Air France Flight 447

113 victims died in the Concorde jet that crashed in Gonesse France on July 25, 2000. After 10 years of investigation, a court may be ruling in a manslaughter case in December all though culpability is still not satisfactorily established.

The crash may have been caused by a titanium strip that fell off the Concorde to the runway.

The people of Gonesse, where the plane crashed, are dissatisfied with French efforts to protect individuals who reside near airports.

Likewise, the families of victims of Air France Flight 447 are dissatisfied, not only with safety concerns but with the abandonment of the search of the victims, although there have been hints of another round of searches beginning at some time in the future.

Others point to possible cover-ups, from knowing about the pitot problems to conspiracy theories about the black boxes already having been found.

It has been over a year since Air France Flight 447 from Rio to Paris plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 228 on board, and Air France is still having problems.

After a week of technical problems in several Air France flights ranging from electrical problems to broken toilets, ANAC is increasing its scrutiny of Air France planes. In addition to inspecting Air France planes, ANAC has notified the BEA of the problems.

Air France Boeing 747-400 flight AF-443, registration F-GITD en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris France with 437 people on board, was over the Atlantic 3 hours into the flight when they had to return to Rio de Janeiro with only 3 of 11 toilets working.

The replacement flight AF-443A was also delayed due to a “technical incident” and eventually departed Rio de Janeiro with a delay of more than 31 hours.

ANAC is Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency.

We really would prefer to have brand new good news about the search for flight 447 every day, so that we could present good news every single day, instead of bad news once a month. However, since the June announcement that the search was over, the Air France Flight 447 news has been slim pickings. We have observed that the BEA and Air France handlers have come a long way from the immediate response with the airline providing trained counselors and doctors, updating the Air France web pages to provide information. Now the bell-ringers are curiously silent, hoping, no doubt, that the families and the public will cease and desist–stop bugging them to keep looking for the lost plane, and the lost answers.

But those who were mourning are still mourning. Those who wanted answers still want answers. Those who were dissatisfied with theory are still dissatisfied with theory. Let us not forget that there is concrete evidence somewhere. Somewhere the black boxes are still waiting.

So now we can report progress. Well, not actually progress. Not even a promise of progress. More like a promise that the powers that be might consider progress. In September. They will consider looking for AF 447 again. In September. Pending the results of a report.

Dominique Bussereau, junior transport minister addressed the families of the victims, “I will be receiving in early September some facts from the BEA that will allow me to decide on a possible new search,” BEA director Jean-Paul Troadec claimed he was in favor of a fourth search.

So search one failed; search two failed; search three failed. They seem to be dragging out beginning a fourth search. What else can we do but wait and see?

* ASD NEWS, PARIS, July 12, 2010 France considers new search of AF447 black boxes

The BEA announced that the third phase of the search for the black boxes ended unsuccessfully on May 24th. Neither the wreckage nor the black boxes of AF447 were found after searching 17000 square kilometers in all.

The BEA has published a map of the search area in their discussion of the final search phase:

(see below)

The fact that the search area was narrowed down is insignificant as the boxes have not been found. It has been a year since the crash. The family association is pushing for the search to continue until the black boxes are found. And who can blame them? What would the rest of the world be doing if it was their loved ones who had been lost?

All the King’s horses and all the King’s men can’t find the black boxes of Air France Flight 447.

Is it true that they’ve given up the search? How is it with all of the technology we have at our disposal in 2010, so much of the plane is missing? The fuselage? The black boxes?

Nelson Marinho, president of the Association of the families of the victims, has been quoted saying that they (the searchers) don’t want to find the black boxes. It’s a valid question since the black boxes contain information that will surely implicate some of those who are paying for the search. 18.6% of Air France belongs to the government of France and the rest is owned by private shareholders. Do they really want to find the evidence that will hold Air France (and by virtue of that, the French government) responsible for charges like negligent maintenance, and convict the whole paradigm of fly-by-wire technology? Do they really want more evidence convicting Thales (a French company that manufactured the pitot tubes, also 27% owned by the government of France.) And I’m not sure of the exact numbers currently, but as of 2007, the government of France owns at least 15% of EADS, the consortium which owns Airbus.

The BEA site is curiously silent on the current status of the search, with the last report being in mid May.

In my opinion, it is unlikely that the black boxes will bring anything new to the table; where ever they are, they will most likely concur with the existing evidence pointing to pitot tube failure as a factor. But every shred of evidence is important, and currently, it appears that the fuselage impacted the ocean intact in a vertical descent. The recovered remains indicate compression injuries and look like there was no fire or explosion.

Regardless of what the evidence shows, phase three of the search for the black boxes has been entirely fruitless.

It is not as if finding the black boxes will bring back the dead. But at least the search should provide some answers.

228 people died. Families lost their loved ones. Not for three months, not for a year. The families will be suffering their losses for all eternity. It would be beyond reprehensible for Air France and Airbus to give up the search after less than a year. Don’t the families deserve answers?

