liandrajade I am THE Pocket Ninja farmingdale ny

# 11

can anyone verify that these automated messages relay this information or does anyone have working knowledge of the airbus 330-200 software systems? if thats true, why was there a delay in responding to the messages from the aircraft? were they not considered dangerous or was no one monitoring the incoming messages? and when these "automated messages" are received by the system in whatever base of operations, shouldnt certain items throw up a red flag and an engineer or someone be notified?

i'd like to know what the process is, i dont know how that could have helped the poor souls aboard that ship but perhaps the response time could have been shorter and the possibility of finding any survivors would might have existed

liandrajade I am THE Pocket Ninja farmingdale ny

# 12

ANOTHER UPDATE REGARDING FLIGHT 447

Brazil Crash Black Boxes May Be Lost By FEDERICO ESCHER and EMMA VANDORE, AP
posted: 20 MINUTES

FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil (June 3) - Military planes and ships struggled through high seas and heavy winds Wednesday as they searched for the bobbing wreckage of an Air France jet in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, while an investigator said the plane's black boxes may never be found.
Rescue boats from several nations were sailing toward the site to start the recovery as aviation experts tried to determine why the plane carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on Sunday night ended up in the sea.

The black boxes vital to understanding what happened to the doomed Air France flight that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean may never be found, an official said Wednesday. The wreckage stretches three miles across the ocean. The jet, bound for Paris from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, carried 228 people. Here, a French soldier takes part in the search above the Atlantic Ocean Tuesday.

An airplane seat, a fuel slick, an orange lifevest and pieces of white debris were spotted Tuesday in the ocean about 400 miles northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.

The floating debris is spread out in two areas about 35 miles apart, not far off the flight path of Flight 447. Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said no bodies had been found and there was no signs of life.

Four boats and a tanker ship are en route to the scene but Brazil's lack of equipment to scour the ocean floor was a problem, a navy spokeswoman said Wednesday. Brazil was leading the search for wreckage, while France took charge of the crash investigation.

"The seas in the area are high, and that is slowing the arrival of our ships," she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We have four divers on the way, but the first of them will not get to the scene until midday Thursday."
The official said if the black boxes are at the bottom of the sea — three miles deep in some nearby areas — there was nothing the Brazil navy could do as they do not have the special remotely controlled subs needed to withstand the pressure at the ocean's bottom.

"We'll really only be able to carry out recovery efforts on the surface of the sea," the official said. "If the black boxes have sunk, we don't have the equipment to look for them."

The black boxes — voice and data recorders — are built to last 30 days underwater.


In Paris, the head of France's accident investigation agency, Paul-Louis Arslanian, said he was "not optimistic" that rescuers could even recover the plane's black boxes.

Arslanian said if rescuers don't find the black boxes, investigators should be prepared to continue the probe without them.

"I am not so optimistic. It is not only deep, it is also mountainous," he said. "We might find ourselves blocked at some point by the lack of material elements."

The reason for the crash remains unclear, with fierce thunderstorms, lightning or a catastrophic combination of causes as possible theories. France's defense minister and the Pentagon have said there were no signs that terrorism was involved.

The crew made no distress call before the crash, but the plane's system sent an automatic message just before it disappeared, reporting lost cabin pressure and electrical failure.

French military spokesman Christophe Prazuck said the naval recovery operation will start on the surface, then could turn to the use of submarines to help find the black boxes.

The effort is expected to be exceedingly challenging. Storm season is starting in the zone and low visibility hampered rescue efforts Tuesday. Water depths in the area sink down to 22,950 feet.

Remotely controlled submersible crafts will have to be used to recover wreckage settling so far beneath the ocean's surface. France dispatched a research ship equipped with unmanned submarines that can explore as deeply as 19,600 feet.


A U.S. Navy P-3C Orion surveillance plane — which can fly low over the ocean for 12 hours at a time and has radar and sonar designed to track submarines underwater — and a French AWACS radar plane were joining the operation Wednesday.

Arslanian told a news conference at Le Bourget airport north of Paris that in the absence of black box data right now, investigators were studying the plane's maintenance and other records.

"For the moment, there is no sign that would lead us to believe that the aircraft had a problem before it took off," he said.
He stressed the investigation was only beginning and was likely to last long. He said investigators didn't have enough information to determine whether the plane broke up in the air or upon impact with the sea.
"We don't even know the exact time of the accident," he said.
Asked whether the chief pilot was in the cockpit when the plane went down, Arslanian said, "We don't have for the time being the answer." Pilots on long-haul flights often take turns at the controls to remain alert.
Skip over this content Investigators are working with Air France, Airbus and meteorologists to determine what happened. A key possibility is some sort of collision with a brutal tropical storm in the area that sent winds of 100 mph (160 kph) straight into the airliner's path.
The man in charge of the investigation, Alain Bouillard, said Wednesday the accident investigation agency, known by its French acronym BEA, would submit its first preliminary report by the end of June.

Towering Atlantic storms are common this time of year near the equator — an area known as the intertropical convergence zone. But veteran pilots said it was extremely unlikely that Flight 447's crew intended to punch through a killer storm.

"Nobody in their right mind would ever go through a thunderstorm," said Tim Meldahl, a pilot who has flown internationally for 26 years. "If they were trying to lace their way in and out of these things, they could have been caught by an updraft."

If no survivors are found, it would be the deadliest crash in Air France's history, and the world's worst civil aviation disaster since the November 2001 crash of an American Airlines jetliner in the New York City borough of Queens that killed 265 people.

On land, hundreds of relatives grieved deeply for those who were lost, a roster that included vacationers, business people, even an 11-year-old boy traveling alone back to school in England.

Brazil began three days of national mourning Tuesday and French President Nicolas Sarkozy and relatives of the victims were attending an ecumenical service at Notre Dame later Wednesday for the crash victims.

