Germanwings A320 Crashed Enroute BCN-DUS! Part 1

KarelXWB · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:39 pm

A French Air Force flight is circling the area.

SKAirbus · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:39 pm

Quoting jfkgig (Reply 146):
I doubt you have any support for that statement. Compared to BBC or CNN, I find Fox to be much more reliable and without bias. But this isn't a cite -- nor a time -- to be talking about media.

Well maybe it was an A380 and every other media site in the world is wrong... Maybe you perceive them as reliable because they support your views? I think they are right-wing sensationalists.

Anyway... it appears that relatives at DUS are being taken to a separate room in the airport to receive the help they need. Must be such a horrible time for them.

kaitak · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:39 pm

Quoting na (Reply 145):
I meant in terms of deaths. The Nairobi crash of 1974 claimed less than half as many deaths than is feared now.

I can't recall any German airliner (civilian, at least) which had a higher toll. The German civil aviation safety record is excellent. The last fatal accident for the Lufthansa Group was at Warsaw in November '93 (an A320, 'AIPN); the last hull loss was the MD11 I Riyadh, about 2 years ago.

There was a Luftwaffe Tu-154 which had a mid air collision with an American C-141 off the coast of Namibia - I think that had a higher toll, but of course it was military (inherited from the E German air force).

zeke · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:39 pm

Quoting LXLucien (Reply 43):

Constant speed descent like that would normally be associated with a structural failure of the fuselage associated with a explosive decompression (eg cargo door failure). When conducting an emergency descent if there is suspicion of a structural failure, we would do that at constant speed to not further stress the aircraft, the aircraft is flying at speed x, so descent at speed x *should* not result in further damage (that is the theory).

This is not going to be a good outcome.

KarelXWB · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:40 pm

Germanwings has just confirmed that flight 4U9525 has crashed in the French Alps, with 144 passengers and 6 crew on board.

http://twitter.com/ATWMoores/status/580347874917023744

MadameConcorde · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:40 pm

La Provence:

150 morts selon un nouveau bilan
144 passagers plus 6 membres d'équipage dans l'avion sont morts dans le crash de l'A320 selon un nouveau bilan, affirme le patron Germanwings.

150 have died according to revised figures
144 passengers plus 6 crew members on the plane died in the crash of the A320 according to a new report says Germanwings CEO.

http://www.laprovence.com/article/ac...s-les-alpes-de-haute-provence.html

chrisnh · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:41 pm

Quoting Goodbye (Reply 149):
Now we're getting the stupid news anchors who have no idea asking incredulously of the "experts" - what about flying over the Alps? As if it's a shocking fact that aircraft fly over mountains

Please don't let CNN's Don Lemon near this story.

Revelation · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:42 pm

Quoting windshear (Reply 147):
Given the rate of descent and the 400kt airspeed, could indicate that they used the spoilers for the descent

I think not, because:

Quoting wilco737 (Reply 87):
3000-4000 ft/min is not a normal descent, but not something which is dangerous. At high altitude with thrust at idle you can easily reach that rate of descent and it doesn't need to be an emergency.

I did that myself and I have seen higher rate of descents.

So please lets not jump to conclusions or any accusations.

Indeed.

Quoting vlada (Reply 150):
The sequence of events seams similar: steady flight, then a descent without changing the flight path/speed and finally a crash into a mountain.

I think not, because:

Quoting anfromme (Reply 62):
According to news on German WDR2 radio just now, the pilot did set off an emergency call to ATC.

BestWestern · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:43 pm

Quoting zeke (Reply 155):
This is not going to be a good outcome.

The french PM was quick to say little chance of survivors. What does he know?

Delta777Jet · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:44 pm

Quoting BestWestern (Reply 160):
The french PM was quick to say little chance of survivors. What does he know?

He know's what his helicopter crew, circling the area is telling him.

wilco737 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:44 pm

New numbers of pasengers on board: 144 passengers, 6 crew, so a total of 150 people

Every crash is a shock, but if it is your own company it is worse.. I am really shocked...

wilco737

SpaceshipDC10 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:46 pm

Quoting BestWestern (Reply 160):
The french PM was quick to say little chance of survivors. What does he know?