Various sources indicate that the most recent searches have revealed no new traces of Air France Flight 447, the Airbus A330 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, which went down in heavy thunderstorms, killing 228 passengers.

The latest search narrowed down the search field from 1,200 square mile to 80 square miles. Not a single scrap of new evidence has been located.

Working with the newest data transmitted by the recent sonar search has been fruitless; however they are continuing to access the data.

New calculations by investigators based on the black boxes last pings gathered by the French submarine, the Emeraude have narrowed the area to a space the size of Paris. The boxes have NOT been found; but the search area has been narrowed from 770 square miles. Gen. Christian Baptiste said that they are searching for recorders the size of a shoe box in an undersea mountain range.

The March-April $10 million third phase of the search failed to find the black boxes. Air France and Airbus have each ponied up $1.9 million to continue a scaled down search as some of the search equipment is released back to its owners.

The most recent search yielded nothing. Three more weeks and that’s it. But for now, apparently some of the equipment has gone back to base to refuel. Using all the latest technology including satellite tracking of ocean currents, the search teams have pinned down the most likely area and are painstakingly searching it. Some of the robot subs have gone on to other missions, but some of the technology and some of the workers remain.

In February, the head of the BEA, Jean-Paul Troadec, announced if this search is fruitless, then its all over. But in March, Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau encouraged the search to continue.
So it remains to be seen.

NTSB Puts: Airbus In the Hot Seat.
It’s about time!

Irony of ironies. Today I finish reading and thinking about the NTSB’s report on the Hudson crash see here here and here . GMTA as they say (Great Minds Think Alike.)

So I am not the only one who believes that Airbus demonstrates problems. In fact, by now, one would have to live on the most remote mountain top in Nepal NOT to know that Airbus instruments, and Airbus instrumentation leave a lot to be desired.

How bad is it when the manual causes accidents instead of preventing them? That’s a rhetorical question, but I’ll answer it myself.

It’s bad.

Apparently if the Hudson crew had attempted to use the manual, they would have failed to make a safe landing, because it had precise directions (required to turn off automated features related to ground landing as opposed to a water landing). Relying on the manual would likely have lead the crew to make the kind of errors that result in fatalities. It’s a good thing that Captain Sully–our Captain/Pilot/Hero of the decade–knew what he was doing.

But the survival of everyone on the Hudson flight was because of the actions of a man–in spite of the Airbus he was flying.

In spite of the manual which tells pilots how to fly the Airbus.

The NTSB has a list of suggestions, advisories and directives that Airbus may eventually heed. But hopefully our courts will have long memories. Hopefully, when Airbus cases come before them, they will be strong against EADS, the European aerospace company that owns Airbus, and Airbus Industrie itself. If the US doesn’t check Airbus and make them stop and pay attention to those little details that keep people alive, make them correct careless mistakes, prevent them from the publication of reckless negligent manuals, who will? Who will remind Airbus that exclusive reliance on fly by wire flight control computers is unwise–when a mere computer failure can easily render an aircraft uncontrollable? Haven’t we all seen enough blue screens to know even redundant system computers are fallible? We can look at Sully in the cockpit and conclude “the ultimate pilot is not a computer. It is…He is a man.”

We all know about the failure of the Thales pitot tubes which froze up and contributed to the loss of AF 447.

Now we know the manuals are useless in certain catastrophic situations over water.

What else will we have to learn the hard way before Airbus negligence will be checked?

Spiegel Online has not forgotten the victims of Flight 447.

They’re running an article, The Curse of Flight AF445
Victims’ Families Distraught at Air France’s Thoughtlessness on the latest faux pas of Air France.

Air France decided to be big about it, and send the victims surviving families tickets to the June 1 grand unveiling of the Paris memorial that honors the Flight 447 deceased. They sent the families tickets on the same flight, day, time and craft essentially, as the one that killed their loved ones. Although AF 447 has been replaced nominally by AF 445, the rest of the details remain the same.

You don’t have to be superstitious to be appalled by the move.

If the families want to attend the memorial opening…
(and you can just imagine their therapist telling them that attending the memorial would be good for them. Get them out into the world. Get them talking and interacting with other families who have shared the same type of loss.)
It’s bad enough that the family members have to get on a plane…
It’s bad enough that they have to get on the same type of plane…
It’s bad enough that the families in Brazil will have to traverse the same path as the fatal flight…
It’s bad enough that the flight is on the year anniversary of the crash…

But to compound all of the above is unconscionable.

Maybe Air France is planning to use the flight to downplay the family reaction. Can’t you just picture the future trial. Some mother or child is weeping on the stand, heartbroken over their loss and responding to some insensitive inquisition by the attorney. The Air France lawyer leaps up and waves around those free tickets, and uses them to say “Well judge, they weren’t so traumatized that they turned down free tickets.”

If any of those damaged families end up taking that flight (though I know for a fact the family association is even as I write this working at getting them on Boeings,) I guarantee they’re going to be complete basket cases by the time they safely get back to land.

IF they safely get back to land.

I’m just saying.