Air France Flight AF 447 - "Confirmed" went swimming.

[DarkRanger]

Air Force Finds Plane Debris
Debris May Be From Doomed Jet
Ocean Search For Air France Jet
Stormy Seas Hamper Jet Search

Getting worse by the minute.

Still, not losing hope.

[DarkRanger]

Dude, conformed means "The authorities know for a fact that blah blah blah". They authorities know for a FACT that the plane is missing. The don't KNOW anything else, they can only theorise from there on.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[Tribble]

Dude, conformed means "The authorities know for a fact that blah blah blah".

no, "conformed" means "to be or become similar in nature blah blah blah."

Aw I was about to do that

[Stuart]

okay, so it', ahem, "conformed" now

Rio de Janeiro - Brazilian navy divers rushed on Wednesday to reach the wreckage of an Air France jet and start the grim job of pulling debris from the Atlantic Ocean, where the plane with 228 people went down in the the airline's worst disaster in its 75-year history.

Four navy ships with recovery equipment and a tanker were headed to a 5km strip of water strewn with airplane seats, an orange buoy, wiring, hunks of metal and jet fuel stains about 1200km northeast of the coastal city of Recife.

Rear Admiral Domingos Nogueira said the navy was battling tough weather as officials predicted the hardest task would be finding the flight data and voice recorders that hold clues to why the plane fell out of the sky during a severe storm in the middle of the night.

Distraught relatives who had prayed for a miracle gave up hope as experts were certain that all aboard died on the flight, which left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night bound for Paris.

"I just want to find my son's body so that he can have a dignified burial," said Aldair Gomes, the father of Marcelo Parente, who was the head of the Rio mayor's cabinet.

So far no bodies have been sighted on flyovers by the air force, which spotted evidence of the catastrophe on Tuesday, allowing the navy to mount a retrieval operation.

"The ships are equipped to arrive and pick up pieces of the Airbus," Nogueira said. "Each ship has two divers on board and smaller ships to throw into the ocean to try and get pieces."

Helicopters would then be used to take wreckage of the Airbus A330 from the ships to a base on the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, 700km from the crash site.

Mystery

Officials said the recorders needed to identify the causes of the mysterious crash could be on the ocean floor at a depth of 2 000 to 3 000m.

The recorders are designed to send homing signals for up to 30 days when they hit water but many do not float well.

One expert said it could be among the hardest recoveries since the decades-long search to find the Titanic.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he was confident that the black boxes would be located.

"I think a country that can find oil 6 000m under the ocean can find a plane 2 000m down," he told reporters on Tuesday in Guatemala, referring to recent oil finds by Brazil's state energy company in ultra-deep waters.

Authorities were at a loss to explain how a storm could have caused the plane, operated by three experienced pilots, to crash without sending a mayday call.

Officials from France have arrived in Brazil to lead the investigation with help from Brazilian teams.

Brazil's air force last had contact with Flight AF 447 at 01:33 GMT on Monday when it was 565km from its coast. The last automated signals, which reported an electrical failure, were received about 40 minutes later.

One theory is that a lightning strike or brutal weather set off a series of failures. But lightning routinely hits planes and could not alone explain the downing, aviation specialists said.

Two Lufthansa jets believed to have been in the same area half an hour before the Air France mishap could provide clues for investigators, the World Meteorological Organisation said.

[doo_much]

said he was confident that the black boxes would be located.

"I think a country that can find oil 6 000m under the ocean can find a plane 2 000m down," he told reporters on Tuesday in Guatemala, referring to recent oil finds by Brazil's state energy company in ultra-deep waters.

The man is obviously not a diver...
The logistics involved in this will be enormous, as well as the cost.

And I'd hate to have to compute that search grid.
I mean you'll have some oil and debris floating around which'll give you an indication of where to start, but that's been buffeted around by stormy seas and wind.
Add to that the fact that the plane wouldn't sink straight down and that the fusilage was possibly broken up and moved by streams.
From my barely informed position I'm thinking - OUCH.

Anyone ever been involved in something like this? Closest I've come was trying to find a boat in the Vaal!

[Stuart]

if the black box is still sending out homing signals like it should be they may be able to find it. i think we can pretty much bet that they'll spend whatever is necessary to recover what is needed in this one.

[Prime]

doo_much, use sonar?