Given the location of the crash and the speed at which it occurred, he may have had better informations from his services than you.

travelavnut · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:46 pm

Quoting wilco737 (Reply 162):
I am really shocked...

I wish you all the strength in the future wilco, a horrible day for the families, aviation in general and GermanWings/LH in particular. My thoughts go out to you.

MrHMSH · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:46 pm

Quoting BestWestern (Reply 160):
The french PM was quick to say little chance of survivors. What does he know?

He knows that the Alps are cold, high up and mountainous, both of which do not lend themselves to surviving an aeroplane crash.

RIP to everyone on board, my condolences to all the families.

IADCA · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:47 pm

Quoting Delta777Jet (Reply 138):
Looks like controlled flight into terrain. Pilots did not divert from route, not even tried to get out of the mountain area and descended right into the mountains. If it is true that they send a distress call right before impact, it means that they tried to get control back, but then realized they won't and send a call out. Terrible.

Not to be excessively pedantic as I suspect English is not your first language, but it can't be a "controlled flight into terrain" if the pilots "tried to get control back, but then realized they won't." In other words, just because you fly into terrain doesn't make it a controlled flight into terrain. The C in CFIT is very important as it tends to squarely fix blame on the pilots.

RIP to those on board.

LovesCoffee · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:48 pm

Quoting SCQ83 (Reply 52):

A quote from that article about the incident in Spain.

Quote:"The incident was confirmed yesterday by a spokesman for the German flag carrier, which also is immersed in full strike by pilots. The spokesman also said the incident occurred in an Airbus A321 carrying 109 passengers from Loiu to the Bavarian capital in southern Germany. The apparatus was 9,000 feet high when it began to fall at a speed of 1000 meters (I added 3,000 feet) per minute. Thus, the pilots tried to stop the fall with manual controls navigation, but it proved impossible and this maneuver did not produce the expected results. They regained control avoiding the accident, finally, once they turned off the flight computer."

MadameConcorde · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:48 pm

Quoting wilco737 (Reply 162):
Every crash is a shock, but if it is your own company it is worse.. I am really shocked...

wilco737

I feel for you all and I feel for the victims families and friends.

This is tragic.

There was no air crash in France since 25 July 2000 AF4590 Concorde crash,
there again chartered by a German Travel company most on board AF4590 were from Germany.

Today is a very very sad day.

Aesma · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:48 pm

Sad news...

The message you were about to post is too short and probably not of any higher value to the topic at hand. You should think long and hard before posting a message in this forum and make it detailed and a valuable addition to the topic discussed.

ALAfly · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:49 pm

What a terrible day for LH/4U and all involved in this crash. Wish the relatives most power for this difficult time.

R.I.P to all involved.

Vio · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:50 pm

Quoting AirPacific747 (Reply 104):
I've occasionally done up to 6000ft/min descent rate in the A320. 3-4000ft/min is not unusual in my opinion.

Quoting wilco737 (Reply 105):
Yes, me too. But I usually stay between 2500-3000 ft/min. Better for the cabin rate controller and the comfort. But 6000 is easily possible, especially if you use the speedbrake...

Exactly. I normally descend at around 2300 - 2500 feet per minute on the Lear 35 I fly. There is NO REASON to ever descend more than 3000 FPM. Actually, it's part of our SOPs that if the rate of descend (from altitude) is more than 3000 FPM we have to brief it and state the reason for doing so.

Luckly, the only Emergency Descent I've done was in the simulator and then the rate is more than 6000 FPM.

wilco737 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:50 pm

Lufthansa just twittered that it is confirmed that the airplan has crashed... 144 passengers and 6 crew membners on board...

Quoting MadameConcorde (Reply 168):

Quoting travelavnut (Reply 164):

THanks guys.

It is a tough time...

Makes all the other issues so unimportant... 150 people are dead

wilco737

ivanpaneque · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:50 pm

This was the plane ex lufthansa my condolences

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdlAuQpkTAo

r2rho · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:50 pm

Could someone post a screenshot of the FR24 track? It seems the link or site is down. Thanks

seahawk · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:51 pm

Air Asia incident comes to my m ind.

