Quoting lowbank (Reply 102): Again copied text not my words, only the bottom line is my text.

perhaps but you said that you have said the same and that you agreed.

Quoting SeeTheWorld (Reply 104): I'm thinking the same thing, although not necesarily pitot tubes ... maybe something else related to situational awareness ...

Yep. That crossed my mind as well.

The bbc reported that this flight vanished in it's 42 minute of flight. IIRC, didn't MH370 also disappear in it's 42 minute of flight?

Not suggesting remotely there's a reason for it, but some coincidence if correct.

Can someone please confirm the last five minutes of flight data? As in, speed, altitude and heading? I don't have flight radar on my phone...

Quoting Brewfangrb (Reply 103): I'd love for you to quote a post where anyone has said this. Unless, of course, it's merely you conflating "this isn't quite as easy as make it out to be" into "people's lives are no big deal". I'm as disgusted by you impugning the thoughts and motives of posters as you are by airlines not having more sophisticated tracking.

Its the twitter generation, they think if they have the information sooner its somehow more accurate, and whats more, they think they have the right to the information.

An investigation of any kind, be it a police investigation of a crime, car accident, or and aircraft accident needs time to gather the facts, understand them, then to draw conclusions. "Real time" tracking of an aircraft provides no detail on why something has gone wrong as much as a real time tracking of a victim would indication how a crime was committed.

A couple thoughts strike me with respect to the clamoring of "I can't believe we 'lost' another plane" and "I can't believe we don't care enough about people to have already solved this problem for the 10s of 1000s of commercial aircraft everywhere in the world since March!".

First, I absolutely agree that improved tracking must be implemented as soon as practical. Second, I adamantly object to the argument that this improvement has not been done merely because it's cheap to do but airlines don't want to spend a small amount of additional money or put a small amount of additional weight on the aircraft. I also object to the idea that the public hasn't demanded this or enthusiasts haven't clamored for it because they are stuck in the past and don't care about passengers, crew or their families.

Looking at the first point, sure, we can rush to install some sort of satellite monitoring in a big hurry...but what would that solve if the system wasn't tested and proven to work? Lots of people are saying "OMG, this is happening all the time now and it has to stop". Well, it's not really, whether you want to accept that or not. It's like people who think flying is more dangerous than driving. You have to use statistics and not emotion. (Whch is NOT the same thing as saying emotions don't matter). How many aircraft out of how many total flights were "lost" and NEVER FOUND before MH370? Probably uknown for sure, considering the early days of flight. But consider how many in the "modern age", say, since 1965? How many commercial flights worldwide have occurred since MH370 and how many of those were lost and never found? I am NOT saying that means it's not worth it! I am saying a) the likelihood of a crash is itself is incredibly remote and b) the likelihood of never finding that crash is even more incredibly remote. The fact remains even if the perfect aircraft locating/tracking system had been in place, it would not have saved the lives on board of AF447 or MH370 (assuming the latter is a crash in the South Indian Ocean and not some preposterous conspiracy theory).

Both preventing the crashes from occurring and find crashed aircraft so we can learn why they crashed are equally important. And I get why you might argue the latter is MORE important because you can't do the former without the latter. But that just brings me back to my overall point: You are only succeeding if you create a system that is more functional, more resistant to damage and more capable than the current pinger/ELT systems. And you don't accomplish THAT by saying "Well, I can open my car anywhere in the world (when you can't), we protect cargo better than people (yes, when the ship is intact and not at the bottom of the ocean), etc so we can do this with planes!" You accomplish it by understanding ALL the factors--and I am just smart enough to accept I'm not nearly smart enough to know what all those factors are...and by accepting you only want to add this to EVERY commercial aircraft once you know it will work.

Quoting Kaiarahi (Reply 74): He didn't. You should read the official BEA report.

He did. You should read the article I posted which summarized the BEA report.

There's even this nugget from the CVR:

Quote: 02:13:40 (Bonin) Mais je suis à fond à cabrer depuis tout à l'heure! But I've had the stick back the whole time! At last, Bonin tells the others the crucial fact whose import he has so grievously failed to understand himself.

Facts :
AirAsia 8501 scheduled from Surabaya to Singapore.

