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  • today's article in le Figaro

    For those of you have who are interested, the French newspaper 'le Figaro' published an article today that the BEA is currently seriously investigating the fact that the new presumed area where the black boxes could be located is in fact towards the south of the last known location (known from the automated messages). If that is confirmed, it could mean that the plane might have made a 135 degree turn from the original flight path. As to the reason why, more unknows.

    Here is an automated translation of the first part of the article:

    INFO Le Figaro - The two black boxes of the aircraft would be within 3 to 8 km.

    The caution among investigators but part of the mystery begins to dissipate. The BEA has confirmed the information disclosed by Le Figaro on May 7 that the new area being explored off the Brazilian coast is located 20 nautical miles south-southwest (a little less than 40 km) of the last known position aircraft. It is known through an automated message from position Acars issued by AF447 on the night of May 31 was the first June 10 at 2 am in the morning.

    This new feature means that the crew was able to turn around to escape danger or he could lose control of the aircraft and depart to the south. It would have veered 135 degrees from its original path. "If we find the wreckage in the area then this means that the aircraft turned around, but why, we know nothing," says Jean-Paul Troadec, director of the Office of Investigation and Analysis (BEA).

    Unlike previous phases of research, the current zone has been defined by studying the drift of bodies and wreckage recovered shortly after the tragedy but by the signals from black boxes collected in June by the Deputy Emerald nuclear submarine and then decrypted located ten months later by the Navy and Thales. "Wednesday, normally, we explored the area, said Jean-Paul Troadec. If research is unsuccessful, we will ask to extend the perimeter a little research.

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    • And here is the link: http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-fra...rs-secrets.php

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      • The BEA website today announced that their new search in the location that had be identified by the reassessment of the old data (with the new Thales software) was unsuccessful and took longer due to technical problems. They will redeploy their efforts to the initial search zone and continue their work there.

        Below the most recent map published by the BEA indicating the various search zones.

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        • A year after the AF447 crash, a French journalist from 'le Figaro' has published a book with some provocative statements regarding AF and ultimately also referring to the AF447 flight and a system (Buss) that might have prevented the crash from happening.
          Frankly speaking, such a statement for me is, in absence of clear evidence on what really happened, interesting. To say the least.

          I used google translator to translate the article from French but haven't corrected it.

          TRANSPORT - And the company announced record losses on Wednesday ...

          Almost a year after the crash of Paris-Rio in the Atlantic Ocean, a book signed by Le Figaro journalist Fabrice Amedeo endangers the safety of flights of the airline. In The Far Side of Air France, he wrote that "Air France has a fleet of ultramodern, drivers who are among the best in the world ... but the safety record of a second-class company. To believe the site PlaneCrashInfo, the French company appeared behind 21 of the safest airlines and fell to 65th place after the accident in 2009 AF447. Lufthansa and British Airways are respectively 5th and 6th of this ranking.

          Worse, says the journalist, the Archives Office of Aviation Accidents Air France is the second company of the bloodiest civil aviation history with 1785 dead after Russian Aeroflot. "Today, I hesitate to take an Air France", says even Jean-Claude Jouffroy, former director of cabinet in the Ministry of Transport and former Inspector General of the Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGCA), cited in The Far Side of Air France, whose leaves are good published Wednesday by Liberation.

          The crash of the AF445 avoidable?

          As for the crash of flight AF447, the author of the survey notes that "it may be accused Air France of not equipping its aircraft system emergency steering Buss, who might be able to save FY 447. This system would allow the aircraft to continue its course even in the absence of information from flight due to icing of the pitot probes. All aircraft are equipped with Lufthansa since 2008, but Air France has refused on the grounds that it was not reliable enough.

          More generally, the author notes that the company "has never engaged in a systemic analysis of the causes of incidents" which "would lead him to call into question the deep structure of its management," he also considers "defective" when the "culture of punishment" does not exist, with "pilot untouchables. Fabrice Amadeo Conclusion: the company must conduct a "cultural revolution to avoid another accident she would not rise."

          For its part, Air France ensures that "the security of the company meets the highest standards of international aviation industry." Christopher heavy, spokesman Alter, a minority union of Air France pilots, belies the lack of penalties: "three captains have been laid off since December, last year, two years ago two . The publication of this book comes as the airline will issue a record annual loss of 1, 3 billion euros for 2009-2010, after the market close.
          As for the other statements, some of them are not really new (ie. the 'untouchables' and the AF culture) and I can't comment on not being an AF employee. But the facts are there and the once so proud company has dropped to the 65th place in the safety rankings among it's peers.

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          • According to latina-press.com BEA terminated the third phase of the search for the black boxes.