[doo_much]

if the black box is still sending out homing signals like it should be they may be able to find it. i think we can pretty much bet that they'll spend whatever is necessary to recover what is needed in this one.

Valid point!
Considering the density of water, I wonder what frequency they send at and what range it has. Should be further under water?

[doo_much]

doo_much, use sonar?

IMO that won't be much use? Small(ish) objects lying all over the seabed?


*EDIT
Seems I'm wrong!

Navy Supervisor of Salvage and Diving (SUPSALV) based in Washington, D.C., has representatives on scene to assist NTSB with planning the salvage operation. SUPSALV has mobilized such equipment as towed pinger locator system, towed side scan sonar system, deep drone remotely operated vehicle and associated support equipment.

Source

This was during the salvage of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 in 2000. The plane had broken up badly on impact.
Only 700 feet deep though...

[DarkRanger]

if the black box is still sending out homing signals like it should be they may be able to find it. i think we can pretty much bet that they'll spend whatever is necessary to recover what is needed in this one.

That's the problem. The black box has't been emitting signals. I read it in one of the articles I posted. They said finding the plane would be much easier if the black box sent those signals.

[Stuart]

if the black box is still sending out homing signals like it should be they may be able to find it. i think we can pretty much bet that they'll spend whatever is necessary to recover what is needed in this one.

That's the problem. The black box has't been emitting signals. I read it in one of the articles I posted. They said finding the plane would be much easier if the black box sent those signals.

ah, i see. i'm keen to know if they discover the cause of this accident. not that i'm all sadistic or anything, but this one seems to have everyone mystified.

[DarkRanger]

It does. It's probably a series of unfortunate events. The plane was a workhorse, so that might mean that it was overused, or not serviced properly.

Still, it's very sad...

[doo_much]

One theory is that a lightning strike or brutal turbulence set off further failures, but families were facing a long wait for answers as the search for the plane's flight recorders is likely to be one of the most difficult ever.

Jobim said the flight recorders could be on the ocean floor at a depth of 2,000 to 3,000 meters (6,600-9,800 feet).

The "black box" recorders are the best hope of finding out why the jet crashed and are designed to send homing signals when they hit water. It could be among the hardest recovery tasks since the exploration of the Titanic, one expert said.

"If you think how long it took to find the Titanic and that the debris would be smaller, you are looking for a needle in haystack," said Derek Clarke, joint managing director of Aberdeen-based Divex, which designs and builds military and commercial diving equipment.

Senior French minister Jean-Louis Borloo said it was "a race against the clock" to find the black boxes because they only emit signals for up to 30 days.

Source

[DarkRanger]

Ok, seems I misread that...

My bad. Thanks doo. I know about the emitting signals part, I just 'thought' I read that for some reason they could not pick up this planes signals.

[Ron2K]

said he was confident that the black boxes would be located.

"I think a country that can find oil 6 000m under the ocean can find a plane 2 000m down," he told reporters on Tuesday in Guatemala, referring to recent oil finds by Brazil's state energy company in ultra-deep waters.

The man is obviously not a diver...
The logistics involved in this will be enormous, as well as the cost.

And I'd hate to have to compute that search grid.
I mean you'll have some oil and debris floating around which'll give you an indication of where to start, but that's been buffeted around by stormy seas and wind.
Add to that the fact that the plane wouldn't sink straight down and that the fusilage was possibly broken up and moved by streams.
From my barely informed position I'm thinking - OUCH.

Anyone ever been involved in something like this? Closest I've come was trying to find a boat in the Vaal!

I recall that it took investigators at least a year to find the CVR of SA 295; the FDR was never found. Ocean depth was around 5000m.

[SykomantiS]

So everybody is looking for this black box... Funny I've not heard a word about any survivors, or lack of. They all just want Pandora's box.

But what are the chances of anyone surviving and more importantly, being found?

[Anakha56]

Finding survivors or pieces of them will be remote I am pretty sure there would have been a shark frenzy happening in the area of the crash .

Condolences to the families...

[Prime]

said he was confident that the black boxes would be located.

"I think a country that can find oil 6 000m under the ocean can find a plane 2 000m down," he told reporters on Tuesday in Guatemala, referring to recent oil finds by Brazil's state energy company in ultra-deep waters.

The man is obviously not a diver...
The logistics involved in this will be enormous, as well as the cost.