- On board 158 passengers and 6 aircrews (4 FAs and 2 FD )

- TOW 63 630 kg, CoG at 31.4 % MAC, almost ideal position.

- Fuel 8300 kg : 500 kg above minimum for the sector and a landing alternate at Johor Bahru, the closest possible.

At this weight the aircraft had the performance to climb to 39 000 ft with a margin of 1.5 G

- Initial flight level was FL 320 (probably for ATC constraints )

- FR24 recorded GS at 463 kt, consistent with a Mach .76 cruise.

- There were some *occasional* embedded Cbs en-route with tops above FL 500 ( 50 000 feet )

- The crew requested a course alteration for a Cb avoidance.

- Loss of contact / radar transponder at 23:16 or 17 Z

- A debris / wreckage field reported East of the island of Belitung which lays in the flight path of QZ8501.

That's all.

How can anyone start putting an accident scenario based on these known facts is really beyond me.

PS: Thanks to Miami for the good reporting work.
We owe you, buddy.

Quoting Brewfangrb (Reply 107): Looking at the first point, sure, we can rush to install some sort of satellite monitoring in a big hurry...but what would that solve if the system wasn't tested and proven to work?

Because any piece of information helps when the next aircraft is missing. It's not a flight critical system, it doesn't have to be 100% bug free.

Quoting Brewfangrb (Reply 107): The fact remains even if the perfect aircraft locating/tracking system had been in place, it would not have saved the lives on board of AF447 or MH370 (assuming the latter is a crash in the South Indian Ocean and not some preposterous conspiracy theory).

No, it wouldn't have saved their lives. BUT... Better tracking would give A) more information and B) make it easier to recover wreckage for analysis, thus giving more information on what should be change to make future flights ever safer. You will save FUTURE lives.

Quoting bigz (Reply 93): How about this idea to track aircraft How about hard wiring a elt into the flight control system, tied into a computer and timer. On a flight, when the main gear leaves the runway, the computer would start the timer. The computer would know how long the flight should take. For example MIA to JFK; that trip takes 2hr. & 30min. For weather delays you add another hour. So the plane has a 3hr. & 30 min. window to land at JFK. If it takes 3hr. & 31min. and no landing occurs, the computer activates the elt. and starts giving the plane's location. If elec. power stops for any reason, the elt. starts working on battery power immediately. The weather delay can be adjusted from 1 hour to 2 hours, or 4 hours; It is up to the airline. Joe Szot

Completely unrealistic....it could never be implemented because there are at least a hundred different factors that would make for hundreds of false alarms on a regular basis. You can't assume a weather delay will be just an hour...flying in Canada, we deal with all sorts of long-term weather delays that go well beyond an hour. Once you start having tons of false alarms on a regular basis, those monitoring these systems will become ignorant...look at how many air traffic control 'intruder' alarms have gone off and been ignored because they are so common....controllers become passive and don't nesscessarily interpret alarms as being real.

Your idea would work in theory...but we don't live in a world of perfect theory.

Quoting transswede (Reply 110): No, it wouldn't have saved their lives. BUT... Better tracking would give A) more information and B) make it easier to recover wreckage for analysis, thus giving more information on what should be change to make future flights ever safer. You will save FUTURE lives.

Agreed. And I indicated this in my post. And AF447 was found, the CVR recovered and we learned that *essentially* poor airmanship/poor CRM caused that crash. The outcome was additional/better training to reinforce this. And the broader point with respect to MH370 is true as well--if the cause of MH370 was aircraft related, that deficiency could be present in the same aircraft elsewhere and we don't know it--and can't know it until it's found. It becomes a bit of circular argument, however--we don't know if it IS aircraft-related and thus, we don't really know if finding it will help anyway...but we don't know THAT unless we find it. I've never argued not finding an crashed aircraft as soon as possible wasn't important.

You said this: "Because any piece of information helps when the next aircraft is missing. It's not a flight critical system, it doesn't have to be 100% bug free." to my post where I said this: "we can rush to install some sort of satellite monitoring in a big hurry...but what would that solve if the system wasn't tested and proven to work?"

