Comments on: The Mystery of Flight 447 – UPDATED

By: The Mystery of Flight 447 - UPDATED

The Mystery of Flight 447 - UPDATED — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:10:26 +0000

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By: Dan Smith

Dan Smith — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:33:12 +0000

The forensics on recovered bodies should be helpful. Explosives leave residues that can be detected chemically. Finding the black box would yield the final words of the flight crew. In a catastrophic loss of cabin pressure or aerodynamic stabilty I doubt there would be time for a mayday call, as the pilots would be doing their best to fly the aircraft. Movie dialogue might suggest otherwise, but lets face it: if you are flying a plane at 37,000 feet and it is about to crash, a radio call is not going to help, so you do what you can to save the aircraft.

By: Scott Kirwin

Scott Kirwin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:54:32 +0000

PJ
Relax I haven’t joined the “black helicopter”/tinfoil hat crowd just yet. The great thing about a blog is that you can change your mind and update what you wrote. Gerard is already doing a fine job of convincing me to do just that.

Weather is the leading cause of air disasters, but these occur during takeoffs and landings or in mountainous areas – not when a flight is cruising at altitude above the ocean. In fact if it does indeed turn out that weather took down AF 447, I believe it would be the first instance in history of a modern jet airliner being destroyed in flight and at altitude by weather. I could be wrong but my research hasn’t turned up anything yet. The loss of AF 447 - a five year old jetliner – to weather would be an extraordinary event, perhaps more extraordinary than terrorists downing a plane with a bomb. Pan Am flight 103 and Cubana Flight 455 were taken down at altitude by bombs; and don’t forget Richard Reid’s attempt to blow up American Airlines flight 63.

By: Pj

Pj — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:08:03 +0000

Scott – I disagree with your conclusion in this instance. I don’t think you can argue the evidence at this points supports the terror and weather disaster scenarios equally (or indeed favors the terror scenario). Given that the number of plane crashes due to terror attack are dwarfed by the number of crashes due to mechanical failure or weather, a crash due to terror must on its face be considered to be an extraordinary hypothesis. It is also one one that requires a whole series of extra assumptions regarding flight security and law enforcement failures, logistics issues, etc…, etc… beyond the evidence so far gathered. Until this evidence emerges, I think it is safe to say that the simplest explanation remains weather, mechanical or human failure, by far the leading causes of air disasters. Of course, our conclusions must be continually revised as more evidence is gathered. In order for the terror conclusion to be viable one, we will need to start seeing a lot of anomalous evidence that cannot be more easily explained by the weather, mechanical or human failure. The wonderful thing about Occam’s Razor is that it allows us to move towards simple conclusions based upon the evidence received, avoiding the pitfalls of conspiratorial speculation.

By: Gerard

Gerard — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:49:01 +0000

The chronology you mention is what I red also more or less but yours seems the most detailed till now. Offcourse it’s all speculation till more info is released. Like you I just wonder. These accidents affect me a lot.
If you look at the foto of the recovered tail of flight 587 the comparison with flight 447 is striking. There are more similarities. Flight 587 flew a speed of 470km/h when the stabaliser snapped off. The plane flew on spiraling for 12 sec. covering a distance of around 1.3 km before impact on the ground. Flight 447 flew around 840km/h. Assuming the stabaliser sheared off just before the first automatic message the plane stayed in the air for at least 4 min. till the last automatic message. In this timeframe the plane at a starting speed of 840km/h could have covered a distance of around 60km or more before impact.
Just around the distance debris was found north-east of the last automatic message. We’ll see. I hope to hear the final anwsers soon.
If you have any new info I’ll be glad to hear.
And excuse me for my imperfect englisch. We dutch know how to speak but to write is another story for some of us.. I’ll do my best to improve.

By: Scott Kirwin

Scott Kirwin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:58:52 +0000

Gerard
If your chronology holds true, then I will have to revise my theory. The weight of evidence would shift towards a mechanical or weather related failure. I’ve had a difficult time coming up with a complete chronology of the disaster. Once I do I will update the post accordingly.

And yes, a bomb would have been merciful under such a scenario.

Thanks for the information.

By: Gerard

Gerard — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:53:26 +0000

I follow the news of this tragic accident daily. It must be such a terror to fall down for 35.000feet you would hope for those people it was a bomb and the and was almost instant when it went off. I donn’t think this can be the case according to the follow up of errors sent automaticly.
When a bomb went of I guess the first automatic message would be loss of cabin pressure. It wouldn’t be the last message.
The sequens of messages suggest in my opinion another story.
The first message is the disengagement of the autopilot. This happens through action of a person or through a technical problem of some kind.
The following message is a key computer is switching to alternate power.
This could meane the main powersource (engines)is not available anymore.
Then damage is reported about the controls to keep the plain stable.
Flight systems start deterioating.
3 minutes later systems to monitor airspeed etc. fail, this seems to indicate they worked before this failure, at least no problem was reported.
At last control of wingspoilers is lost and main computer stops. After this decompression and total electic failure is reported.
I saw the foto of the vertical stabiliser drifting at sea. Completely intact and hardly damaged. It lookes like it sheared off at the base. It must have come down seperately from the plane in an early stage otherwise it would be totaly destroyed on the hi-speed impact of the complete plain.
This reminds me of a fatal accident a few years ago when an Airbus 300 of similar design lost it’s vertical stabaliser in wake-turbulance of a plane that had taken off just before. This was during relativ low speed and mild turbulence. After the los of the stabiliser the plane started to spin so violently the engines were ripped of due to centrifugal forces. During this extreem spinning and falling it must have been impossible for anyone on board
to move at all and maybe impossible to even speak a word.
What might have happend to flight 447 could be this.
The plane enter turbulence at high altitude. The pilots were working hard to keep the plane stable.
During this the vertical stabaliser sheared off and the automatic pilot was swithed off automaticly or by the pilots.
The plane started spiraling with increasing speed leaving anyone aboard helpless to do anything at all due to centifugal forses.
The engines were ripped off, losing main powersupply. Due to his high groundspeed the plane went on spiraling down covering a also a substantial horizontal distance. In the 4 minutes of transfering messages the plain could cover 60km. In this 4 minutes everything could have happened.
From the moment the stabaliser sheared till the moment of the plane breaking apart on some lower altitude as the decompression sets in and the plane hits the water in big parts.
In my eyes this would be the most horrifying senario for all onbourd and I hope it didn’t went this way. A bomb would be more mercyfull.