Quoting LovesCoffee (Reply 167):
Quote:"The incident was confirmed yesterday by a spokesman for the German flag carrier, which also is immersed in full strike by pilots. The spokesman also said the incident occurred in an Airbus A321 carrying 109 passengers from Loiu to the Bavarian capital in southern Germany. The apparatus was 9,000 feet high when it began to fall at a speed of 1000 meters (I added 3,000 feet) per minute. Thus, the pilots tried to stop the fall with manual controls navigation, but it proved impossible and this maneuver did not produce the expected results. They regained control avoiding the accident, finally, once they turned off the flight computer."

And some sources said that LH was aware of the problem but did refuse to change the air data sensors.

teme82 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:51 pm

R.I.P. to every one that were on board.

@wilco737 My thoughts are with you and your colleagues. It's really sad day today.

[Edited 2015-03-24 05:53:19]

wilco737 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:51 pm

Lufthansa twitter:

"We must confirm to our deepest regret that Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf has suffered an accident over the French Alps. The flight was being operated with an Airbus A320 aircraft, and was carrying 144 passengers and six crew members.Lufthansa and Germanwings have established a telephone hotline. The toll-free 0800 11 33 55 77 number is available to all the families of the passengers involved for care and assistance. Everyone at Germanwings and Lufthansa is deeply shocked and saddened by these events.Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the passengers and crew members."

wilco737

MadameConcorde · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:52 pm

La Provence:

"No French victims"
"There are no French victims," but " without total certainty," said Francois Hollande.

http://www.laprovence.com/article/ac...s-les-alpes-de-haute-provence.html

MD80Nut · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:52 pm

What a tragedy. My prayers are with the passengers and crew, and their families. R.I.P.

Way too early to speculate what happened. Always a sad day in aviation when something like this happens.

Ralph

klwright69 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:53 pm

Pretty horrible.

No one is questioning the safety of air travel. But it's a depressing period with several accidents in a short time with horrific loss of life. Two Air Malaysia accidents, and then Air Asia. Now German Wings.

SwissCanuck · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:53 pm

Quoting BestWestern (Reply 160):
The french PM was quick to say little chance of survivors. What does he know?

He's seen mountains before.

Bongodog1964 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:53 pm

Quoting aircatalonia (Reply 151):

Really concerning. It seems that the crew was unable to regain control of the airplane for 10 minutes.

A computer glitch?

A computer glitch might explain the loss of control, but it doesn't really explain the minimal information provided to ATC

SCQ83 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:53 pm

I was watching the Spanish TV and there was a journalist at BCN saying that there was no one from either Germanwings or Lufthansa at the airport (and they have a big operation there, BCN is not a small regional airport for them). Is this normal?

Also I have seen Hollande, Valls, the Spanish King and some Spanish ministers speaking about the accident, but no one from the German government.

It looks a bit obscure the way Lufthansa and the German government handles this. At the end of the day the plane was German and about 2/3 of passengers are supposed to be German nationals.

DALCE · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:54 pm

Quoting wilco737 (Reply 162):
Every crash is a shock, but if it is your own company it is worse.. I am really shocked...

Although I'm not Germanwings staff but SWISS staff it's 100% true... I'm really shocked by this terrible news. Hopefully the people on board did not suffer too long.
My thoughts are with all the families concerned and I have hope that the French rescue-teams will find any survivors!

viasamsy · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:54 pm

I am so very sorry Wilco737. What a tragedy this is.
My deepest condolences.

HPRamper · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:54 pm

Quoting jfkgig (Reply 146):
I doubt you have any support for that statement. Compared to BBC or CNN, I find Fox to be much more reliable and without bias. But this isn't a site -- nor a time -- to be talking about media.

It's absolutely appropriate to talk about media when it is the source most turn to for information about these disasters. Bad reporting often can spread needless fear and hysteria. It is also far from opinion - Fox is widely known to be one of the most biased and sensationalist major news networks, heavily right-leaning. MSNBC is considered to be left-leaning biased while CNN and BBC are quite centrist and generally more accurate in comparison. Sadly when major networks are owned by for-profit corporations one must always wonder if there is an agenda being pushed.

Additionally, news these days is focused completely on speed instead of accuracy. Journalism has turned into a cheap game of who can tweet the fastest breaking news with little regard for actual fact. It should surprise nobody that such simple things as airplane manufacturer or stock photographs are rarely correct on any major network.

bueb0g · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:55 pm

Quoting garpd (Reply 84):
Shades of Air Inter 148!