I'd argue that installing a system that isn't tested and proven to work can be more problematic than helpful. You say "any piece of info would be helpful"....yes, if that piece of information is accurate and correct. But it does nothing if it doesn't survive the crash or can't transmit under deep water, etc. And it harms the process if is susceptible to providing false data. I am NOT a technophobe or resistant to change. I'm simply saying I don't believe this is qute as simple as many have made it out to be.

Slightly off topic
The tracking system would have followed MH370 and if it is in the Indian Ocean, Australia would have been informed it was travelling that way and may have been able to send a military plane to intercept and observe what was going on.
More importantly if the pilots had anything to do with it they would know they can be tracked and not make an airliner disappear and it may have prevented them from doing what some think they did. Not that I think they did but just a thought.
It's just the right thing to do now. Hopefully will not be long before it's implemented.

Quoting Pihero (Reply 109): On board 158 passengers and 6 aircrews (4 FAs and 2 FD )

To be precise, there were 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Also on board were 2 pilots and 5 other crew. In addition to 4 cabin crew, there was a flight engineer.

Quote: AirAsia Indonesia would like to issue a correction on the nationality breakdown of passenger and crew on board QZ8501 as follows: Nationalities of passengers: 1 Singapore 1 Malaysia 3 South Korea 1 United Kingdom 149 Indonesia Nationalities of crew: 1 France 6 Indonesia Source: http://www.facebook.com/notes/airasi...as-at-654pm-gmt8/10152668456948742

Quoting FCAFLYBOY (Reply 9): So is it perhaps a little more certain now that this was likely a catastrophic event? No time to send a signal perhaps, or make a May Day call?

AF447 crew never even realised they were stalled, and falling like a stone…
Catastrophic event is NOT required for no distress signal sent… (also: aviate, navigate, communicate - last)

Quoting PanAm1971 (Reply 98): Echoes of AF447. I hope we are not seeing another pitot tube event leading to a chain reaction of events.

My thoughts exactly. The ATC denied them a climb to 38K feet to fly over a dense stormy clouds and the next thing they disappear from the radar. Very sad story!

Quoting andy33 (Reply 89): There are places less than 10 miles from my house where you wouldn't locate your phone at all because there is no cellphone coverage, and I live in another densely populated region, the United Kingdom.

I have the same experience living just outside of NYC.

Some people don't understand how remote parts of the world actually are. Just goes to show how little many people ever escape their routines, and how well some of the cellular phone companies have designed their networks so those people never know how spotty cell service really is.

Quoting transswede (Reply 110): It's not a flight critical system, it doesn't have to be 100% bug free.

A 787 almost burned up on the tarmac a little while ago when a "non-flight critical system" that wasn't "100% bug free" caught fire. (And it was the ELT, coincidentally enough.)

Quoting PanAm1971 (Reply 98): Echoes of AF447. I hope we are not seeing another pitot tube event leading to a chain reaction of events.

Have we determined whether Air Asia's A320s are equipped with Thales pitot tubes?

Quoting CO953 (Reply 85): Maybe there should be. A network of floating repeating towers to provide worldwide emergency coverage in the oceans? Something like geostationary satellites. I bet it's doable if modern scientists and engineers put their minds to it....

There is no problem with your idea except who would pay for it and maintain it.. cell towers are owned by carriers who make money off of cell phone usage.. why the heck would they put towers and generators to power them where there were no customers just in case.. further said towers would be subject to all the oceans and weather can throw at them.. typical "somebody should" idea without thought.

Quoting Pihero (Reply 109):

Of course, you're correct that accident scenarios are a bit premature. I am annoyingly one of those people- I think after AF447 perhaps it becomes easy to start thinking you may know something and actually, you don't. My bad.

Thank you for that summary.

One question- hadn't the debris field been excluded by the Indonesian spokesman?

I haven't flown a plane in years. Some have asked why no distress call was made, or a switch to 7700 on the transponder. This much I do know about emergencies. First priority is to get the aircraft under some forms of control, or maintain flight. The crew could have been too busy dealing with an obvious problem.

One thing I don't understand is why they called off the search until daylight. I couldn't imagine how agonizing that would be for the families and loved ones waiting for word. I know, it's hard to see at night, but wouldn't it be worthwhile to still try?

I finally took my first trip to Hawaii, and it was my first time flying over the ocean. I have a better appreciation for how massive our oceans are, and how difficult it would be to find something. When 370 went missing, I had no idea in my mind of how large and difficult a search could be.

