Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

Been sat in hope watching the news this morning since 10am.

Plane went missing off all Radar screens this morning flying from Rio de Janeiro at 3.20am and was due to land at 10.15am in Charles de Gaulles.

By now it would have ran out of fuel :(

Seems like this is bringing back the discussions of flights across the Atlantic with only two engines is such a bad idea.

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

****e
Was the plane full? :(

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

we flew to florida on a BA flight back in 1997 that lost 1 of its 4 engines, I remember how casual the pilot was when he told everyone we'd be 45minutes late into Boston. Made me chukkle.

They're out of fuel now :O didnt know that tbh didnt think of that. Are they doing a massive search or anything? where abouts did it go off radar? (Last known location)

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

A new episode of Air Crash Investigation... I'm bored of the repeats...

Seriously, oh dear..:|

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

228 on board, 218 passengers I think.
The fuel thing is really quite a vague area, but think if there was traffic in the air and you had to sit about for an hour and half, cutting it fine.

Brazilian air force is out. Disappeared 500 miles off coast of Africa (Level with Morocco sort of area).

It is a weird thing to watch this sort of thing developing.

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saw that on my homepage earlier, 'fraid thats only going to end one way :(

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

Plane sent a message apparently had a short circuit after strong turbulence, there is a possibility it could've been flying through a storm...

Also discussing some tropical conversion thingy-ma-jigg.

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

Thats the canary islands as a base for any salvage (be honest its only going to be salvage 4hours on with no contact).
Planes shouldnt just go missing though, they must know where it is.
Even if it loses all power teh axuilary systems provide enough power to the transponder. (yup I love air crash investigation too :))

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My sister was flying out today from rio ...almost had a heart attack when i read the 1st line.
Thank god shes on another flight.
Not good how they can just lose a whole plane with all this so called "high tech" equipment they have.

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

cos sadly there's every chance it at the bottom of the sea right now :(

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More than likely:sad:.

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How do you know if it was engine related?

ETOPS is the regulation that allows certain aircraft and operators to fly more than 60mins from a diversion airport on two engines. It was brought in when it was realised how reliable engines were becoming.

Without ETOPS we would still be flying around in tri-jets, lugging unnecessary weight, buning excess amounts of fuel, and paying for it in our ticket prices, whilst killing baby polar bears (if you believe in all that).

Think how much has been saved over a few decades since ETOPS was brought in. Offset that against all the incidents of double engine failure not involving running out of fuel (I can't think of one of the top of my head).

Of course there are still those who say ETOPS - Engins Turning or Passengers Swimming!

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

I don't as said, been watching on the news. Just going by what they have been saying....:???:

The people on the news are having discussions about the two engines thing, not me.

EDIT: And now, the search area is a completely different place as to where they said it was lost from, sometimes, I really hate the news.

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

Fair enough. Seems like a daft debate to be having on the news right now though.

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Wouldnt matter how many engines it had if it lost all power due to a short.

Modern jets are bloody good gliders though. I remember a air crash investiagation where this blode managed to glide it something ridiculas, then find a run way and land it! I'll see if I can find some of it on youtube and add it in my edit.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDN6tgTz0mM

thats only part one, but if you watch the whole thing its quite a good one.

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Ah man, this kinda stuff makes me feel sick. I hate flying anyway, i hope to god they managed to ditch and the life rafts etc deployed but realistically if they lost all power then the controls would have been useless.

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At this point it´s not good to speculate too much on what has happened. The news is the worst culprit of this as they try to fill out the story until they have something to go on.

I hope it isnt as bad as it looks right now.

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

The media will wheel in any so-called experts and skeptics with opinions and push the hype to overdrive if it means increasing their coverage.

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

It can happen.

I read a mail the other week about a US Air mechanic coming home from Japan. Not long after take off he reported about a stream coming from one of the wings (like the airflow that goes white). Lots of arguing with the cabin crew later, he had the pilot come have a look.

Flight was immediatly turned round, the "white air" was in fact fuel and they would have run out hundreds of miles out to sea.

The bloke was given a free upgrade to 1st class on the next day flight....

So it can happen.

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

This will bring out lots of "arm chair" experts and people will spout a lot of stuff that makes little sense, please wait for facts rather than speculate on as yet unsubstantiated media reports.

My thoughts are with those on board, and all those waiting for them.

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I watch air crash investigation almost every week! and your just a pilot, what do you know!?
jokin LOL! point taken ;)
THoughts for those who have people on board.

