Air France Bomb Threat Before Flight 447 Crash

[-Cp]

If this pans out to be the cause of Flight 447's demise - what do you think France's reaction should be?


Just days before the mysterious crash of Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean, Brazilian authorities reportedly delayed a similar Air France flight from Buenos Aires to Paris after the airline received a bomb threat over the phone.

Police and officials at Buenos Aires' Ezeiza Airport spent 90 minutes inspecting the threatened plane for explosives on the evening of May 27, but found nothing, according to a Brazilian news report.

During the search, passengers were not evacuated from the jet and later arrived safely at their destination in Paris.

A French accident investigator said Wednesday it's unclear whether the chief pilot of Flight 447 was at the controls when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

Read the rest at:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,524835,00.html

[glockmail]

If it was a bomb that fact will never be revealed, just like TWA Flight 800.

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/CRASH/TWA/STATEMENTS.html

[Mr. P]

The bomb thing is speculation..notice no one has steped up an taken credit.

Time will tell.

[glockmail]

No one took credit for flight 800 either.

[Mr. P]

No one took credit for flight 800 either.

Faulty wiring around the fuel tanks did.

[glockmail]

Faulty wiring around the fuel tanks did. Never been proven, only suspected. What about the 200 or so eyewitnesses that saw a rocket rising up to the plane just before it went down?

[Mr. P]

Never been proven, only suspected. What about the 200 or so eyewitnesses that saw a rocket rising up to the plane just before it went down?

No rocket was proven..Faulty fuel tank wiring was.

[glockmail]

No rocket was proven..Faulty fuel tank wiring was. Nothing was proven. Faulty wiring was what the government said was the probable cause.

[Mr. P]

Nothing was proven. Faulty wiring was what the government said was the probable cause.

I'll believe the NTSB over tinfoil hat folks any day

Who do you think fired a rocket,Glock?

[MtnBiker]

If this pans out to be the cause of Flight 447's demise - what do you think France's reaction should be?


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,524835,00.html


Simple, Sarkozy can order all of his foriegn ambassadors to invite terrorists to their next national holiday event to share in some brie and baguettes. Then Sarkozy should change his middle name to Abdula and go on an apology tour of the middle east and bow to anybody wearing a turbin. And as a bonus not only agree with Iran's need for nuclear power but also start shipping any equipment and materials they might need. Oh, and flip Netanyahu the bird.

[glockmail]

I'll believe the NTSB over tinfoil hat folks any day

Who do you think fired a rocket,Glock?

Do you believe everything the government says? I don't think so. Besides, their final report says probable cause; not proof.

I have no idea who fired it. All I ask is that the 200 or so eyewitness accounts be investigated.

[emmett]

Well guys, as of this morning they are confirming that the plane broke into pieces in the air. Faulty wiring? Hmmm. I don't know P, could faulty wiring be the cause of another? Makes one wonder. I'm leaning bomb or rocket attack myself at this point.

[Monkeybone]

I was reading your thread emmett and was wondering about that. even if something went wrong with the hydralics (for sterring?) and the plane did some weird manuvering....would is still be able to exert enough force to rip it apart? makes one wonder....



unless lightning set off fuel tanks...

[Mr. P]

Do you believe everything the government says? I don't think so. Besides, their final report says probable cause; not proof.

I have no idea who fired it. All I ask is that the 200 or so eyewitness accounts be investigated.

I know eyewitness accounts were investigated...I don't know how many.
Probable cause in aviation accidents is a significant finding, Glock. It's not an absolute but close..It was good enough to ground the 747 fleet for inspection and modification of fuel tank wiring though.

[glockmail]

I know eyewitness accounts were investigated...I don't know how many.
Probable cause in aviation accidents is a significant finding, Glock. It's not an absolute but close..It was good enough to ground the 747 fleet for inspection and modification of fuel tank wiring though. You know I'm not a conspiracy nut but it seems rather odd that 200 or so people saw some portion of an event that is very plausible- a terrorist using a portable launcher and a heat seeking missile against a soft target, yet the reported "probable cause" is wiring through a tank of non-volatile fuel, and that wiring would have been ripped apart and the tank exploded with the plausible scenario. It also seems too convenient that other pre-9/11 terrorist attacks against the US were not adequately followed up on, resulting in a string of increasingly deadly attacks, and we have a government that is loathe to admit complacency.

