As I said:

It probably is a chain of events, although in the above I did not say that eventually a heavy turbulence alone could also be sufficient to make a plane falling apart.

I do not see this as a "I am right and you are wrong" game, GR. It'S just that in the first wave of news, the lightning theory was so overly stressed by anchormen in the news that it became a bit annoying. I do not rule out lightning as a cause. But I think some other possible theories are more likely to be true. Lightning is just the most sensational explanation, because it offers effects made by ILM and is often used in movies to let the excitment of the audience reaching climax. .

Which in my novice opinion speaks for a physical push causing it, not an electric impulse. If a lightning fries the electronics aboard an airplane, I would expect them to be in a state where they do not cause errors, but cause nothing anymore, just smoking. The automatted message system also sent a message at the end that sudden decompression of the cabin took place - but not initially, when the trouble began, but at the end, after four minutes. Because of this time delay, this also speaks more for a failing of the structural integrity due to turbulences of the airframe, than for a ligthning, imo.

If you take your PC and shake it, it functions erratically and then gives up. If you grill it with 100.000 ampere, it doesn't do anything anymore.

I don't know of course, but that's what I'm thinking. And it might have been from a lightning strike, however unprobable that might be. At some point this happened to another airliner once - lightning struck the fuel tanks and caused an explosion. I've now also heard from the news that the parts of the wreckage are dispersed over a pretty wide area, which would favor a disintegration mid-air at high altitude.

Anything else makes it difficult to see how they were not able to send a mayday call. I know the "aviate, navigate, communicate" rule, but when you are outside radar coverage, over the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night, it must occur to you that reporting your position and status is like EXTREMELY important if you want to provide your passengers with any chance of survival. So if they didn't, either all electrical systems failed, which is somewhat improbable with the high redundancy in modern airplanes, or what happened must have been so disastrous to disable them at once. And that could only be an explosion or catastrophic depressurization.

Even a catastrophic loss of control due to a software or whatever failure with the airplane departing and entering a spin or whatever and the crew trying to recover, doesn't explain why they wouldn't send a radio call while the plane goes down from 11 km. Or they must have gone down like a comet to not make a call while their radio was still working.

That's news to me. OK, that would pretty much rule out a sudden explosion immediately after a lightning strike or something. Probably it was something that at first looked like a minor problem and they were trying to figure it out, so they didn't report yet, and then the airplane suddenly exploded / depressurized. Still doesn't rule out a lightning strike, though, except if they are required to report something like that at once. A strike could have caused a small fire in some place initially, eating up a few electrical systems, until reaching something vital or the fuel tank. A bit like what happened when the Shuttle Columbia lost more and more electrical systems that were burned away by the heat and then disintegrated.
I'll stop the speculations right now though. I'm no expert and will leave this to the aviation engineers (and the media...).

I'm betting on a combination of factors, including lightening and turbulance.

It's possible to make radio contact with someone on land that far out, isn't it? Seems like something pretty sudden happened for there to be no voice transmissions before the accident. Or comms were out.

RIP crew and passengers.

PD

Since there was a series of failure messages that was sent by the planes control systems shows something went wrong and when the plane failed, it happened so quick that the pilots never got off a mayday.

The plane was almost brand new and has a pretty good history flight wise. Qantas had a incident with the same model of plane when the auto pilot made the plane descend rapidly twice in quick succession, only the quick response of the flight crew crew saved it from crashing into the sea. They are still unsure why it happened the last I heard, and it may not be related to this case.

My thoughts are with the families of those who have lost there lives:cry:

One of the ACARS message concern a rapid icing of the plane wings, engine and flight probes, and the problem is the Flight control use the probes to maintain the aircraft flying.
So if the electrical faillure make the de-icing system off the plane was in big trouble like the Air Florida Flight 90 crash in 1982.

I hear ya man. Flying down to LA one time in the middle of the soup at about FL200 and a lightning strike knocked out all electronics. Reset the fuel flow meter to 0 for example, but of course had back up analog gauges for qty.

I've been hit while flying before, but it never really mattered. This time however, it did.

I think a bigger danger that usually comes with lightening is hail. That stuff will rip a plane to shreds in seconds.

-S

you know a funny thing... a couple of the worst icing conditions i ever ran into was down around Fresno and Phoenix etc... people dont expect it much down in the southwest, but its there.

Try Southern WA at 6K. Worst I ever ran into at 2 AM in the morning. I was watching the airspeed drop down to about 170 kts but though nothing of it, then a while later looked at it and it was approaching 120 kts. George was flying - the nickname for the autopilot and he is happy to correct for it! :D Grabbed a flashlight, pointed it on the wing and crud! We were a flying brick! Probably seconds from a death spiral. Hit the boots and it all came off but I tell you, that happened quick. Had to get out of the alt. fast. Requested FL40 and it was a bit better down there.

One thing I tell you, if you want to wake up fast from a nap, hit the prop de-ice in the middle of some good icing conditions. Ice slamming against the fuselage does a number on your napping state! :D Especially in the dark!

-S

haha yes indeed the first time.

what plane?

our lav was up front behind the FO seat, when the toilet flush motor would run it would run slightly out of sync with the prop sound so it sounds like the right engine just sh*t the bed... thats a nice wake up call.