Sad to say QZ 8501 and AF447 will not be the last Airbus accidents we will see, as most Airline companies forced their Pilots to operate under pressure with total disrespect for Mother Nature. When Airlines Bean Counters are hell bent on dispatching aircrafts base on their spread sheets showing positive numbers, you can bet a lot of innocent lives will be lost.

Quoting CF-CPI (Reply 118):

I seem to recall reading somewhere that all Thales pitot tubes were to be replaced with Goodrich units - I was also under the impression that this was a change that Airbus was instituting on it's own outside of any airworthiness directive...of course I can't recall where I saw that written, but it seems to me that it may have well been an Airbus document.

I can't imagine any carrier, especially one such as Air Asia not complying or taking the initiative to change the pitot tubes...after AF447, there was so much made about pitot tube issues that even my 88 year old grandmother asked me if the A320s that I fly had had their tubes changed (The fact she even understands what a pitot tube is and how it works is another topic entirely...the woman can spot an A320 from a 737 from a distance...and she can tell an A318/A319/A320/A321 from each other at a glance....I fly the damn things for a living and there are times that I even get the A319/A320 confused at a distance...they do look like the came out of an Airbus vending machine...but I digress)

Considering that the lion's share of the Air Asia fleet is all Airbus, and all A320 (According to my information, they have a fleet of 169 A320-200ceo aircraft with another 58 on order and an order for 291 A320-200neo....they must know about the pitot issue and have converted their fleet...not to mention that a lot of their aircraft have been delivered post AF447, so the new tubes would have been fitted from the factory. What worries me is if we have a new issue with the Goodrich pitot tubes that will require another directive.

Quoting F9Animal (Reply 121): One thing I don't understand is why they called off the search until daylight. I couldn't imagine how agonizing that would be for the families and loved ones waiting for word. I know, it's hard to see at night, but wouldn't it be worthwhile to still try?

My guess is that if the weather was still as bad as it was during the flight, that they would not want people searching in those conditions in the dark. It is hard enough during the day time.

Quoting laxboeingman (Reply 124): My guess is that if the weather was still as bad as it was during the flight, that they would not want people searching in those conditions in the dark. It is hard enough during the day time.

I would also imagine that they are using the time to coordinate radar data to fine tune the search area as much as possible.

What is clear at this point is that whatever has happened, happened quickly and was catastrophic....no mayday, no 7700, no communication at all. I would be very interested however to find out if any ACARS data was transmitted (a la AF447)...(I think someone else may have mentioned this earlier as well...)

Quoting kanban (Reply 119): Quoting CO953 (Reply 85): Maybe there should be. A network of floating repeating towers to provide worldwide emergency coverage in the oceans? Something like geostationary satellites. I bet it's doable if modern scientists and engineers put their minds to it.... There is no problem with your idea except who would pay for it and maintain it.. cell towers are owned by carriers who make money off of cell phone usage.. why the heck would they put towers and generators to power them where there were no customers just in case.. further said towers would be subject to all the oceans and weather can throw at them.. typical "somebody should" idea without thought.

The issue of cost and maintenance, along with even building and supporting the infrastructure network as a whole, is the reason why I don't think a network of sonar beacons would work either. It was something I brought up in thread #1 as a possible way to locate wrecks.

Quoting A320FlyGuy (Reply 125): What is clear at this point is that whatever has happened, happened quickly and was catastrophic....no mayday, no 7700, no communication at all. I would be very interested however to find out if any ACARS data was transmitted (a la AF447)...(I think someone else may have mentioned this earlier as well...)

If there was an inflight stall, would that have provided enough time for the crew to notify the pax to brace for impact and to notify the ATC? If you think there would have been enough time, do you believe that something worse happened if it happened so quickly?

Also, because your an FO, it seems that 353 knots, as the ATC radar image indicates, is too slow for what the plane was doing at the time. Would you agree or disagree with that?

Thank you in advance.

Quoting Airspeed772 (Reply 122): Sad to say QZ 8501 and AF447 will not be the last Airbus accidents we will see, as most Airline companies forced their Pilots to operate under pressure with total disrespect for Mother Nature. When Airlines Bean Counters are hell bent on dispatching aircrafts base on their spread sheets showing positive numbers, you can bet a lot of innocent lives will be lost.