[emmett]

I am always prone to consider P's ideas on Aviation matters a little more than most simply because I know of his experience in these areas and knowledge of the subject. That said I am curious about the volitility of the fuel. Now Glock I can tell you that you are right when assuming the flash point of Jet Fuel is higher than say gasoline but it will explode. Correct me if I am wrong here P, when it does explode it is likely to cause a bigger explosion per cubic inch etc,.. because of the aforementioned fact. Harder to ignite and less explosive yet creates more pressure when it does.....like diesel fuel.

I know none of this proves anything. I'm just curious and always full of interest.

Another point that interested me was where the crash took place. It appears that it was just off the northern coast as if possibly the point chosen for such an attack, if so, was so as to place the bird in the drink upon crash so evidence would be hard to recover. With 800 that was the case that it went into the water and it was a long time before anyone took credit I think.

I'm not ready to proclaim it was a bomb or rocket but I am leaning that way and have been since the initial report.

[glockmail]

Volatility refers to the fuel's tendency to turn from a fuel to a vapor. Gasoline is much more volatile than any of the fuel oils. Since it's so volatile it is inherently more dangerous, and thus restricted to smaller vehicles. It is also less efficient, having less BTUs of heat potential per pound.

Jet fuel is basically No 1 fuel oil: kerosene. As the "fuel number" goes up the BTUs per pound also goes up, along with its viscosity.

[Mr. P]

I am always prone to consider P's ideas on Aviation matters a little more than most simply because I know of his experience in these areas and knowledge of the subject. That said I am curious about the volitility of the fuel. Now Glock I can tell you that you are right when assuming the flash point of Jet Fuel is higher than say gasoline but it will explode. Correct me if I am wrong here P, when it does explode it is likely to cause a bigger explosion per cubic inch etc,.. because of the aforementioned fact. Harder to ignite and less explosive yet creates more pressure when it does.....like diesel fuel.

I know none of this proves anything. I'm just curious and always full of interest.

Another point that interested me was where the crash took place. It appears that it was just off the northern coast as if possibly the point chosen for such an attack, if so, was so as to place the bird in the drink upon crash so evidence would be hard to recover. With 800 that was the case that it went into the water and it was a long time before anyone took credit I think.

I'm not ready to proclaim it was a bomb or rocket but I am leaning that way and have been since the initial report.


Volatility refers to the fuel's tendency to turn from a fuel to a vapor. Gasoline is much more volatile than any of the fuel oils. Since it's so volatile it is inherently more dangerous, and thus restricted to smaller vehicles. It is also less efficient, having less BTUs of heat potential per pound.

Jet fuel is basically No 1 fuel oil: kerosene. As the "fuel number" goes up the BTUs per pound also goes up, along with its viscosity.

Glock is on it with volatility of Jet fuel..in fact Jet Fuel (Jet-A) is a more refined kerosene sprayed in a mist into a combustion chamber in turbine engines, it's the vapor/mist that ignites. There is always a ball of fire in a turbine which produces heat to either turn a shaft on a Turbo-prop engine or turbine blades which produce thrust on Jet engines.

As far as explosion power per cubic inch etc goes..I couldn't say..I can say Jet fuel, when ignited, is very explosive. Ck that Air France concord accident a few yrs ago..tis on Youtube.

On Flt 447.. It's just tooo early to say what the cause was...these investigations are very complex. In this case recovery of the CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorded) and the FDR (Flight Data Record) are going to be very important. They have 30 days..before each stop transmitting their location signal.

[Mr. P]

Weather has been my "suspicion" in this accident and the below is leading that way. We still don't have enough info though.
Yes, a thunderstorm cell can destroy an aircraft. It's happened before as well.

The red type is my input....


The pilot sent a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time saying he was flying through an area of "CBs" — black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning. Satellite data has shown that towering thunderheads were sending 100 mph (160 kph) updraft winds into the jet's flight path at the time.Thunderstorms have updrafts and downdrafts, this is the cause of "wind shear".

Ten minutes later, a cascade of problems began: Automatic messages indicate the autopilot had disengaged, autopilot systems disengage when their performance limit is exceeded. this would suggest extreme turbulence in this case a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged this is why I hate "fly by wire" it's all computerized...lose it and yer screwed.. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems. They didn't need an alarm THEY KNEW!

Three minutes after that, more automatic messages reported the failure of systems to monitor air speed, altitude and direction. Control of the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well. That means they had no flight controls..