LOL!

There has always been aircraft in the family, everything from a Piper Tri-Pacer to a Balanca Super Viking, decked out with an all digital cockpit. This particular aircraft in the story above was an E model Aztec, with full de-ice and modified. Had a STOL kit on it, and long range tanks (1200 nmi range). The STOL kit was put on to cut down on approach speeds. It dropped stall speed to about 49 knots dirty. It allowed us to get into airports otherwise inaccesable. Approach speed dropped by about 20 knots as well - putting us well under 3 digits unlike before.

Its kind of left unused mostly these days. I should go get certified and fly it. It needs to be used. Right now it gets its engines run-up once every 1 to 2 months. It is expensive to fly that thing though, but it does have a 248 MPH cruise capability at 24K. Ceiling is 30K.

-S

PS. Of all the aircraft I miss, that Balanca was it. 300 HP, 520 cu/in Continental on it. That is no longer in the family. It had unheard of radio's - a permanent trial by NARCO with 25 WATTS power (normal is about 7 WATTS). You could talk to Seattle ATC from anywhere (on the ramp) you wanted in that thing and they were always surprised you could raise them. Not sure if NARCO ever went on to produce them commercially, but that is just one thing that Balanca had. It probably had a $250K cockpit. And you wore that plane. I can remember coming over the crest and into the crater in Mt. St. Helens at over 200 kts, dropping a wing to take pictures and it was such and unstable platform it would not try to correct itself and it would leave that wing down there if you took your hands off the controls. Then pulling out on the other side. You needed the speed and the power to make sure you didn't get caught in the downdraft on the other side. I could go on all day about that plane. It was not a Mooney. It was not a Bonanaza. It was special and only those that flew it know what I am talking about.

The Aztec is a great airplane:up:

Something different, in the Marchetti SF260 cockpit I noticed a label reading:

"Turn off strobe lights when taxing in vicinity of other aircraft..."

Okay until here, but then:

"... or during flight through cloud, fog and haze."

????

I'm not a pilot, but I'm guess that it's either a misprint or is the result of the way water refracts light, making it seem as though something is in a different position than it actually is.

Just an uneducated guess, though...

pretty much correct.

the idea is that repeated strobing lights in Instrument conditions contributes to disorientation during flight.

turning off strobe lights on the ground is pretty much a courtesy thing as it is very annoying and distracting while on the ground (we are not talking about the red beacons... but the white strobes)

this placard has been present in just about every aircraft i have ever flown.

Btw, does anyone know how difficult it is to retrieve the so called black box from around that area, presumably from the bottom of the sea? Does it emanate a homing signal or something? Wonder if it would be possible to implement a floating black box, one that would rise to the surface after the crash.

edit. Hmm, looks like they might never find the flight recorders.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/am...=googletoolbar

The French send the 'Pourquoi Pas' a joint french navy and some deep sea research institute ship with the Nautile (one of the sub who discover the Titanic can dive to -7000m), the ship is specially built to minimize the noise and had a lot of sonar detection system aboard , it will be on the area in 7 days and has 21 other days to find the 2 blackbox.

this ship help to recover blackbox from an egyptian aircrash in the red sea some years ago.

Ignoring for a moment that you are not well-advised - and may even be prohibited - to intentionally fly into a cloud formation, especially with a small plane maybe even lacking a radar or TCAS, isn't this switching off of the strobes - the brightest light indicators on a plane short of the landing lights - compromising security, since it makes the plane harder to spot for any other traffic in close proximity?

any aircraft operating on an IFR flight plan can enter clouds because they are required to be communicating with air traffic controller, and they are also required to have a working - altitude reporting transponder.

we would typically turn strobe lights off when flying into clouds or fog for a long period of time. the first few flashes are not a big deal, but after it becomes obvious that you have flown into a rather large cloud, its best to switch them off.

When you fly through a cloud, everything becomes white out - in extreme cases you can barely see your wingtips.

You see... flying through a cloud or fog causes the entire immediate area of your aircraft to flash white like lightning on and of and on and off as it refracts off of every water molecule around your plane. its not the sharply defined flash you see when you look up at night at a passing airliner.

if you are close enough to another aircraft in flight in such low visibility conditions as i have described above; to see the strobe lights of another aircraft means its already to late to avoid collision. in some cases you might not be able to tell the flashes of another aircraft's lights and your own.

given that IFR aircraft are separated from one another by very specific air traffic control separation minimums (the air traffic controller makes sure the dots on his radar screen dont touch other dots) the greater risk for pilots is to suffer from "flicker vertigo" or to suffer from disorientation caused by strobe lights in extreme low visibility - thus causing him to possibly lose control of his aircraft.

when flying through clouds with strobe lights ON, your intire world outside the windows starts looking like it is occuring at 1 or 2 frames per second, while the inside world (instrument indications, head and hand movements etc) is occuring in real time. its something that is hard to describe - but once you experience it first hand it is very easy to think "Okay.... i can see where this would be a problem"

EDIT: in lieu of strobe lights - you can activate your landing lights if you will be in a cloud for a long period of time, this way the white light is constant and not flashing so you do not suffer from strobe vertigo.