yer not cheering me up.

As someone who is anxious about flying anyway, this article has pushed me over the edge. Thanks! Perhaps some perspective might be in order, like how often planes are 'torn apart' by invisible forces greater than several Hiroshima-type bombs which pilots have no way of discerning or avoiding in mid-flight???!!!! I sure hope you're never my pilot. I can just imagine your pre-flight announcement: "Good morning travelers. According to Wikipedia..."

Further to the comment above from the pilot, I experienced clear air turbulence a couple of years ago while aboard an Airbus A320 above the prairies. Based on that experience I have to think turbulence is a possible scenario in the Air France flight.

On a clear, smooth, sunny day the plane suddenly went on its side then at a steep nose down angle. The engine noise was deafening and a flight attendant seemed to float.

The plane seemed to fight it for a minute or so as the nose went up and down and over again on our side a couple of times. I noticed the ground coming up. The extreme flexing motion of the wings was quite something to see.

Then it was over as suddenly as it started. After a couple of minutes the pilot came on, his voice shaky, and said he was not sure what happened but thought we had possibly gone through a shifting jetstream a.k.a. clear air turbulence.

Nobody was hurt, I believe this was because air passengers have become accustomed to keeping their seat belts engaged.

As I went to the rear galley to order my first ever double Scotch on an aircraft, I ran into the pale, formerly floating, flight attendant who informed me that he was on his first working flight.

I thought the new aircrafts are equipped with advanced communication system, such as online GPS, which reports their position and speed to other airline continuously. Why they are not equipped with something like this?

Maybe ocean liners will make a comeback... I would love to sail across the Atlantic - never mind the time it would take. As long as there are no hurricanes!

I am not an aviation expert and only an amateur pilot. I however feel a strong intuitive reluctance to allowing flight safety of large passenger aircraft to rest on fly by wire control systems like the airbus has, no matter how many redundancies there are in the back up systems.

That reluctance only amps up when there is also a complete or nearly complete reliance on electronic primary flight instruments. The airbus aircraft I think rely almost exclusively on both. They say there is some manual control of control surfaces through rudder trim and elevator trim and engine thrust.

OK maybe on a cavu (clear) day and no serious turbulence. Visualise them moving into severe turbulence with multiple thunder cell activity at night at cruising altitude then having a catastrophic electrical failure resulting in loss of basic flight controls and perhaps simultaneous loss of electronic instruments, possibly already in cloud so therefore relying on instruments to control the aircraft. With no horizon visible by which to maintain attitude control.

Trying to maintain control with the trim and engines in turbulence under those conditions would likely be impossible. I don't think anybody could do that. There could be a loss of control and eventually extreme aircraft attitudes possibly causing structural failure and/or impact with the ocean in the end. Given the known reports of electical failures and depressurization and also known thunder cell activity and reported severe turbulence at night it would seem to be a real possibility in this situation.

I think they should require all commercial passenger aircraft to have a manual flight control backup system augmented by a complete set of mechanical, barometric, magnetic, and air pressure operated instruments as back up to the electronics. Then those extremely competent and highly trained professional pilots would have something to work with even in the worst case scenarios of complete power failures. I think it is an inherent weakness in design and construction. Not safe enough for this purpose, military fighters maybe but those guys can eject if necesasary.

Condolences to the families of all those lost may they find peace.

I believe the cause was a electrical problem which caused the rudders to become un-operational. Which caused the plane to plummet possibly circling a couple times, depending on which rudders ceased to operate.

My heart goes out to all the Families of the Victims, may you find peace knowing where they are..in your heart.

thank you, and take care

CAT will probably be ruled fairly quickly or dismissed all together. Severe thunderstorms with tops estimated at 51000 ft are known to have turbulence and differs from CAT. CAT is when two different airmasses meet or there is lift caused by a mountain range.

The Air France airplane was operating inside the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone. Reports and satellite indications lead one to believe that the airplane may have traversed inside a cell which is a more likely scenario. Once inside the thunderstorm cell the jet probably surcummed to any one of the phenomenon that can occur like: Lightening, hail, severe rain, snow or ice, up and down drafts, windshear, or severe turbulence (not CAT).

It is incredibly difficult to navigate around a severe line of thunderstorms because although weather radar might show what is immediately in front of you. The radar signal weakens when presented with severe moisture from one thunderstorm and there maybe a thunderstorm behind it that is even worst which isn't displayed to the pilots radar screen. In other words you may see one cell and completely be oblivious to a potentially more dangerous cell behind it.

It is much too early to speculate what caused the demise of this plane but if there was an electrical failure on board in those conditions you can be sure that the plane was in trouble. No pilot can safely navigate an airplane long in the dark and in or near a line of severe thunderstorms.

CAT will probably be ruled out because ultimately there was no clear air to have CAT. The airspace was contaminated with thunderstorms. Severe turbulence might have been a factor but investigators are going to want to know what caused the electrical failure. That won't be CAT.

As a commerical pilot as well with thousands of hours as well... I would not have to "quote" wikipidia on information I already SHOULD know. As others have said, we can't even begin to speculate what happened. We need to stay calm and wait for the cockpit voice recoreder and digital flight data recorder.