The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure — catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090603/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_plane

[-Cp]

PARIS (AP) - France's transportation minister said Friday that French forces have found no evidence of an Airbus A330 airplane that vanished over the Atlantic and urged "extreme prudence" about suspected debris fished from the ocean.

Dominique Bussereau said he regretted that an announcement by Brazilian teams that they had recovered plane debris from Air France flight 447 turned out to be false.

Meanwhile, European planemaker Airbus sent an advisory to all operators of the A330 reminding them of how to handle the plane in conditions similar to those experienced by flight 447, which was an Airbus A330-200 version.

Bussereau said the search must continue and stressed that the priority is finding the flight recorders. The plane went down Sunday night with 228 people aboard.

Confusion broke out Thursday after the Brazilian Air Force said a helicopter plucked a cargo pallet from the sea that came from the plane, but six hours later said it was not from the Airbus.

"French authorities have been saying for several days that we have to be extremely prudent," Bussereau told France's RTL radio. "Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing."

He said it is "bad news" that the Brazilian teams were mistaken. "We would have preferred that it (the debris) had come from the plane and that we had some information," he said.

Airbus spokesman Justin Dubon said the planemaker sent a reminder of A330 operating procedures to airlines late Thursday after the French agency investigating the crash said the doomed flight had faced turbulent weather and inconsistency in the speed readings by different instruments. That meant "the air speed of the aircraft was unclear," Dubon said.

In such circumstances, flight crews should maintain thrust and pitch and—if necessary—level off the plane and start troubleshooting procedures as detailed in operating manuals, Dubon said.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D98KDK001&show_article=1

[Kathianne]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877


What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 Two years after the Airbus 330 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, Air France 447's flight-data recorders finally turned up. The revelations from the pilot transcript paint a surprising picture of chaos in the cockpit, and confusion between the pilots that led to the crash.



Read more: Air France 447 Flight-Data Recorder Transcript - What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 - Popular Mechanics (http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877#ixzz1gAFTrDMY)

...With the wreckage and flight-data recorders lost beneath 2 miles of ocean, experts were forced to speculate using the only data available: a cryptic set of communications beamed automatically from the aircraft to the airline's maintenance center in France. As PM found in our cover story about the crash (http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/4338827), published two years ago this month, the data implied that the plane had fallen afoul of a technical problem—the icing up of air-speed sensors—which in conjunction with severe weather led to a complex "error chain" that ended in a crash and the loss of 228 lives.

The matter might have rested there, were it not for the remarkable recovery of AF447's black boxes this past April. Upon the analysis of their contents, the French accident investigation authority, the BEA, released a report in July that to a large extent verified the initial suppositions. An even fuller picture emerged with the publication of a book in French entitled Erreurs de Pilotage (http://www.amazon.fr/Erreurs-pilotage-5-Jean-Pierre-Otelli/dp/B0050SQ6UA) (volume 5), by pilot and aviation writer Jean-Pierre Otelli, which includes the full transcript of the pilots' conversation.

We now understand that, indeed, AF447 passed into clouds associated with a large system of thunderstorms, its speed sensors became iced over, and the autopilot disengaged. In the ensuing confusion, the pilots lost control of the airplane because they reacted incorrectly to the loss of instrumentation and then seemed unable to comprehend the nature of the problems they had caused. Neither weather nor malfunction doomed AF447, nor a complex chain of error, but a simple but persistent mistake on the part of one of the pilots...


Read more: Air France 447 Flight-Data Recorder Transcript - What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 - Popular Mechanics (http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877#ixzz1gAFhKsqm)

[Little-Acorn]

The Popular Mech transcripts on Air France 447 make it pretty clear to me that the plane suffered some fairly minor instrument malfunctions due to weather (pitot tubes icing up), and then the junior pilot began to jumping to some wrong conclusions and basically flew the plane wrong. That, coupled with the strange control setup of the Airbus 330 (pilot's and copilot's stick are NOT linked together), led to the crash.

No bombs, no gross mechanical failure. Almost completely pilot error.

[Noir]

How wrong exactly do you have to be flying a plane to crash it when you're 30,000+ ft up?

I'm not saying that's not what happened, but like, come'on =/

[Mr. P]

How wrong exactly do you have to be flying a plane to crash it when you're 30,000+ ft up?

I'm not saying that's not what happened, but like, come'on =/

30,000+ ft Wrong.