Air France Jet Missing Off Brazil Coast

[FireDrgn]

Its possible..... but don't Terrorist claim responsibility.......  If someone or more go to this much trouble  they generaly make it known that Hey look at me I did this....

[Denholm]

I have to agree with FireDrgn. If the accident were caused by a terrorist organization aiming to destroy that plane sometime in-flight over the ocean, that same organization would have claimed responsibility by now.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

In fact I'm surprised nobody did now that they brought the possibility to public.

It's like a free suicide bombing - get the credit without actually doing anything.

[CAP1]

In fact I'm surprised nobody did now that they brought the possibility to public.

It's like a free suicide bombing - get the credit without actually doing anything.

r perhaps, if it were one of these groups, possibly they've discovered, that it could be more effective to keep quiet, and let people worry more?

[MrBill]

"Final Destination" ya just can't cheat death.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525835,00.html

[F111]

What  do you think of this?
The aircraft, which left from Posadas and was headed to Buenos Aires, was forced to divert towards Fray Bentos to avoid a storm. Examination of the aircraft's black box revealed that shortly after this diversion, the aircraft's airspeed began to fall to an alarmingly slow velocity. In response, the pilots repeatedly increased power to the turbines in order to maintain velocity. Seeing no improvement in the aircraft's airspeed, the pilots then contacted the control tower in Ezeiza Airport and requested clearance to descend to a lower altitude. After receiving no response, the pilots lowered the aircraft's wing slats to maintain their altitude and lower the plane's stall speed. When lowering the slats however, one of them was torn from the aircraft, causing catastrophic asymmetry in the air flow over the wings. The plane immediately became uncontrollable and crashed.
Austral Líneas Aéreas 2553, better known as Austral 2553 is the name of an Douglas DC-9 aircraft of Austral Líneas Aéreas, registered as LV-WEG [1] which crashed in Fray Bentos, Uruguay, on October 10, 1997. All 74 passengers and crew were killed on impact.

[strong10]

forgive me for my lack of knowledge with aeroplanes and flights,

But if an airliner suffered engine failure would it be able to glide gentley down like other planes?

Yes, a 767 did it after the crew ran it out of fuel due to a 'minor miscalculation!'  The "Gimli Glider"  They heard a loud "BONG" from the computer which they never heard before and the engines quit.  They went for the engines out checklist and found there was none since both engines shouldn't quit at the same time.  The flight computer shut down since it was powered by the engines.  They had about a 12:1 glide ratio which is pretty good and ended up landing on an old military runway which was converted to a racetrack unknown to the pilots.  Nobody was injured in the landing.  The successful landing was attributed to the pilot who was also a glider pilot.           





They sent out some mechanics to fix the nose gear(Who also ran out of gas getting there, lol) and it flew off the track 2 days later. 

[MrRiplEy[H]]

What  do you think of this?
The aircraft, which left from Posadas and was headed to Buenos Aires, was forced to divert towards Fray Bentos to avoid a storm. Examination of the aircraft's black box revealed that shortly after this diversion, the aircraft's airspeed began to fall to an alarmingly slow velocity. In response, the pilots repeatedly increased power to the turbines in order to maintain velocity. Seeing no improvement in the aircraft's airspeed, the pilots then contacted the control tower in Ezeiza Airport and requested clearance to descend to a lower altitude. After receiving no response, the pilots lowered the aircraft's wing slats to maintain their altitude and lower the plane's stall speed. When lowering the slats however, one of them was torn from the aircraft, causing catastrophic asymmetry in the air flow over the wings. The plane immediately became uncontrollable and crashed.
Austral Líneas Aéreas 2553, better known as Austral 2553 is the name of an Douglas DC-9 aircraft of Austral Líneas Aéreas, registered as LV-WEG [1] which crashed in Fray Bentos, Uruguay, on October 10, 1997. All 74 passengers and crew were killed on impact.

There has been several suspicions about the accident being caused by a faulty type of speed sensor that Air France is in process of replacing in the whole fleet due to freezing up in high-altitude and unconventional conditions (i.e. where they shouldn't normally freeze). The sensor was not replaced yet in the accident plane. Not all Airbuses are equiped with it - but this could certainlyl have been the outcome if the airspeed indicator froze.

[F111]

They have said the plane was flying too fast or too slow.  They said also there was a problem regarding speed reading of instruments.  Is it possible in an airbus to make a mistake due to wrong speed reading that damages the plane?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

They have said the plane was flying too fast or too slow.  They said also there was a problem regarding speed reading of instruments.  Is it possible in an airbus to make a mistake due to wrong speed reading that damages the plane?

If the flight computer is being fed with false information, the crew is in zero visibility enviroment in a thunder cloud and in middle of the sea.. The computer may have stalled or dived the plane with the crew being uncertain to what's happening. One false assumption may lead to overstressing the airframe and that's all it needs.

[CAP1]

If the flight computer is being fed with false information, the crew is in zero visibility enviroment in a thunder cloud and in middle of the sea.. The computer may have stalled or dived the plane with the crew being uncertain to what's happening. One false assumption may lead to overstressing the airframe and that's all it needs.

here's a question?

over land, all commercial flights like this are on radar all the time. is there radar that far out?

[SFRT - Frenchy]

What caused the wrongfull speed reading?

[RTHolmes]

another question - surely they have GPS for navigation and to double-check TAS. if GPS TAS doesnt match the instrument indicated TAS theres something wrong?

[SFRT - Frenchy]

Wouldn't the GPS give ground speed instead? The satellite doesn't know what the winds are does it?

[Hajo]

It's normal to speculate.  And that is exactly what the thread is doing.

Otherwise...until there is definitive proof the guessing in this thread is akin to speculating how much dust the Big Bang created.