You can equally replace Airbus with Boeing or Bombardier or Embrear or any other maufacturer in the above statement. It is a sad fact for frame makers that over time there will be accidents with planes. No one seems to blame Ford or GM when people crash cars.

There is no information yet as to what has heppened but some are already laying blame at Airbus - Amazing.

Family of five skipped flight after cancelling Singapore trip due to grandpa's illness:

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asi...skipped-flight-after-cancelling-si

Wow, those people are lucky!

[Edited 2014-12-28 12:44:27]

Hold the speculation, the accident cause has already been determined:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/i...ystem-brought-down-airasia-flight/

... and it is, either the metric system or *lack* of cowboy style flying by foreign pilots.

QED

Not sure why there is a repeated mention of pitots.

Doesn't matter if they are the Thales BA/AA pitots or the Goodrich ones. They all ice up under certain conditions and no airworthiness directive is going to change that.

Wow - she must be some sort of super Engineer/Analyst - or just a sad muppett who needed to fill some airtime with more idle speculation.

I suggest it is highly likely it is the second option.

Mind you it was on Fox so it was fair and balanced   

Quoting laxboeingman (Reply 127): If there was an inflight stall, would that have provided enough time for the crew to notify the pax to brace for impact and to notify the ATC? If you think there would have been enough time, do you believe that something worse happened if it happened so quickly? Also, because your an FO, it seems that 353 knots, as the ATC radar image indicates, is too slow for what the plane was doing at the time. Would you agree or disagree with that? Thank you in advance.

I'll try my best to address both of your questions...of course, sitting in my living room, it's easy to say that I would have done "this, this, and this" but I wasn't there so I can't say for sure what they were faced with.

First off, assuming that the aircraft was in normal law, pitot tubes were fine, if they were in a situation where a stall occurred, I imagine that they may have had some warning...the A320 tends to (in my experience) buffet a fair bit prior to entering a stall (of course, in severe turbulence, that may be hard to differentiate from air turbulence). If the flight envelope protection was active, I would at least imagine that there would have been enough time to at least dial in 7700...communication with the cabin and ATC would likely have taken longer.

Regarding the the speed that the radar indicates...353 knots seems odd.....based on my training and experience, at altitudes below 20,000ft, the suggested turbulence penetration speed is about 250 KIAS (Knots, Indicated Airspeed). At altitudes above 20,000ft, that value increases to 275 KIAS or about Mach 0.76. The A321 has a turbulence penetration speed of about 300 KIAS....so, 353 knots is awfully fast based on the weather that I am able to see from what has been posted online.

Again...I wasn't there, I don't know what they were faced with...I'm sitting here fat, dumb, and happy....there could be any number of mitigating factors that we simply don't know about.

Firstly, this is terrible news, and I am very sad for everybody involved.

In an earlier post it was mentioned that the transponder last reported FL363, if the aircraft entered a deep and catastrophic stall, would the transponder have not reported or shown those intermediate decreasing altitudes, even if somewhat sporadically, as it would still take up to 3 minutes to stall to sea level?

Is this more indicative that if the transponder actually stopped reporting at FL363, there was no stall period? and there was therefore possibly an in-flight break-up?

Quoting AirlineCritic (Reply 130):

OHHHHH FOX news, bringing us comedic entertainment once again.

Personally, I hope they find the plane soon. All we need is another MH370. I also hope that this is not turbulence that brought the flight down. If that's the case, every flight near a thunderstorm is at risk

Quoting liquidair (Reply 32): So, assuming that the speed was slow (emirates flight nearby also has GS500 at the time), can we also make a jump and assume they were flying without envelope protection? If so, how or why so? Bearing in mind the A320 pitots never suffered like the A330/40 ones...

If the control laws had been changed due to some systems failure, wouldn't there be a transmission from the aircraft?

Quoting dtw2hyd (Reply 60): Those ships are commercial just like commercial aircraft and why they are have state of the art comm equipment and subscriptions to high bandwidth data plans.

