained a considerable boost in recent days.
I doubt any of those people read gaf, but I still feel the need to thank them all from the bottom of my heart on the off chance one of them gets to see it. Thank you. I'm not affected, nor are any of my friends or family, but it means a lot to me that you are opening your hearts and homes to those grief-stricken families in their time of need. I wish we Germans eventually get to repay you in kind - hopefully at a more joyful occasion.
I doubt any of those people read gaf, but I still feel the need to thank them all from the bottom of my heart on the off chance one of them gets to see it. Thank you. I'm not affected, nor are any of my friends or family, but it means a lot to me that you are opening your hearts and homes to those grief-stricken families in their time of need. I wish we Germans eventually get to repay you in kind - hopefully at a more joyful occasion.
Broken or torn off windscreen is one of the latest theories. That would explain no action from the pilots, but it is strange that explosive decompression did not appear in that case (that would torn plane into pieces)
The Dutch Slayer
Member
That seams fine, because its made to be recovered after a crash.
Very interested to know what happened :O
Ugh, flight data recorder also seems to be found but is severly damaged. Data storage card is missing...
https://twitter.com/airlivenet
https://twitter.com/airlivenet
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