Breaking News Thread

[Colorado700R]

New Buddhist motto...."Do no harm, but feel free to hang yourself"

[Peelz]

New Buddhist motto...."Do no harm, but feel free to hang yourself"

Post of the day! 

"the noose is mightier than the gun"

[dragonz]

New Buddhist motto...."Do no harm, but feel free to hang yourself"

Post of the day! 

"the noose is mightier than the gun"

so this is now the "breaking noose thread"

[Colorado700R]

New Buddhist motto...."Do no harm, but feel free to hang yourself"

Post of the day! 

"the noose is mightier than the gun"

so this is now the "breaking noose thread"

Hmm, this all happened in Thailand


I think the poor bastard had a post sexual adam's apple discovery

[Krandall]

This is sad

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090605/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_plane
French, Brazilians still on hunt for downed Airbus

PARIS – French and Brazilian search teams have found no debris confirmed to have come from the Airbus A330 that vanished over the Atlantic, officials said Friday.

Confusion broke out after Brazilian officials said Thursday that a helicopter had plucked from the sea an airplane cargo pallet from the Air France flight — only to retract the claim hours later.

France's Transportation Minister, Dominique Bussereau, suggested Friday that searchers were back to square one in the hunt for Flight 447 bound from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, which went down off Brazil late Sunday.

"French authorities have been saying for several days that we have to be extremely prudent," Bussereau told France's RTL radio. "Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing."

A French Defense Ministry official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said French teams "cannot precisely confirm the zone where the plane went down."

Also Friday, Brazil's Air Force was flying designated relatives of victims Friday from Rio de Janeiro to the military's search command post in the northeastern city of Recife so they could tour the operation and ask questions. Recife has a large air force base where debris and any human remains will be brought after being picked up at sea.

The pallet Brazilian officials initially said came from the plane pallet was made of wood, and the plane was not carrying wooden pallets, Brazilian Air Force Gen. Ramon Cardoso told reporters. He did not say where the pallet might have come from.

"So far, nothing from the plane has been recovered," Cardoso said.

Cardoso said a large oil slick spotted by search plane pilots was not from the Airbus, but that another slick of kerosene found may have been from the downed passenger jet.

"The oil was not from the plane because there wasn't oil of that quantity (on the plane) to cause that slick," he said.

Bussereau called the false finding of debris by the Brazilian teams "bad news ... We would have preferred that it had come from the plane and that we had some information," he said.

Bussereau said the search must continue and stressed that the priority was finding the flight recorders. The plane went down with 228 people on board in the world's worst aviation disaster since 2001.

French officials stopped short of criticizing their Brazilian counterparts.

"Brazilian authorities first indeed hoped to have found parts of the plane, then unfortunately, arriving in the area, realized it wasn't the case," said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier. "Unfortunately that can happen."

French Defense Minister Herve Morin and the Pentagon have said there no signs that terrorism was involved, but Morin declined to rule out the possibility.

From the start of the investigation, "I've said we can't exclude terrorism," Morin told reporters Friday. "We have no element which allows us to corroborate that."

"The inquiry that is taking place has never excluded this thesis," he said.

Brazil's defense minister said the possibility was never considered.

Investigators are looking into whether malfunctions in instruments used to determine airspeed may have led the plane to be traveling at the wrong speed when it encountered turbulence from towering thunderstorms over the Atlantic.

Two aviation industry officials told The Associated Press on Thursday that investigators were studying the possibility that an external probe that measures air pressure may have iced over. The probe feeds data used to calculate air speed and altitude to onboard computers. Another possibility is that sensors inside the aircraft reading the data malfunctioned.

If the instruments were not reporting accurate information, the jet could have been traveling too fast or too slow as it hit turbulence from violent thunderstorms, according to the officials.

Jetliners need to be flying at just the right speed when encountering violent weather, experts say — too fast and they run the risk of breaking apart. Too slow, and they can lose control.

European planemaker Airbus has sent an advisory to all operators of the A330 reminding them of how to handle the plane in conditions similar to those experienced by Flight 447, which was an Airbus A330-200 version.

Airbus spokesman Justin Dubon said the planemaker sent a reminder of A330 operating procedures to airlines late Thursday after the French agency investigating the crash said the doomed flight had faced turbulent weather and inconsistency in the speed readings by different instruments. That meant "the air speed of the aircraft was unclear," Dubon said.