And especially with the advent of the new high-bandwidth satellite WiFi systems, there will surely be enough bandwidth to transmit Black Box data continuously over the whole globe. This isn't something technically impossible or even difficult.

Quoting Brewfangrb (Reply 112): You said this: "Because any piece of information helps when the next aircraft is missing. It's not a flight critical system, it doesn't have to be 100% bug free." to my post where I said this: "we can rush to install some sort of satellite monitoring in a big hurry...but what would that solve if the system wasn't tested and proven to work?"

The issue is that such systems do exist. Militaries use them. Commercial shipping uses them. They are tested and proven. Now, it has only been one day of bad weather over the region so we haven't necessarily lost this aircraft. It may well be found tomorrow thanks to an ELT or something like it.

Quoting F9Animal (Reply 121): One thing I don't understand is why they called off the search until daylight. I couldn't imagine how agonizing that would be for the families and loved ones waiting for word. I know, it's hard to see at night, but wouldn't it be worthwhile to still try?

At this point, it's pretty obvious that they are dead. It's unlikely that they made a survivable ditch without at any point transmitting that they were going to. Although communication is the last priority in an emergency, in the case of a controllable ditch there is time to make that important transmission so that SAR teams can be sent out to the right location. When that US A320 was gliding into the Hudson, the crew made a very big and loud point of telling ATC where they were going because they knew that they would need assistance.

Just a question to any who may actually know: has the last known location as identified by any primary radar (if that particular area is covered) been shared with the media?

Quoting 29erUSA187 (Reply 135): Personally, I hope they find the plane soon. All we need is another MH370. I also hope that this is not turbulence that brought the flight down. If that's the case, every flight near a thunderstorm is at risk

The danger from thunderstorms is nothing new - we've known about that danger for as long as we have been flying...the problem is how flight crews are trained to respond to those situations. I also believe that there is just too much reliance on automation as the last line of defense...but, that's another argument for another time. The simple fact of the matter is that right now, there are a ton of unanswered questions and we are not about to get any answers until the wreckage is found and the CVR/FDR can be located (hopefully)...

Everything else right now is both an assumption and supposition....we have no raw data or facts and therefore, no conclusions can be drawn.

Quoting ChaosTheory (Reply 130): Not sure why there is a repeated mention of pitots. Doesn't matter if they are the Thales BA/AA pitots or the Goodrich ones. They all ice up under certain conditions and no airworthiness directive is going to change that.

There's a simple answer to that....it's an Airbus, it's a known issue and the conditions are superficially similar to what happened to AF447. People are going to jump to conclusions based on history....I'm even suspicious even though I know that there can be hundreds of other factors that could have brought this plane down.

Human nature being what it is, we jump to an easy answer without actually looking at the raw data.

Why not just wait to see what materialises? There is absolutely nothing to be gained from meaningless speculation.

Quoting gosimeon (Reply 61): I really think you're jumping to conclusions. It's far too early to be questioning the pilot's actions or skills when we don't even have a plane yet, never mind any insight into what happened.

I am questioning the industry having already stated that speculation would be useless.
I never put the blame on anything except we can always improve.

Quoting [email protected] (Reply 139):

That didn't stop the MH370 discussion from reaching Part 74  

Quoting [email protected] (Reply 139): Why not just wait to see what materialises? There is absolutely nothing to be gained from meaningless speculation.

But then half the people here would be twiddling their thumbs at home!

Quoting trex8 (Reply 142):

Exactly...this is an aviation discussion forum after all   ....it wouldn't be much of a forum if we all kept our mouths shut and fingers bound until we had all the answers....

I know this was discussed in part 1, but what about a possible lightning strike? Would that have caused a system failure at the time it hits, making it impossible to communicate what happened? If that was the case, wouldn't it be a logical conclusion that the plane would have fallen right out of the sky and broke up upon impact with the ocean?

Quoting A320FlyGuy (Reply 142): Exactly...this is an aviation discussion forum after all   ....it wouldn't be much of a forum if we all kept our mouths shut and fingers bound until we had all the answers....

I second that. The speculation is also what gets new ideas out in the open of this site and the World Wide Web.

Unfiltered thoughts are sort of the heart of what this is and I am fairly sure everyone, including A and B take notice.