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now reports on sky website are saying plane was struck by lightening...i thought that wasnt a problem with the faraday effect? i guess if it struck an engine direct that would have severe implications....

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or if the hull was comprimised, not sure how but if a conductive body was present between the outer fusalage (spelling) and some of the structural parts of the plane then I guess a lighting strike could short the electrics.
Do you think that the pilot was scared of lighting and when the lighting struck he jumped and knocked the off switch lol? Sorry not funny I know, but Keithd laughed!

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

so...contact was at 2.14am GMT, some 14 hours later the planes whereabouts is still not known?

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

what time did it take off?

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You'd assume if it has hit the sea, its gonna have sunk.

If it had landed on mainland, someone would have tried to call a relative too :(

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My unfounded assumption would be if it went down slowly, then some radio contact(mayday or w/e would have been made. No contact was made therefore it went down fast or not intact.
It nots nice and doesnt bare thinking about for those people involved and their relatives its pretty shocking that they just dont know whats happened even 8hours on. 14hours if you go from last point of contact.

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

last point of contact + expected place of landing = course.

have a butchers along that course and see what you can find

this is only good if the plane stayed on course....

hth

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

'fraid that bird hasnt landed, gonna have crashed :(

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

Oooh worth it then :) I would have been inclined to roll over and go to sleep....

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think he finally convinced the captain when he took some video footage of it and showed it to him! thank heavens for all aboard he had his camera with him!!!!

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Well said, the press is full of speculations and stories on the cause before the aircraft has even be located and the data recorder box thingy recovered.

My thoughts are with all the people involved...

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

Someone that is a little more knowledgable?

If there was a complete electrical failure...Would the cabin be de-pressurized? I'm not assuming this is what happened, but have always wonder how the cabin pressure is controlled?

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Cabin Pressure would have gradually decreased if there was complete electrical failure but not explosively. They would have plently of time to desend to a safer altitude. But then again if there had been complete electrical failure the plane would start desending anyway.

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Don't they have those little oxygen mask things that drop down? Although I hear they can be temperamental! Something like hypaxia or something where you can't breathe because the air is too thin... too many fancy words for my liking!

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Me & the missus were trying to figure this out last night - how do planes know where they are? We figured it's a combination of old fashioned navigation (compass tells me I'm flying in this direction, speedo says we're going at this speed, last known point we passed was X, therefore we're currently at Y) and modern GPS (figure there's enough satelites up there that the plane can spot at least 3 from just about anywhere in the world?).

If all that's the case then wouldn't the automated message thingy that got sent out also include a "oh, by the way, this is where I reckon I am - send us a boat if you don't hear from us in a couple minutes"? Naturally the plane's figuring of where it might be in the world is liable to glitches, incorrect programming and god knows what else, and naturally in the middle of the ocean there's unlikely to be any radar stations that can verify the data.

Just struck us as odd that it's possible to pretty much lose a plane in this day and age (lose as in not know where it is). That automated message thingy - presumably that's radio - is it on a band monitored by traffic controls the world over or just the airline or the manufacturer? Have I missed something, would have thought that if that included a "this is where I reckon I am" location then (assuming that's correct) a couple of likely impact points can be determined pretty quickly (ie. if it went pop in mid air then it's likely to fall pretty quick and land within a mile radius of X, or if they managed a controlled descent they may have glided down to a hopefully smoothish landing within a couple mile radius of Y). At the moment it sounds like they're scouring hundreds of square miles of ocean?

Dunno, I'm no good at armchair aviation.

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

only conclussion i can come to is catastrophic failure of all systems resulting in it falling from the sky, no time to send emergency signal etc.

but....wouldnt they have found evidence by now? wreckage? doesnt the black/orange box emit a gps signal?

im sure there's an explanation to all this but it just seems weird....

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

I guess any black box thingies around now are unfortunately likely too far underwater to send any active signal out that's easily heard. Just seems odd that any automated message (not necessarily an emergencey signal but anything automated) doesn't include a line saying "this is where I reckon I am by the way" - dunno, perhaps it does and I've failed to consider something - I really do know nothing about the things.

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Dunno, but would the signal get through from the bottom of the briney if it did? With all the 'planes in the air these days would they be tracking that particular one?

From the BBC website:
"Air France officials say the plane encountered turbulence about four hours into the flight. It then sent an automatic signal indicating an electrical fault.
They suspect the Airbus suffered a short circuit caused by a lightning strike."

Re: Oh Dear - Missing Plane
 

is the plane def under water then?