Do a web search. Not a belly splash as we know it but a high speed vertical dive with some angle that the belly hit first. let's hope they find the black boxes.
AF447: In Flight Breakup?
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BEA (French NTSB equivalent) Interim report released.
Official English translation available here:
http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/air_france_interim_report_BEA_200673-1.html
Official English translation available here:
http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/air_france_interim_report_BEA_200673-1.html
Any updates on this?
We had a very interesting seminar by one of our atmospheric modelers yesterday who gave a theory of what may have happened.
In short, the conditions at the location and time of the last reported location had a double tropopause. That is a layer of cold air sandwiched between two warm layers. The mixing of these layers creates severe turbulence. These conditions have been associated with several crashes including a military transport in Colorado where part of a wing and an engine were torn off the plane. They made it back.
http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/flying/out_of_control.htm
Scroll about 3/4 down the page.
Ed
We had a very interesting seminar by one of our atmospheric modelers yesterday who gave a theory of what may have happened.
In short, the conditions at the location and time of the last reported location had a double tropopause. That is a layer of cold air sandwiched between two warm layers. The mixing of these layers creates severe turbulence. These conditions have been associated with several crashes including a military transport in Colorado where part of a wing and an engine were torn off the plane. They made it back.
http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/flying/out_of_control.htm
Scroll about 3/4 down the page.
Ed
That's some nasty stuff there. When I was a flight attendant for ASA, (Delta), we hit some CAT on a night flight from Dallas to Houston. Of course we were in the middle of beverage service. The guy I was flying with had walked to the aft galley (ATR 72) to get more ice, and suddenly the floor dropped out from under me. The cart came about 3 feet off the floor, as did my feet, and when it slammed back down after the plane regained lift, it started rolling towards aft, dragging me behind. I kept ahold of it to keep it from killing anyone. All I remember seeing over the cart was an ice drawer going over David's head as he knelt down, and ice went everywhere when it slammed to the floor. Thankfully it didn't come down on his head.
We spent the rest of the night handing out paper towels to the folks who had already been served.
One ATR we had in the fleet had a telltale sign of CAT in the cabin. It was an indention in the plastic overhead panel of the aft-most passenger seat where a flight attentant hit her head during a CAT event. She couldn't make it to the jumpseat, so attempted to strap herself into a passenger seat. She just wasn't fast enough. Her entire body left the seat and her head slammed the overhead, actually denting the plastic. She never flew again and has neck problems to this day.
I often wondered how much more an ATR could withstand without losing an engine or snapping a wing spar. I'm glad I never found out.
We spent the rest of the night handing out paper towels to the folks who had already been served.
One ATR we had in the fleet had a telltale sign of CAT in the cabin. It was an indention in the plastic overhead panel of the aft-most passenger seat where a flight attentant hit her head during a CAT event. She couldn't make it to the jumpseat, so attempted to strap herself into a passenger seat. She just wasn't fast enough. Her entire body left the seat and her head slammed the overhead, actually denting the plastic. She never flew again and has neck problems to this day.
I often wondered how much more an ATR could withstand without losing an engine or snapping a wing spar. I'm glad I never found out.
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