Quoting A320FlyGuy (Reply 141): Exactly...this is an aviation discussion forum after all   ....it wouldn't be much of a forum if we all kept our mouths shut and fingers bound until we had all the answers....

Better to await more facts and to discuss them than to discuss endless might-have-beens. But each to their own.

Quoting laxboeingman (Reply 143): second that. The speculation is also what gets new ideas out in the open of this site and the World Wide Web. Unfiltered thoughts are sort of the heart of what this is and I am fairly sure everyone, including A and B take notice.

Somewhat nonsensical argument given it is only experienced investigators who will discover what in all likelihood happened.

[Edited 2014-12-28 13:17:22]

Quoting A320FlyGuy (Reply 137): The danger from thunderstorms is nothing new

It is not new...and also bear in mind that global climate is nowadays giving more intense weather.

I bet ratio of aviation accidents/incidents connected to weather to total accidents/incidents is becoming higher , West Africa, Toronto, 447 that I can recall...

We do not know if weather was the mostly contributing factor, however there is very big indication that weather has played some role...

To me 447 and weather, yes first part in chain of events was the thunderstorm...it did not bring the plane down, but those people would have been alive if the weather had been clear that night...

2 things I consider important, forget about training at this point:

1) pressure on crews to save fuel
2) too much reliance on machine versus weather phenomena...

and yes airplanes have crashed with turbulence/cbs as primary factor
and yes it is a crime to fly close to thunderstorm cells or cbs

Quoting giopan1975 (Reply 145): We do not know if weather was the mostly contributing factor, however there is very big indication that weather has played some role...

Yes. I believe the weather directly or indirectly caused this incident.

Quoting WROORD (Reply 115): The ATC denied them a climb to 38K feet to fly over a dense stormy clouds and the next thing they disappear from the radar.

Excuse the potentially stupid question, but why would ATC deny this request. Other air traffic in the area perhaps?

Quoting StTim (Reply 128): There is no information yet as to what has heppened but some are already laying blame at Airbus - Amazing.

...especially when on MH370, the culprit was fouind just hours after the accident and NO ONE ever mentioned the smallest hint of a technical defect, to the point that I, for one, found a name for the group defending - against what may I ask ?- the T7 as BDCS for *Boeing Damage Control Squad*.

Quoting A320FlyGuy (Reply 132): Regarding the the speed that the radar indicates...353 knots seems odd ... The A321 has a turbulence penetration speed of about 300 KIAS....so, 353 knots is awfully fast based on the weather that I am able to see from what has been posted online.[/quote] Hold on just a minute : these 350 kt are Ground speed Taking the weather into account - +10 kt wind component and an SAT = -39°C ---> TAS = 343 kt ---> CAS = 190 kt, well below Green Dot. But I'll wait for an official confirmation of that radar screen picture before logging it as *Fact*. Miami post #95 copies the FR24 read out... The flight remained at FL 320 till the end of the reports. If we consider that the data are refreshed every 30 seconds and that climb to FL 363 happened right after the last FR24 data, we could say that the aircraft suddenly climbed at a rate of some 8 600 ft/min from FL 320 to FL 363... and then total radio / transmission silence. Something drastic must have happened in a sudden

[Edited 2014-12-28 13:30:36]

Quoting laxboeingman (Reply 142): I know this was discussed in part 1, but what about a possible lightning strike? Would that have caused a system failure at the time it hits, making it impossible to communicate what happened? If that was the case, wouldn't it be a logical conclusion that the plane would have fallen right out of the sky and broke up upon impact with the ocean?

I suppose it's possible, but modern aircraft are very well insulated against lighting strikes...usually they are pretty harmless. A fellow pilot I know had a lightning strike on an E-190 and they lost all flight deck instruments for a moment....and that was considered a really oddball failure. If memory serves, the last time that a plane was brought down by a lightning strike was in Elkton, Maryland in the 1960s when a Pan Am 707 (Flight 214 / Clipper Tradewind (the 3rd 707 built)) was struck by lightning while in a holding pattern. In that case, it ignited fuel vapors in a wing tank and that led to an explosion and destruction of the wing, leading to a crash.

Actually...there was also an L-188 Electra (LANSA Flight 508) in 1971 that was brought down by lightning as well

It would be a real shocker if that was the cause.