by Jonathan on July 7, 2009
NASA is funding a project run by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to identify areas of rapidly developing turbulence and storms over remote areas of the ocean.
The scientist are working on a way to predict areas of turbulence in clear skies and within storms. By predicting the areas of turbulence, the system can help guide pilots away from such areas and potentially avoid disasters such as what happened to flight 447. They are trying to accomplish this by applying artificial intelligence to satellite data and computer generated models of weather.
Although there is already a system in place, over the continental Unite States, that alerts pilots and air traffic controllers to turbulence, alerting pilots who fly over open ocean is harder to accomplish. Pilots who fly over oceans do get information from weather satellites, but they don’t provide as many images or measure turbulence.
The system is expected to be tested by pilots next year.
Read more about this on Informationweek.com
by Jonathan on July 5, 2009
Arthur Coakley, 61 Engineer for PDMS
The body of
Arthur Coakly, the 61 year-old businessman from North Yorkshire, has been identified.
His wife, Patrcia, was notified that one of the recovered bodies was of her husband.
Arthur was one of the five British people that were on board. He is survived by his wife, two sons, Dominic and Patrick, and daughter, Mise.
by Jonathan on July 5, 2009
Eight more bodies out of the 51 that have been recovered from Air France flight 447 have been identified.
A statement was released on Saturday, by the Public Safety Department of the northeastern state of Pernambuco says that so far, 43 bodies out of the 51 have been identified.
The 43 identified include:
9 Brazilian men
8 Brazilian women
9 foreign men
17 foreign women
The names of the identified victims have not been released. The relatives of the Brazilians and the relevant foreign embassies have been notified.
by Jonathan on July 2, 2009
Update 1: You can download the report below (French and English)
Update 2: The aircraft didn’t hit the ocean vertically. It hit the surface of the water belly first, with strong vertical acceleration. When I was writing this blog entry during the time that the BEA press conference, the news reports from which I obtained this information were reporting that the aircraft went down vertically, which isn’t correct.
Alain Bouillard, the person leading the investigation into the crash of Air France flight AF447 announced on Thursday that the Air France plane did not break-up in flight but plunged vertically crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in its flight direction while vertically accelerating.
Flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic on June 1 during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The exact cause of the crash has yet to be determined.
Examination of the recovered pieces “leads to the following: the plane was not destroyed in flight” said Alain Bouillard at the BEA press conference. “The aircraft appeared to have struck the water with a strong vertical acceleration” he added.
According to Mr.Bouillard, the passengers were unprepared for the landing. “The absence of inflated life jackets clearly shows that the passengers were not prepared for a crash landing.”
In addition, the BEA said that the Pitot tubes were “a factor, but not the cause of the accident”. “The Pitot tubes are the first link in the monitoring of speed” said Mr. Bouillard. The Pitot tubes are “strongly suspected in the inconsistencies or the speed” is “one of the factors, but not the only one”, and “is an element, but not the cause” said Mr. Bouillard.
Investigators see no need to ground the Airbus A330 aircraft. Philip Swan, an adviser to France’s BEA air accident board said “the information available today does not indicate any such need [to ground the Airbus]. They have flown tens of million of hours and there are 660 of them flying”.
- The plane was intact when it crashed into the ocean.
- The search for the flight data recorders will continue until July 10.
- There is no need to ground the Airbus A330 fleet.
- The plane did not hit the water in a vertical position, but on its belly, while vertically accelerating.
Download the report: French or English
Sources: TF1 (french) | Reuters | AP/Yahoo
by Jonathan on July 2, 2009
The remains of 21 more people from Air France flight 447 have been identified, according to Brazilian officials.
17 of the newly identified bodies were foreign and 4 were Brazilians. No additional information on the nationalities of the foreign victims were provided.
Fingerprints, DNA and dental records are being used to identify the remains.
So far, the remains of 51 people have been recovered. Out of those 51, 35 have been identified.
by Jonathan on July 2, 2009
French investigators are supposed to release their initial report into what caused the crash of Air France flight AF447 today.
The French accident investigation agency, the BEA, will present its preliminary report to reporters today at its headquarters in Le Bourget, France.
According to Christiohe Guillot-Noel, the head of an association for victims of Air France flight 447, the families of the victims will meet with the BEA and Air France officials at the French Transport Ministry just beforehand.
“The families are hoping to have all the facts, above all to be able to avoid this eventually happening again,” he said.
“We have just one demand: transparency. We have just one expectation: the truth,” he said.
The BEA’s initial findings will be based on the automatic messages that were sent by the air craft moments before it lost contact, along with clues from the recovered wreckage and the remains of the 51 people who have so far been recovered.
