Air France Flight Af447: The Facts and the Speculations

There is a lot of speculation about the Air France plane that went missing above the Atlantic last Monday, the first of June. But what are the facts and what could have possibly happened? Let’s take a look at what happened.

Air France flight AF447 was carrying 228 souls when it left Rio de Janeiro around 24.00h French time (1). On board of the Airbus A330-200 were 216 passengers, mostly Brazilian, French and German, and 12 crewmembers. The aircraft was headed for Paris, France.

The last radar contact with the plane was at 03.33h (2). It’s normal for radar contact to be lost over the Atlantic, since radar signals simply can’t travel that far. But every aircraft has a small broadcaster on board, called a “transponder”, which constantly transmits essential information such as airspeed and altitude, and air traffic controllers receive this data on their radar screens. It’s this transponder contact that was lost. A transponder failure is extremely rare.

At that moment, the plane was flying about 350km off the coast of Brazil at a height of 11.000 meters.

At around 04.00h, the plane flew through a very heavy thunderstorm. A few minutes later, the planes automatic systems transmitted several messages to the Air France control system indicating electrical failure and loss of cabin pressure. The last of these messages was received at 04.14h (3).

The plane was supposed to land in Paris around 11.10h (5), but all contact was lost.

The wreckage of the plane was found (4), but the parts were spread over an area with a 60km radius. This indicates that the plane had already broken down in mid-air; it did not crash directly into the ocean. But, on the contrary, recovery crews have spotted oil slicks, which mean that the plane did not brake up in the air.

Also, the wreckage area is not completely aligned with the original flight path, this could mean that the pilots attempted to turn around and fly back to the Brazilian coast. What could have happened?

So far, three theories have been mentioned.

The first one suspects the plane being hit by lightning, damaging the plane sufficiently for the pilots to lose control. This is unlikely; planes are made resistant to lightning strikes, as their metal fuselage works as a Faraday cage, conducting the electrical current along the outside of the plane. Also, aircraft instruments are protected against lightning.

Theory number two speaks of a bomb attack. This is possible; a bomb would cause the aircraft to explode in mid-air, as might have happened in flight AF447. But if it was a terroristic bomb attack, some terroristic group should make notion of an attack, which did not occur.

A Spanish pilot of the airline company Air Comet also says he saw “a sudden and intense white flash racing down, which disappeared after six seconds”.

The third theory says that the pilot would have lost control of the plane due to heavy turbulence. This is also quite unlikely, the 58-year old pilot Marc Dubois was very experienced and had over 11,000 flying hours, of which 1,700 on the A330.

(Image source: http://corporate.airfrance.com/uploads/pics/decollage_A330_airfrance.jpg )

No matter what has happened, it will be extremely difficult to recover the wreckage and the planes black boxes, since they are lying at the sea bottom on a depth of about 3,000 to 4,000 meters. (For more information on black boxes, check my article “Why black boxes are orange” at http://www.purpleslinky.com/Offbeat/Why-Black-Boxes-are-Orange.129532) The Brazilian and French navy have both sent ships to the wreckage area, some equipped with unmanned submarines that should help recover the black boxes. One of these submarines also helped find the wreck of the Titanic.

All hope for survivors has been lost, and both French and Brazilian governments have paid their respects to the relatives. This crash is the worst ever in the 75-year history of Air France, and the 20th worst (9/11 not included) aircraft accident ever. (For more information on other famous crashes, check my article “The five deadliest airplane crashes in aviation history” at http://www.socyberty.com/History/The-Five-Deadliest-Airplane-Accidents-in-Aviation-History.132114) Undoubtedly the future, and mostly the black boxes, will tell us more about the tragic story of this flight and its passengers.