Missing plane probably crashed in the Atlantic

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Lurchi

I would love to see the face of the guy who has to deal with their request for "the reintroduction of cabled controls" into passenger planes.

Not necessarily calling for the reintroduction of cables into airliners... I'm just saying, there has to be more system redundancy... if it were me piloting the plane - i want more than a wire leading to an electric motor in order to deflect a flight control.

I didnt have any problems hand flying prop-airliners around at 300MPH... and they were cable operated/ non hydraulic boost flight controls.

big difference though between that and a 747 or similar aircraft - but if all electrical goes out i want other options as a pilot than to just ride the thing down.

Originally Posted by Lurchi

it is pretty safe to say, that it takes a little bit more than lightning to bring down such a plane.

Boy do i ever know that first hand once we lost every MFD and Display in the cockpit for a good 20 seconds in hard night IMC - it was an interesting experience

I'll point you to December 8th 1962, Pan Am Boeing 707 - a lightning strike ignited a holding fuel tank and caused the aircraft to explode mid air.

I'll also point out that severe enough turbulence can bring down an aircraft of any size.