In such circumstances, flight crews should maintain thrust and pitch and — if necessary — level off the plane and start troubleshooting procedures as detailed in operating manuals, Dubon said.

Meteorologists said the Air France jet entered an unusual storm with 100 mph (160 kph) updrafts that acted as a vacuum, sucking water up from the ocean. The moist air rushed up to the plane's high altitude, where it quickly froze in minus-40 degree temperatures. The updrafts also would have created dangerous turbulence.

The jetliner's computer systems ultimately failed, and the plane broke apart likely in midair as it crashed into the Atlantic on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris Sunday night.

But investigators will have little to go on until they recover the plane's "black box" flight data and voice recorders, now likely on the ocean floor miles beneath the surface.

[Peelz]

   damn.

[Krandall]

I know, talk about a slap to the face. here' they were thinkin they found it all... and now back to looking for the entire plane.

[Flynbyu]

I don't think they will be able to recover the aircraft......It's in 12,000 feet of water minimum.

~Brian

[Krandall]

sad.. 228 people 

[Flynbyu]

The A330 is comparable to the size of Boeing's 777.

Very large aircraft.

~Brian

[Krandall]

Maybe you can shed some light on this for me Brian...

how do you lose an aircraft in this day and age? Aren't all fflights tracked via radar? so they should have some sort of last known location? or what makes this so difficult?

[Flynbyu]

Maybe you can shed some light on this for me Brian...

how do you lose an aircraft in this day and age? Aren't all fflights tracked via radar? so they should have some sort of last known location? or what makes this so difficult?

You are tracked via transponder.....When you ask for permission to taxi to the active, the tower will assign you a transponder number....Cessna 204, taxiway Alpha, hold short runway 7 SQUAWK 2700. At that time you would repeat instructions, and set your transponder to "2700". That will identify you to ground and ATC.  This number stays with you....until you change centers (ie-Minneapolis center, Dallas, Memphis) as you fly cross country. ATC will assign you a new number to track you as you change centers. When you are flying in the type of aircraft I fly, you can see it when you get pinged by radar. A yellow light flight flash or get brighter. Now if you CHANGE the transponder frequency, they will loose track of you and you will not be identified. You will be seen, but not identified. If you are highjacked, set transponder to 7500 and when you get pinged, you can be assured the military would be along side of you in minutes.

1200 is used in non-air controlled traffic, as a visual flight rule squawk....you need not not change it unless you are entering controlled airspace, and ATC assignes you a number. You must change it per ATC instruction.

The Airbus A330 is a fly by wire aircraft. No cables to rudders, etc. It's all electronic. It's all computerized, so it has several computers on board to back each one up in a failure. I've never heard of a complete failure. If you do loose power, there is a generator that pops out of the side of the aircraft, and turns an air driven turbine to power the system, so all the bases are covered. ATC can pinpoint the last location of the broadcast of the flight, which will get search and rescue close, but when you're at FL350, and at 500 mph, even at a high rate of descent you're still going to travel 50-100 miles from the last transmission. You can't descend too fast because it would rip the wings off at more than 10,000 feet per minute. When you get to VNE (Velocity NEVER EXCEED) speed, it's VERY dangerous. The aircraft could break apart and I think that's happened in this case. It became a lawn dart into the ocean tragically.

~Brian

There are

[Peelz]

Lawn Dart? not sure I will ever fly again...thanks.

[Flynbyu]

Lawn Dart? not sure I will ever fly again...thanks.

If they had a loss of cabin pressure as reported by the aircraft's computers, you have a very short time to get to 10,000 AGL.

~Brian

[Flynbyu]

RECIFE, Brazil – An Air France memo to its pilots Friday about the crash of Flight 447 said the airline is replacing instruments that help measure airspeed on all its medium- and long-haul Airbus jets.

Investigators have focused on incorrect speed readings as one potential factor in the crash.

With Brazil and France disagreeing about whether pieces of the jet have even been found in the Atlantic, investigators are using the last messages sent by the plane to determine the cause and try to avoid future disasters.

Air France declined to comment on the memo obtained by The Associated Press, saying it was for pilots only.

Airbus said the matter was part of the investigation into the crash that killed 228 people flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris Sunday. The Bureau of Investigation and Analysis, which is leading the French probe of the crash, said it would address all questions at a Saturday news conference.