And I'd hate to have to compute that search grid.
I mean you'll have some oil and debris floating around which'll give you an indication of where to start, but that's been buffeted around by stormy seas and wind.
Add to that the fact that the plane wouldn't sink straight down and that the fusilage was possibly broken up and moved by streams.
From my barely informed position I'm thinking - OUCH.

Anyone ever been involved in something like this? Closest I've come was trying to find a boat in the Vaal!

I recall that it took investigators at least a year to find the CVR of SA 295; the FDR was never found. Ocean depth was around 5000m.

government cover up?

[lancelot]

Of course it was a cover up, the plane was carrying contraband chemical goods.

[Stuart]

sorry, lance, could you repeat that? i never quite got it ...

edit: ah crud ... choo delete the double post for? now my post makes no sense ... for the first time ... ever

[lancelot]

Bloody forum lag, it the Thai transvestite slowing things down

[Stuart]

"Conformed" or not?

Rio de Janeiro - Red-faced Brazilian officials said late on Thursday debris they thought was from an Air France crash in the Atlantic was in fact sea "trash", adding to the uncertainties surrounding the jet tragedy.

"Up to now, no material from the plane has been recovered," Brigadier Ramon Cardoso, director of Brazilian air traffic control, told reporters in the northeastern city of Recife.

Items, including a cargo pallet and two buoys, pulled from the ocean early on Thursday - which Cardoso himself had initially said came from downed Air France flight AF 477 - actually came from another source, most certainly a ship.

"We confirm that the pallet found is not part of the debris of the plane. It's a pallet that was in the area, but considered more to be trash," he said.

The pallet was made of wood, and the Air France Airbus A330 did not have any wooden pallets on board. "That's how we can confirm that the pallet isn't part of the remains of the aircraft," Cardoso said.

He also said a big oil slick originally thought to come from the plane probably also came from a ship passing through the zone, 1 000km off Brazil's northeast coast.

Despite the mistake over the debris, it appeared the Brazilian navy was in the right general area where the Air France came down.

Air force planes on Tuesday and Wednesday spotted items in the water, including a seat from a plane and a seven-metre chunk of what looked like fuselage, that Defence Minister Nelson Jobim said were beyond a doubt from the French jet.

Air France flight AF 477 came down early on Monday as it was transporting 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

Speculation over what caused the accident has ranged from a massive, lightning-packed storm in the area at the time, to turbulence, to pilot error or a combination of factors.

No mayday call was received from the plane, just a series of data transmissions signalling it had lost power and then had either broken up or gone into a fatal dive.

Memorial services were held on Wednesday in Paris and on Thursday in Rio for those on board the plane, though no bodies have been spotted at sea.

Many relatives of the passengers attended, but others declined, refusing to give up hope that somehow, despite the evidence, their loved ones had survived.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said after speaking at the Rio ceremony "it will probably take some time" before the reason for the catastrophe - the worst in Air France's history - would be known.

The point in the Atlantic where the plane came down is "immensely deep", between 3 000 and 4 000m, complicating the search for the black boxes, he said.

[Sojourn]

Pretty much "conformed" for me when the plane was not reporting in after being missing for a longer period than it had fuel to stay in the air.

[Screeper]

They may still find the black box. But i guess they need to be lucky. Since it seems the plane bits are so deep the search ships will have to pass right over the top of the FDR for one of them to pick up the signal of the locator beacon.

Underwater Locator Beacon...
In addition to the paint and reflective tape, black boxes are equipped with an underwater locator beacon (ULB). If you look at a black box, you will almost always see a small, cylindrical object attached to one end of the device. While it doubles as a handle for carrying the black box, this cylinder is actually a beacon. If a plane crashes into the water, this beacon sends out an ultrasonic pulse that cannot be heard by human ears but is readily detectable by sonar and acoustical locating equipment. There is a submergence sensor on the side of the beacon that looks like a bull's-eye. When water touches this sensor, it activates the beacon.

The beacon sends out pulses at 37.5 kilohertz (kHz) and can transmit sound as deep as 14,000 feet (4,267 m). Once the beacon begins "pinging," it pings once per second for 30 days. This beacon is powered by a battery that has a shelf life of six years. In rare instances, the beacon may get snapped off during a high-impact collision.

[StarPhoenix]

I wonder how practical it would be to fit GPS devices to aircraft.