One of the automatic messages indicated that the aircraft was receiving incorrect speed information from the Pitot tubes, which could destabilize the aircraft’s control system. Experts believe that the Pitot tubes might have iced over.
Without the black boxes, we might never know exactly what happened on that tragic day. The emergency beacons on the black boxes are built to emit strong pings for 30 days after a crash. Although the 30 day period has passed, searchers are still trying located the device.
The search for more bodies and debris was ended by Brazil on June 27.
Source: AP
by Jonathan on July 1, 2009
Jane Deasy, one of the 3 Irish victims.
The body of Jane Deasy, one of the three Irish doctors that were on Air France flight 447, has been identified.
The minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheal Martin, confirmed that the remains of Dr. Jane Deasy had been positively identified.
“The family of Dr. Jane Deasy has been informed that her remains have been positively identified among those found in the aftermath of the Air France flight AF447 crash. I reiterate my sincerest condolences to Dr. Deasy’s family, and to all those who lost loved ones in this terrible tragedy,” he said.
An Irish embassy official in Recife, Brazil is liaising with the Brazilian authorities for the repatriation of Dr. Deasy’s body.
The remains of Jane Deasy’s friends, Eithne Walls and Aisling Butler, have not been located.
Air France flight AF447 went down in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1 while on a scheduled flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris, France. Out of the 228 people on board, 51 bodies have been recovered.
by Jonathan on June 29, 2009
A second Airbus aircraft has crashed in less than 30 days!
An Airbus aircraft belonging to Yemeni state carrier Yemenia Air has crashed in the Indian ocean near the Comoros archipelago.
The Airbus A310 crashed on Tuesday morning, about an hour before reaching its destination. It was flying from Sanaa, Yemen to Moroni, Comoros.
The location of the crash is unknown at the moment and nobody knows the fate of the 153 that were on board.
The Comoros is made up of 3 islands about 186 miles (300 kilometers) off the coast of Madagascar.
This is the second Airbus to crash in less than 1 month. This is truly a sad month in Aviation. First Air France, now Yemenia Air, both Airbus aircraft.
by Jonathan on June 29, 2009
From The Wall Street Journal Business:
Aviation investigators, running out of time to find the “black boxes” with key information on the crash of Air France Flight 447, suspect a rapid chain of computer and equipment malfunctions stripped the crew of automation today’s pilots typically rely on to control a big jetliner.
An international team of experts is building a scenario in which it believes a cascade of system failures, seemingly beginning with malfunctioning airspeed sensors, rapidly progressed to what appeared to be sweeping computer outages, according to people familiar with the probe. The Airbus A330, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a storm 26 days ago, killing all 228 aboard.
Read the entire article here
by Jonathan on June 26, 2009
The Brazilian military said on Friday, June 27, that it had ended its search for more bodies or debris from the Air France aircraft that plunged into the Atlantic nearly a month ago.
The recovery operation lasted 26 days, with help from French vessels, French, Spanish, and US aircraft. A total of 51 bodies were recovered out of the 228 people that were on board.
The Airbus A330 went down in the Atlantic on June 1, while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, France. The people on board represented 32 nationalities.
“It has been 9 days since we have located bodies” said Air Force spokesman Colonel Henry Munhoz. This has led Brazil to conclude that “it is impossible to recover more dead bodies or remains in the search area”.
In the two weeks period between June 12 and June 26, only two bodies were recovered, the last being on June 17. The bodies were handed over to federal police experts in Recife for identification.
Munhoz stated that what they have in the sea now is negligible.
There have been more than 600 pieces of debris that has been recovered from the aircraft. Most of the recovered items has been delivered to the French-lef technical research team who is charge of determining the cause of the crash.
The search for the black boxes. The black boxes are supposed to continue emitting homing signals until July 2. The search for the black boxes is to be led by France, which has already contributed a nuclear submarine and ships to the effort.
The French research vessel, Pourquoi pas, the French nuclear submarine, Emeraude, and two high-sea vessels equipped with sonars are currently taking part in the search for the black boxes.
Finding the black boxes can help investigators by piecing together the final minutes of Air France AF447’s tragic flight.
So far, investigators are focusing on the air speed sensors, also known as Pitot tubes or Pitot probes. One of the 24 automated messages that were sent out by the aircraft in the final minutes indicated that the airspeed sensors were faulty.
Conflicting airspeed data can cause the autopilot to disengage, and in extreme cases, it can lead the plane to stall or fly at dangerously fast speeds, which could result in high-altitude breakup.
The Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses (BEA), Airbus, and Air France have said that there’s no firm evidence linking the speed monitors and the crash of the aircraft.
Source: AP