The memo sent Friday said Air France has been replacing instruments known as Pitot tubes and will finish in "coming weeks." It does not say when the replacement process started.

The plane's "black boxes" may be miles below the surface and investigators are looking for clues in the messages sent from the plane's computers just before it disappeared. One theory: the outside probes that feed speed sensors may have iced over, giving incorrect information to the plane's computers. The autopilot may have then directed the plane to fly too fast or too slow when it met turbulence from towering thunderstorms.

Airbus sent an advisory to airlines late Thursday reminding them how to handle the A330 in similar conditions.

The memo sent by Air France Friday says that a series of actions to reduce the risks of loss of airspeed information are being reinforced by "notably, the improvement of pitot models on Airbus' fleet of medium- and long-haul flights."

"On this topic, a program of replacing pitots with new models is under way," the memo reads. "It should be completed in coming weeks."

Pitot tubes are L-shaped metal tubes — about eight inches (20 centimeters) long on their longer side — that protrude from the wing or fuselage of a plane. The pressure of the air entering the tube lets sensors measure the speed and angle of the flight, along with less vital information like outside air temperature.

They are heated to prevent icing.

A blocked or malfunctioning Pitot tube could cause an airspeed sensor to work incorrectly and cause the computer controlling the plane to accelerate or decelerate in a potentially dangerous fashion.

Airbus said the French agency investigating the crash found that the doomed flight had faced turbulent weather and inconsistency in the speed readings by different instruments.

That meant "the measured air speed of the aircraft was unclear," Justin Dubon said.

In such circumstances, flight crews should maintain thrust and pitch and — if necessary — level off the plane and start troubleshooting, Dubon said.

Meteorologists said the Air France jet entered an unusual storm with 100 mph (160 kph) updrafts that acted as a vacuum, sucking water up from the ocean. The moist air rushed up to the plane's high altitude, where it quickly froze in minus-40 degree temperatures. The updrafts also would have created dangerous turbulence.

The jetliner's computer systems ultimately failed, and the plane likely broke apart in midair.

Brazilian officials have insisted for three days that military pilots have spotted wreckage from Flight 447 scattered across the ocean's surface. Air Force Brig. Gen. Ramon Cardoso again expressed confidence Friday that at least some of the objects — an airplane seat, a slick of kerosene and other pieces — are from the plane that vanished Sunday with 228 people on board.

"This is the material that we've seen that really was part of the plane," Cardoso said.

But ships guided by planes in the search area have been hampered by extremely poor visibility, and have recovered no wreckage. "We don't have any information yet that any of the ships are near any of the objects," Cardoso said.

The only piece retrieved so far, a cargo pallet, turned out to be sea garbage. Like other suspicious objects, it had to be hauled up and checked out, said Brazilian Navy Adm. Edson Lawrence.

French officials stopped short of criticizing their Brazilian counterparts, but France's Transportation Minister Dominique Bussereau said his own country's searchers have found no signs of the Airbus A330.

"French authorities have been saying for several days that we have to be extremely prudent," Bussereau told France's RTL radio. "Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing."

A French Defense Ministry official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, also questioned the Brazilian claims, saying French teams "cannot precisely confirm the zone where the plane went down."

Cardoso also said a large oil slick spotted by search plane pilots was not from the Airbus, but that authorities believe another slick of kerosene was probably from the downed passenger jet.

France is sending a submarine to the zone where the plane is thought to have gone down to detect signals from the two black boxes, said military spokesman Christophe Prazuck. The Emeraude, already in the Atlantic, will arrive next week, he said. The vessel, which can dive up to 980 feet (300 meters) is to be used to help try to detect the signals noises from the boxes — believed to be up to 13,100 feet (4,000 meters) underwater. It will try to capture the acoustic signals, which can last 30 days, Prazuck said.

The Pentagon has said there are no signs terrorism was involved. Brazil's defense minister said the possibility was never considered. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner agreed that there is no evidence supporting a "terrorism theory," but said "we cannot discard that for now."

Brazil's Air Force was flying relatives of victims to the search command post in the northeastern city of Recife Friday to tour the operation and ask questions. Recife has a large air force base where debris and any human remains would be brought.



Great job Pentagon....as if we didn't already know that.

~Brian