            Ein vollbesetzter Airbus vom Typ 330-200 der französischen Fluggesellschaft Air France war am 1. Juni 2009 um 03 Uhr Ortszeit vor der Küste Brasiliens in den Atlantik gestürzt. Die dritte Phase der Suche nach der "Black Box" von Flug AF 447 wurde am heutigen Dienstag ohne Erfolg beendet.


            unless there will be a 4th phase (which is as far as I am informed not planned or foreseen) the blackboxes will never be recoverd and no final conclusion can be drawn why AF 447 went down.

            frustrating!
            Ciao,
            Jason

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            • Holy tarballs. I thought they found the plane. How disappointing.
              I do work for a domestic US airline, and it should be noted that I do not represent such airline, or any airline. My opinions are mine alone, and aren't reflective of anything but my own knowledge, or what I am trying to learn. At no time will I discuss my specific airline, internal policies, or any such info.

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              • Well, if they go to realtime data transfer, at least those lives won't be totally wasted.

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                • I really hope some positive changes come out of this unfortunate accident. Maybe someday a sea exploration with be on the Discovery channel, and just like Titanic, they will find this plane.
                  I do work for a domestic US airline, and it should be noted that I do not represent such airline, or any airline. My opinions are mine alone, and aren't reflective of anything but my own knowledge, or what I am trying to learn. At no time will I discuss my specific airline, internal policies, or any such info.

                  Comment


                  • A report prepared by a French-led group of international experts concluded that the concept of transmitting data during emergency situations "is becoming more robust and accepted." The study also found it would be cost-effective if only essential data were sent.


                    Anybody remember how balky images were to send? Then software engineers came along with vector graphics in such things as GIF and JPG. Now image files are a tiny fraction of what they were.

                    I can see how putting techie minds to the task could produce ways that flight data could be sent encoded to vastly reduce the bytes involved. In fact, I'd go so far as to predict that when its wanted badly enough, it will happen. Saying "there's too much" is really like scoffing at sending bitmap image files as if that's the only way you can represent an image digitally.

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                    • Don't see a link to this since it came out, so maybe it hasn't been posted. Very interesting article proposing a scenario for the accident. The part that disturbs me is "an unlucky sequence of events". That makes it sound like A330's have depended perhaps to a tiny degree on luck to achieve a remarkable safety record.

                      For the first time, air crash investigation experts can tell the story behind the last moments of flight 447, based on information sent from the plane itself.

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                      • Originally posted by EconomyClass View Post
                        Don't see a link to this since it came out, so maybe it hasn't been posted. Very interesting article proposing a scenario for the accident. The part that disturbs me is "an unlucky sequence of events". That makes it sound like A330's have depended perhaps to a tiny degree on luck to achieve a remarkable safety record.

                        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...28-people.html
                        "But now, for the first time, the story behind this devastating air disaster can be told. A BBC2 documentary, Lost: The Mystery Of Flight 447, to be screened tomorrow night, has brought together leading aviation experts to conduct a forensic investigation into the crash."

                        Did anybody see this documentary?

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                        • Originally posted by EconomyClass View Post
                          Don't see a link to this since it came out, so maybe it hasn't been posted. Very interesting article proposing a scenario for the accident. The part that disturbs me is "an unlucky sequence of events". That makes it sound like A330's have depended perhaps to a tiny degree on luck to achieve a remarkable safety record.

                          http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...28-people.html
                          Well, everything is always subject to random chance to some extent, no matter how well controlled the situation is.

                          You can be hit my a meteorite any time. The probability of that is extremely low, so it requires just a tiny bit of good luck not to be hit, and a tremendous amount of bad luck to be hit.

                          Things like that happen in aviation too (and I am not speaking of this specific case). In fact, critical failures with a chance of less than 1 in ten millions are officially accepted to remain, even if you know that weak point.

                          --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                          --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by EconomyClass View Post
                            http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...636704730.html

                            Anybody remember how balky images were to send? Then software engineers came along with vector graphics in such things as GIF and JPG. Now image files are a tiny fraction of what they were.
                            I think there is a dedicated thread on this, but for short:

                            JPEG is lossy compression, you want to do that to data.
                            In fact, when transmitting basically a stream of numbers, there is very little you can gain by compressing.

                            Plus, it's not necessary! If one would simply copy the blackbox data over several - very cheap - memory storage facilities distributed over all the aircraft, at least one of them would certainly get found!

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                            • n fact, when transmitting basically a stream of numbers, there is very little you can gain by compressing.
                              Sorry, but it done all the time. Just go look at the history of data transmission.

                              Comment


                              • Daily Mail's Truth

                                Originally posted by EconomyClass View Post
                                Don't see a link to this since it came out, so maybe it hasn't been posted. Very interesting article proposing a scenario for the accident. The part that disturbs me is "an unlucky sequence of events". That makes it sound like A330's have depended perhaps to a tiny degree on luck to achieve a remarkable safety record.

                                http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...28-people.html
                                From the article:

                                In the cockpit, instrumental display screens would have gone blank, and flight-control computers would have died. One by one, the most critical safety features in the cockpit failed.
                                Does the flight computer just throw it's hands in the air and switch off it's screen when it encounters problems? They make it sound as if the pilots would have been trying to fly absolutely blind. Possibly effectively so, yes, but very nicely dramatised I must say.

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