Soldiers load boxes labeled in Portuguese "Bag for corpse" at the base of search operations for the missing Air France Flight 447 in Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, Thursday, June 4, 2009. AP Photo/Eraldo Peres
By Frank James
There was little significant new information today in the continuing investigation of the Air France 447 crash earlier this week.
The first actual pieces of debris was recovered today from the Atlantic Ocean, a cargo pallet and two buoys according to an Associated Press report.
But no human remains of any of the 228 victims were recovered. And the black boxes -- the cockpit voice and data recorders remain undiscovered.
Without any important new facts, speculation continued as to the cause of the Airbus 330s fall from the sky.
Le Monde, the French newspaper, reported that an unnamed source told it that the plane's was flying too slowly through the storm.
But how anyone would know this based on the slim amount of information reportedly available was unclear.
As the AP story reported:
France's accident investigation agency said only two findings have been established so far: One is that the series of automatic messages sent from Flight 447 gave conflicting signals about the plane's speed; the other is that the flight path went through dangerously stormy weather.
The agency warned against any "hasty interpretation or speculation" after the French newspaper Le Monde reported, without naming sources, that the Air France plane was flying at the wrong speed.
It emerged that a Spanish pilot flying in the vicinity of the Air France jet reported that he saw a white flash of light which then fell vertically to the ocean within six minutes.
While many aviation experts have downplayed the possibility of a lightning strike causing the accident, one expert quoted in the AP story thought a really super strong bolt could have caised the problems.
An excerpt from the AP story:
The last message from the pilot was a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time Sunday saying he was flying through an area of black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning. The automated messages that followed suggest the plane broke apart in the sky, according to the aviation industry official.
At 11:10 p.m., a cascade of problems began: the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems. Then, systems for monitoring air speed, altitude and direction failed. Then controls over the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well. At 11:14 p.m., a final automatic message signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure as the plane was breaking apart.
Patrick Smith, a U.S. airline pilot and aviation analyst, said the failures could have begun with a loss of electrical power, possibly as the result of an extremely strong lightning bolt.
"What jumps out at me is the reported failure of both the primary and standby instruments," Smith said. "From that point the plane basically becomes unflyable."
"If they lost control and started spiraling down into a storm cell, the plane would begin disintegrating, the engines and wings would start coming off, the cabin would begin falling apart," he said.
categories: Accidents and Disasters
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