Notwithstanding this and any other catastrophes that may occur, air travel remains the safest way of getting around by far.

An absolute disaster. I've read the comments to date but I still keep wondering if the electrical failure(s) were caused by CAT circumstances themselves, and that the captain and crew simply and finally could simply no longer control the aircraft after losing electrical power and who knows how many other aircraft powers. My heart goes out to the families and friends who now have to live with this.

In referring to the electrical malfunctions detected:
The CEO of Air France characterised these failures as a "totally unprecedented situation in the plane".

These electrical failures may have been one of the consequences of the catastrophic event, not the precipitating factor.
Severe damage to the airframe can be expected to play havoc with the aircraft's electrical systems.
The location and sequence of these electrical failures will doubtless help in creating some of the hypotheses to be considered during the investigation.
As an example,if the data showed a sudden interruption of power supplied normally on a continuous basis to an essential element in the aircraft, physical separation between the power source and this load would be an expected sequel to structural disintegration.
Beyond assuming that a bird strike was unlikely, it's just guesswork at this stage.

Another emerging hypothesis regarding the loss of Air France Flight 447 was that its altitude and airspeed computer, called the Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) had a software "bug" causing the plane to suddenly nose dive. This has already happened on other Airbus A330s, notably Qantas' Flight AF72. Initially, the computer software malfunctions, indicating the plane engines have stalled, so the plane immediately dips down. If the pilots don't regain control fast enough, the aircraft will drop at a rate capable of tearing the wings from the fusilage.
I'm going to avoid all A330 aircraft until this deadly glitch is fixed.

I think the Air Plane was shot down ...

if you study the situation carefully, you will see how key personals of a certain government was present at a University in Rio on that night.

While I do not question the intention of the writer, it seems to me that speculation is futile, and unncessarily anxiety-laden, until we get data and aviation specialists analyze the circumstances of this tragic episode. In the meantime, God bless all who have suffered such an enormous loss.

C-130 Hercules “Hurricane Hunters,” which are not structurally reinforced other than added fuel tanks for extended surveillance, fly into hurricanes. Whatever the Herc can handle the A330 can, including and easily, severe thunder storm and turbulence.

Today’s jetliners are strong enough to survive punishing CAT that can severely injure if not buckled up. These aircraft divert around storm fronts not to avert airframe damage but to maintain reasonable passenger comfort to avoid passenger complaint, potential law suit and negative press. With the most advanced weather reporting system ever A330 pilots know long before the first passenger boards where and what to avoid while en route.

They have the added benefit of onboard real-time weather radar and analysts back at company HQ in contact with the crew watching out for significant changes to current and forecasted conditions. A330 crews do not fly into towering CB at cruise level and CAT will not bring down any A330 unless in conjunction with aggravating factors such as unrepaired prior tail strike-related damage. The facts known so far do not support the CAT scenario.

The ACARS would’ve reported the data and there has been no confirmation that the airframe was severely tossed around. The ACARS reported abrupt electrical loss and then cabin pressure drop. The FDR and CVR will reveal a much clearer understanding of what happened. Lightning is a non-issue unless there's an engine fuel leak.

I'm not flying again.
taking a ship in the future.

God Blest all the lost soles.

No expert with experience turns to Wikipedia as a source. Could we get someone who knows how to actually looks something up?

Recovering an FDR in 4000+ metres of water is not a trivial task. If the acoustic beacon is functioning and if the FDR is accessible (not buried under wreckage) and if the data are intact, it will be of great help.

Lightning strike should not be discounted, and it presents more of a risk than just ignition of fuel vapours.

On a military jet that had experienced a lightning strike in clear air we had both significant structural damage and a number of electronic systems that were damaged beyond function. That aircraft had been electrically hardened for carrier operations, and still lost several systems. While the FBW flight controls were left intact, there was some degradation of other flight-essential systems. The structural damage was to both metal and composites.

Lightning strikes are considered in aircraft design, but the results of a strike are still unpredictable (and highly dependent on what part of the aircraft was hit).

The sequence of fault messages will be an excellent clue in determining the progression of whatever happened (which we may never know for sure).

It is clear that the weather condiction was ablle to put the airbus down.

Hello Blair,
I don't expect this Blog to be posted due to it being out of context, however a High School friend and I got our licenses simultaneously in different geographical locations in the early 70's, Ted Briggs in Kelowna and myself in Abbotsford. I was wondering if you know Ted and/or his whereabouts? Last I heard was he was flying for Air Canada; this being about 20 years ago.

I've been witness to a couple of examples of this in the last couple of months. There was a show on television last week that detailed an encounter on board a China Air flight that lost a significant amount of altitude somewhere over the Pacific in the last hour of its flight. I think that it was near California or Hong Kong. I can't remember it precisely. I was making dinner at the time and I wonder if it wasn't the same type of aircraft.

Before that there was a show about a US naval carrier on a routine training mission off of the coast of Cali. One of the Super Hornets was glitched by a lightning strike. There was a major electrical failure including communications. Fortunately Pilot was able to successfully land the plane at a field inland.

Thanks for this discussion. I seems to have brought out some characters for sure! Especially those with some insight.

It's hard to imagine how the families involved in this tragedy feel. I'm sure that God is wish them in this time of mourning and questioning.