French passenger jet gone missing from radar screens........

[Eric Mc]

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

[insurance_jon]

Probably one for eric, but wouldn't the american Sosus network have picked up the point of impact with the water?

[AshVX220]

Cheers Eric Mc.

[Eric Mc]

insurance_jon said:

Probably one for eric, but wouldn't the american Sosus network have picked up the point of impact with the water?

No idea what Sousus is - a satellite system?

I think the authorities had a very good idea where the plane went down. They had a last known position and the final automatic broadcast at the point in time the aircraft went down. It wouldn't take much to work out the likely crash location.

The difficulty in pinpointing it exactly has been down to the appalling weather and the fact that, being an ocean crash, current, winds and tides will have shifted the floating debris field from the original impact point.

[Steameh]

I just read this on the Aviation Herald website;

New information provided by sources within Air France suggests, that the ACARS messages of system failures started to arrive at 02:10Z indicating, that the autopilot had disengaged and the fly by wire system had changed to alternate law. Between 02:11Z and 02:13Z a flurry of messages regarding ADIRU and ISIS faults arrived, at 02:13Z PRIM 1 and SEC 1 faults were indicated, at 02:14Z the last message received was an advisory regarding cabin vertical speed. That sequence of messages could not be independently verified.

[Legend83]

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

[Invisible man]

Weird, 4 mins in all

[Eric Mc]

Invisible man said:

Weird, 4 mins in all

Anout the time it takes to fall from 35,000 feet or so.

[Rach*]

One of our staff just said she'd heard an interview with a French pilot who suggested the aircraft might have collided with a drug running light aircraft...

[Eric Mc]

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

[youngsyr]

Rach* said:

One of our staff just said she'd heard an interview with a French pilot who suggested the aircraft might have collided with a drug running light aircraft...

Unlikely at 35,000 ft (if the altitude of the 320 has been verified as that), I'd have thought?

[asbo]

Invisible man said:

Weird, 4 mins in all

And only a PAN-PAN.

No Mayday?

[Legend83]

Eric Mc said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

No.
No.
No.
Agreed. A horrible scenario.

[Steameh]

Eric Mc said:

Invisible man said:

Weird, 4 mins in all

Anout the time it takes to fall from 35,000 feet or so.

Indeed, Just the mention of ADIRU faults reminded me of Qantas Flight 72. If the same scenario occured in the dark, battling with turbulence in thick cloud, its easy to see how the flight crew would lose spatial awareness and put the aircraft in to an unrecoverable fast dive.

[youngsyr]

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

No.
No.
No.
Agreed. A horrible scenario.

In my extremely amateurish opinion/imagination, it seems to me that any situation that would require a parachute is likely to happen so quickly that you wouldn't have time to put one on, i.e. you'd be outside of the aircraft, and possibly unconscious from lack of oxygen, before you realised what had happened.

[Get Karter]

Is Eric an ex commercial airline pilot?

(just wondering why we're all asking him the questions...no offence...just curious)

[asbo]

youngsyr said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

No.
No.
No.
Agreed. A horrible scenario.

In my extremely amateurish opinion/imagination, it seems to me that any situation that would require a parachute is likely to happen so quickly that you wouldn't have time to put one on, i.e. you'd be outside of the aircraft, and possibly unconscious from lack of oxygen, before you realised what had happened.

Without wishing to get too graphic; how long can a person remain conscious when exposed to a sudden loss of oxygen such as that likely to have occured in this tradgedy?

[hugo a gogo]

youngsyr said:

In my extremely amateurish opinion/imagination, it seems to me that any situation that would require a parachute is likely to happen so quickly that you wouldn't have time to put one on, i.e. you'd be outside of the aircraft, and possibly unconscious from lack of oxygen, before you realised what had happened.

and travelling at 400mph+, at least at a bit of a downwards angle

[escargot]

He knows about planes and stuff.

[escargot]

asbo said:

youngsyr said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

No.
No.
No.
Agreed. A horrible scenario.

In my extremely amateurish opinion/imagination, it seems to me that any situation that would require a parachute is likely to happen so quickly that you wouldn't have time to put one on, i.e. you'd be outside of the aircraft, and possibly unconscious from lack of oxygen, before you realised what had happened.

Without wishing to get too graphic; how long can a person remain conscious when exposed to a sudden loss of oxygen such as that likely to have occured in this tradgedy?

How long can you hold your breath for?