Germanwings Airbus Crashed in France
 

Not much is known yet but it doesn't look good: (Sorry for that source but it was the only English speaking site I found that had the story so far)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...h-live-5390012

The Beeb is breaking it now:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32030270

Live page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/32030778

FR24 information on the aircraft:
http://www.flightradar24.com/data/ai...-aipx/#5d42675

There are also reports that the aircraft put out a mayday signal at 09:47GMT and the weather in the area was not unusual, intermittant showers.

Pprune topic:
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...rn-france.html

Terribly tragic :nope:

Very sad news indeed.

Very sad and unfortunate indeed :(

Let's wait and see how the investigation plays out. So far, the most likely explanation is looking like sudden decompression, with crew becoming incapacitated after starting an emergency descent.

An FDR has been recovered so hopefully we should have answers fairly soon.
Tragically it looks as though some German exchange students were on board the flight.

Plus two babies according to live news :nope:

This is at least the third accident that i am aware of wherein an A320 took a plunge of several thousand feet into terrain.

A French airline was conducting a functional check flight of an A320, the AOA vanes had frozen causing a conflict between the pilot and the computer during a check of the stall warning system. despite the best efforts of the pilot to recover, the aircraft plunged several thousand feet into the sea off the coast of France

Air Asia just a couple of months ago... unexplained plunge into the sea

and today, Germanwings, unexplained plunge into mountainous terrain

the question is, could these accidents be related, and more importantly, what is causing the Airbus A320 to pitch down and lawn dart into the earth?

I dont see this as being the culrpit.

when decompression occurs, or the cabin pressurization light comes on, or there really is any indication that there is either a gradual or explosive decompression of the aircraft there are items that the flight crew will accomplish before doing anything else

1. Oxygen mask on (quick donning masks can go over an aviator's head and face in a matter of about 3 seconds)

2. Confirm flow

3. Establish communication with the other pilot

if these three things are done and you still pass out, God just had it in for you.

I must confess, one of the first incidents that came to my mind was the Air France A330 crash and the cause of that. It could well be an occurrence of the autopilot receiving garbage and outputting garbage leading to the aircraft entering an unflyable state.
Still, at least in these incident the FDR was recovered swiftly and that should hopefully mean some more firm ideas of what caused this will come to light.

Well, we don't know what happened in the cockpit. For all we know, they could have been contending with a windshield that blew in.

What doesn't make sense here is that we're not talking about a stall, a mid-air breakup, or a truly sudden plunge, going by the current available data. It does not look like a stall at all. There are no signs of a violent aircraft upset, like those you saw with the accidents that were mentioned. The descent at rates that were within a pretty normal range, so was the speed. On initiating descent, the aircraft apparently turned a few degrees, and then stayed on that heading all the way down. There doesn't with no apparent effort to regain control and according to official reports, no communication with ATC. There was no attempt to divert course either away from mountains, or towards one of the many available fields they could've landed on. So the crew had to be incapacitated, but the aircraft stayed within normal flight parameters.

Granted, I could see this being a case of, say, someone shooting the pilots dead and setting the AP to constant descent - but I do not see evidence of a stall in the ADS-B data (so no faulty sensors at play there).

http://i.imgur.com/34WEokB.jpg

The aircraft was basically turned a few degrees off course, then began descending at a steady 3500fpm average, accelerating only slightly. It's not consistent with stall, not consistent with engine-out, not consistent with loss of control. The only thing it's consistent with is a steady descent at idle throttle and at least some spoiler, with no other control input after it first started losing altitude. Decompression seems like the natural suspect.

The debris seems pretty well scattered, more so than I would expect from an intact aircraft hitting the deck in a semi-controlled dive. Although to be fair, there are a multitude of random variables that could cause that state.
It is rather strange, but then again the first twenty-four hours of most aircraft crashes like this are full of questions and very little answers.
The lack of stall and the steady reduction of altitude is very strange though, pprune seem to be talking a fair bit about rapid de-pressurisation too, so it can't be ruled out, especially if something did not go correctly during the oxygen mask procedure.

Well, actually if it were a stall or out of control/broken up in the air, it likely would've remained more intact after the crash, not less. From the terrain, I gather that it flew straight into the side of a granite mountain. By the indicators, looks like it was at some 380kt of ground speed. A big heavy object hitting a rock head-on is likely to get destroyed more thoroughly than through any other method. In fact, again, all the previous Airbus crashes mentioned produced far more intact pieces. Both Air France 447 and the recent Air Asia flights had largely-intact fuselage sections found on the bottom. Stalled aircraft will hit at far slower speeds, and the impact will often involve a larger surface area of the aircraft, limiting the damage.

(it's also a favourite argument of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, who will often take the thorough disintegration of the planes on head-on impact as evidence that "there was no planes, plane crashes don't look like this" etc.)

oh fer cryin out loud I never saw so much dancing around. Considering past world events it also quite is possible it was done deliberately.

Could be deliberate but to what end?

Suicide?

Terrorism?

If it was terror, and control of the aircraft was taken by a terrorist, why just point it at a mountain? Why not something more high profile.

I saw a few news blurbs: germanwings pilots refusing to fly A320, several flights cancelled.

Another said that the aircraft in question was grounded for more than an hour as mechanics worked to fix a 'minor' issue with the nose gear doors.

Not sure how accurate these reports are though.