Air France 447

[Radi K]

If an airline can't track it's aircraft via GPS/ACARS at all times I have to say I'm a little worried. The aircraft sends a constant signal of its location to ground stations (apart from Radar or CPDLC) right? It sends this data along with engine trend data and the like I'm sure? What about the ELT?

That being the case, if the aircraft has gone down, surely they can get a pretty idea of its location, even if it did deviate off track?

Just thinking out loud, very sad. Hope it's not another A330 internal systems issue like some people have suggested. With these types of over water accidents it's usually a long and protracted investigation that requires much time to establish exactly what happened. Let's hope the recorders are found intact. Although that would be unlikely.

CNN suggested an issue as the aircraft crossed the inter tropical convergence zone (ITZ). Aircraft cross this area everyday and I haven't heard of such severe turbulence to bring down an aircraft from it's cruising altitude. Other aircraft in the area would have surely been subjected to similar conditions if this was true.

[Adrian B]

Latest from the ever reliable and even weighted Herald sun says that the search area is around the Fernando de Noronda Islands, about 220
nautical miles off Natal, North East Brazil. Search called off until daylight. The US are joining in the search:

Herald Sun article



You will see that there is a 1.8km strip on the island, servicing main land services.
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/o...l/19023469.jpg
Picture removed and changed to link - please try not to post photos wider than about 600px directly into threads. -mod

Obviously a serious failure if the a/c could not this landfall. (Not sure if this is a suitable alternate for the type)

[Rhys Xanthis]

Originally Posted by Michael Mak

Obviously there is no way one can get mobile reception in the middle of the ocean but are the inflight phones capable of sending SMS?

They most certainly are.

I can't find any evidence on the Air France website (it's crap) of the in flight communication tools, but on QF, EK you can send SMS ($1.50US iirc on QF).

[Gabriel S.]

Apparently the texts being referenced were sent prior to the aircraft's departure.

Also reports now surfacing that the crew of a TAM flight observed "points of orange light" in the Atlantic near the location in question.

[David Ramsay]

ACARS uses VHF so it has the same limitations as VHF voice transmissions.

[Tim C]

Dave et al,

ACARS (aswell as SELCAL) can be coupled to SATCOM when out of VHF coverage but not sure what happened in this case.

[Adrian B]

Further to my post, it has been reported that the last radar contact for this flight was on Fernando de Noronda radar.

[matthew mcdonald]

Debris has reportedly been sighted by a French freighter around the area that it is said to have dissapeared in.

From News.com

The sighting by the crew on the Douce France is said to be in the same area off the coast of Senegal where a Brazil TAM airline pilot spotted what was thought to be a burning piece of wreckage.

Brazilian carrier TAM said the crew of one of its planes saw "bright spots" on the surface of the ocean. The sighting took place at about the same time that Air France Flight 447 vanished from radar

[Geoff W]

With such "quoted" severe messages having been relayed from the aircraft, is it possible that the flight recorders have continued to operate normally under such conditions?

Of course they need to be recovered first.

A very sad day for aviation.

Kind regards,

Geoff

[Raymond Rowe]

The pingers on the CVR and FDR will ping for about 30 days.They will certainly be looking to locate them ASAP.