"We will miss your dancing feet," read a tribute from the Northern Ireland family of Eithne Walls, 29, a dancer-turned-doctor. "We will miss your silliness, your wit and your hugs. We will always hold you in our hearts and you are never truly gone."

klkm Senior Member

# 13

The news says the messages were sent over a 4 minute period. I would say even if someone was flagged by such messages, which they probably were. I imagine they get sent to their dispatchers as well. I have no idea if the position is given along with those messages. Even if it was, over 4 minutes worth of messages could put the aircraft in a 40+ mile range, on or off course. With one of the messages saying an electrical failure one could suggest the plane flew without giving any more updates for some time. Sounds like the air force from Brazil came out along the route and the French sent assets back tracking the route. I would say the search went pretty well, finding the wreckage within a few days. The ocean is a pretty difficult place to search, especially when you are searching a huge grid of where the plane could have gone down. Even if you make it a small 40+ mile grid you need to look left or right of that known position, assuming with a failure they were trying to turn around. That expands your search to probably 100 miles on either side of the route. Even if you get a plane out there and find some survivors, you are now stuck with getting a boat out there, which is still going to take 3+ days. The only help would have been dropping some survival gear.

Either way, I don't think there was any chance of survival for the people on board. It will be interesting to see if they can get the black boxes and figure out what happened. My prayers go out to all the families who lost loved ones.

briefly Newcomer

# 14

OK. Thanks for your input on that one.

The point is that if the coordinates are included in those automated messages, then it is possible to work out the speed and direction that the plane was heading in. And it may well be that it had turned back towards Brazil at that point. But, as you mentioned too, perhaps no-one was looking at those messages in Paris, since officially they say the first alert they received was when the pilot failed to communicate at the next check point 50 minutes later. So that seems to confirm that the automated messages were not taken into account immediately, which is a little worrying isn't it ?

liandrajade I am THE Pocket Ninja farmingdale ny

# 15

that is very concerning, i dont what the procedures are for long range flight plans, does the pilot have to radio in with their position and relevant info at certain time intervals? or once they file their flight plan they dont have to do anything? my knowledge isnt complete by any means but i would assume that the filed flight plan includes the flight level and speed they are supposed to travel? or does that vary based on weather conditions and things of that sort?

briefly Newcomer

# 16

As far as I know, and in this particular case, there is a black hole where the pilot communicates that he/she is leaving a particular area and will re-establish contact a.s.a.p. (in this case with Cape Verde Islands about 50 minutes later). During this interval there is no possibility for the pilot to contact anyone but the automated messages continue to function via satellite. However, the alert is apparently raised only after the pilot fails to re-establish communication. At that point, presumably they look back at the automated messages and say 'Oops, it seems there was a major problem'. That's my understanding, right now.

liandrajade I am THE Pocket Ninja farmingdale ny

# 17

so going by the previous posts of briefly and rosstafari, there was a point where the pilot was able to tell atc that he was leaving such and such airpsace and to expect another contact attempt in such and such time, based on the fact that he/she knew he was going into an area with no radio signals whatsover...and assuming he was continuing his current flightplan with no problems, they would have expected him/her to radio back into contact when the a/c reached an area with communication ability? and this would have been based on altitude and flight speed?

so it would be safe to assume for example if the area you are flying over has no radio comms for 500 miles and you are traveling 320 per hour, you would have been able to calculate/estimate the time it would take to get out of the area of dead comms....and then look for contact from the flight crew...

Rosstafari Blah blah blah Seattle, Washington

# 18

Yes, that's correct.

Heh, notice that I deleted my post right after you read it... I wasn't sure if it was true for just general aviation or not. But the gist of it was that in interoceanic flight and flight over remote areas, aircraft can be in spots where ATC contact is not possible. Since the article notes that the Air France flight missed a radio call, though, they weren't into that area just yet. Still, that's not reason alone for alarm; radios fail all the time. Just not usually in big jetliners.

liandrajade I am THE Pocket Ninja farmingdale ny

# 19

why delete? i thought it was very informative....so im thinking since radio contact failing is "run of the mill" no alarms went off in anyone's head right away....and what bothers me is how fast this tradgedy happened....if the a/c was at fl 350 when whatever issues started happening, thats a loong way to fall....and wait did you say that af 447 was NOT in the radio blackout area? so youcould assume the poor pilot was trying to contact atc and if the message about the electronics not working holds true, then he would not have been able to make contact...

on airbus a/c in general, are all comms routed thru the main pc's/avionics? is there no redundency or backups like an analog signal or gps link up? i could be wrong but there are some technologies and networks like gsm that are global networks but then again i dont know how they would work at high altitude...

klkm Senior Member

# 20

Typically most Atlantic flights communications are handled by HF frequencies operated by ARINC. The most advanced planes such as this plane also have the ability to be CPDLC connected as well as have an ADSB connection. If this flight was in airspace other than where it was, such as NY Center, or Santa Maria, these systems would have been connected and there is a possibility that more info would be out there. The ADS connection is a direct link with the planes FMS and updates its position on a regular basis. If the altitude or course changes you can see if in nearly real time. I forget the exact update ratio but I think it is about every 3-5 minutes it updates. You can also request a update at any time to get the exact position/altitude. (this is purely a money issue as it costs money to send the update, so they restrict how often it happens). The CPDLC is a link from the cockpit to controllers for communication. It is basically a text message service. The CPDLC includes a function that with the push of a button the aircraft can declare an emergency. This sends out a automated message alerting the controller. The controllers screen actually flashes red around the edges to ensure you do not miss this message.

Where the flight went down is kind of like the wild wild west out there. Spotty radar, little to no communication and no advanced system for oceanic controlling that can accept CPDLC communications.