Germanwings A320 crashed in France :(

[Asterix]

hornetrider said:

Wait til Kate Burley gets over there.

I'd really like to kick her in the sometimes.

She could even keep the shoe.

[johnxjsc1985]

SKY news have got what looks like a 12 years old aviation "expert" on.

Edited by johnxjsc1985 on Tuesday 24th March 15:17

[JRM]

jeebus said:

Speculation but, Someone posted on pprune:

MM7168 (NOT the Airbus) squawks 7700 at 09:35 GMT, which is 10:35am Central European Time (Promise!) just to the East in Northern Italy.

The Airbus, started the rapid descent at 09:31 GMT, or 10:31 CET.

Could a mid air collision been possible? MM7168 is an Italian fighter jet

The decent looks too smooth to suggest something as major than that - we should start a theory thread! Mine is structural failure leading to fast decompression, pilots switched of auto-pilot in order to descend to a lower altitude, passed out before applying oxygen masks, came round at the lower altitude just enough to set 7700 squawk. Horrible thought though.

[bitchstewie]

And so it begins.

[airbusA346]

Photo of debris at crash site on below link.

http://www.airlive.net/2015/03/breaking-crash-of-a...

"We have reports crashed #Germanwings #4U9525 plane has 'disintegrated,' and 'largest debris is the size of a car’.

French officer at Germanwings crash site says no apparent survivors; recovery likely to take days.

From reports we have, #Germanwings #4U9525 The plane is completely disintegrated. Debris spread over more than 2 kilometers."

[Bluebarge]

Puggit said:

That would be a stunning piece of news, as French authorities haven't mentioned fighters being scrambled. Obviously it's highly unlikely they would have been the cause of the incident, but it won't stop some people...

Fighter jets are routinely scrambled when a civil airliner loses contact with ATC. French air force also regularly overflies the Alps - may just have been somewhere nearby (and when you can do Mach2, "nearby" could be a quite a long way away).

[AlexIT]

I now understand why they quickly said that there were no survivors...

[Mojocvh]

AlexIT said:

I now understand why they quickly said that there were no survivors...

Hmm, sad day indeed. RIP.

[Muddle238]

jeebus said:

Speculation but, Someone posted on pprune:

MM7168 (NOT the Airbus) squawks 7700 at 09:35 GMT, which is 10:35am Central European Time (Promise!) just to the East in Northern Italy.

The Airbus, started the rapid descent at 09:31 GMT, or 10:31 CET.

Could a mid air collision been possible? MM7168 is an Italian fighter jet

Suppose you were the pilot of MM7168. You're flying along at FL380, when you collide with an Airbus A320. This immediately causes the A320 to start a fairly stable* descent, which goes unchanged and apparently without comms until the A320 makes contact with terrain. Meanwhile in MM7168, you wait a full four minutes before deciding to squawk 7700. Seems a bit unlikely if I'm honest. The last time there was a mid air over European airspace it involved a passenger TU-154 and a DHL B757 over Germany. The impact caused the TU-154 to break up mid-air, whereas the B757 tailfin sheared off. I believe the B757 was able to fly with some form of basic control for a couple of minutes before the lack of yaw control caused a loss of control and in-flight breakup.

• Based on FR24, the flightpath appeared to maintain a desired lateral track and the descent appeared fairly linear, compared to the sort of flightpath you might expect from an airliner if it was damaged so much from a mid-air that caused it to descend. If that were the case, I'd expect to see a much steeper descent and perhaps some form of spiral lateral path. If it were to breakup, I'd expect a loss of transponder signal before terrain contact, not at terrain contact which appears to be the case today.

[sa_20v]

AlexIT said:

I now understand why they quickly said that there were no survivors...

That does make more sense. RIP.

[camshafted]

Link to an unconfirmed images of the scene.

https://twitter.com/thatjohn/status/58038875604308...
https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/580389123...

As above, is unconfirmed.

[johnxjsc1985]

I guess some of us where hoping for a miracle and that we might have found some passengers still alive but it was a forlorn hope.
unlike the missing plane at least the relatives can have some answers to what happend.

[RobGT81]

camshafted said:

Link to an unconfirmed images of the scene.

https://twitter.com/thatjohn/status/58038875604308...
https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/580389123...

As above, is unconfirmed.

No snow?

[Le TVR]

jeebus said:

Speculation but, Someone posted on pprune:

MM7168 (NOT the Airbus) squawks 7700 at 09:35 GMT, which is 10:35am Central European Time (Promise!) just to the East in Northern Italy.

The Airbus, started the rapid descent at 09:31 GMT, or 10:31 CET.

Could a mid air collision been possible? MM7168 is an Italian fighter jet

Whatever happened started around landfall over Toulon at 09:31.
MM7168 squawks at 09:35 in N Italy.
Toulon to Italian border about 200 km
Time taken to Italian Border 4 minutes
= 3000 kmh or Mach 3+

SR71 was it?

Edited by Le TVR on Tuesday 24th March 15:37

[johnxjsc1985]

RobGT81 said:

No snow?

thought images of the plane lying in snow had already been produced?.

[Cobalt Blue]

RobGT81 said:

camshafted said:

Link to an unconfirmed images of the scene.

https://twitter.com/thatjohn/status/58038875604308...
https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/580389123...

As above, is unconfirmed.

No snow?

Those pictures are on Airlive.net http://www.airlive.net/2015/03/breaking-crash-of-a...

[Munter]

camshafted said:

Link to an unconfirmed images of the scene.

https://twitter.com/thatjohn/status/58038875604308...
https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/580389123...

As above, is unconfirmed.

I get the impression that it piled into the hill at speed and then turned into aluminium confetti.

[maxxy5]

How does a black box survive that and still work

[anonymous-user]

bhstewie said:

And so it begins.

[johnxjsc1985]

Munter said:

I get the impression that it piled into the hill at speed and then turned into aluminium confetti.

yes indeed travelling at 400kts.
LEts hope the poor sods had no awareness of the impact.