Indeed, except in fully visual conditions, apparently

Quoting JoKeR (Reply 92):
structural failure

No. The profile doesn't make any sense if there was a major structural failure.

Quoting JoKeR (Reply 92):
or a deliberate act

Also no - you can't reconcile the distress call with a deliberate act.

MadameConcorde · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:55 pm

Quoting wilco737 (Reply 172):
Makes all the other issues so unimportant... 150 people are dead

wilco737

Absolutely.

I am a Lufthansa-ite.
I flew with GermanWings a number of times.

gbrazil · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:56 pm

Thoughts and prayers go out to Germany, France and Spain. What a tragic day.

Planeflyer · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:58 pm

Quoting Zeke

Constant speed descent like that would normally be associated with a structural failure of the fuselage associated with a explosive decompression (eg cargo door failure). When conducting an emergency descent if there is suspicion of a structural failure, we would do that at constant speed to not further stress the aircraft, the aircraft is flying at speed x, so descent at speed x *should* not result in further damage (that is the theory).

Thanks for the input.

Such a sad day.

TheSonntag · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:58 pm

Quoting kaitak (Reply 154):

There was a Luftwaffe Tu-154 which had a mid air collision with an American C-141 off the coast of Namibia - I think that had a higher toll, but of course it was military (inherited from the E German air force).

I forgot that one. In fact, the father of one of our schools pupils was on board then. Apart from that, the Nairobi crash had rather few killed people for a crash of that magnitude. Then there was the crash-landing of the Hapag-LLoyd A310 in 2002 where no-one was killed, but which could have become much worse.

Altogether, this is by far the worst accident for german aviation since at least 1970.

Delta777Jet · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:59 pm

Quoting IADCA (Reply 166):
Not to be excessively pedantic as I suspect English is not your first language, but it can't be a "controlled flight into terrain" if the pilots "tried to get control back

Controlled flight because the chances are high that the aircraft just did what it was commanded to do with some malfunction obviously appearing which the pilots could not handle like the LH Bilbao incident and may be the Air Asia crash too. I think airlines should put more efforts to train their pilots what to do if the Airbus get some system errors.

GianiDC · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:01 pm

Quoting seahawk (Reply 175):
Quoting LovesCoffee (Reply 167):
Quote:"The incident was confirmed yesterday by a spokesman for the German flag carrier, which also is immersed in full strike by pilots. The spokesman also said the incident occurred in an Airbus A321 carrying 109 passengers from Loiu to the Bavarian capital in southern Germany. The apparatus was 9,000 feet high when it began to fall at a speed of 1000 meters (I added 3,000 feet) per minute. Thus, the pilots tried to stop the fall with manual controls navigation, but it proved impossible and this maneuver did not produce the expected results. They regained control avoiding the accident, finally, once they turned off the flight computer."

And some sources said that LH was aware of the problem but did refuse to change the air data sensors

i recently read an article about the same incident on german website bild.de quoting a lufthansa spokesperson saying they were fixing the pitots.

here is the link for those of you understanding german:
http://www.bild.de/news/inland/airbu...ufthansa-airbus-40238910.bild.html

but there is a possibility that they havn´t changed it on every plane yet.
But i definitely do not want to speculate that this is what triggered this horrific crash. Just want to give some information.

Andy33 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:01 pm

Quoting SCQ83 (Reply 183):
I was watching the Spanish TV and there was a journalist at BCN saying that there was no one from either Germanwings or Lufthansa at the airport (and they have a big operation there, BCN is not a small regional airport for them). Is this normal?

Entirely normal. It would be odder if they had staff of their own at any European airport other than their hubs. This is standard operating practice in Europe, and the whole point of Germanwings is to be an LCC so the last thing they are going to do is directly employ people away from their home base airports if they can help it. Handling agents do the work. It has been this way for years, which is why some of us from Europe are perhaps less sympathetic than we should be at complaints about outsourcing ground handling in the USA.

United787 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:03 pm

Quoting chrisnh (Reply 158):
Please don't let CNN's Don Lemon near this story.

I agree... with Richard Quest on staff (as dramatic as he is), at least he knows what he is talking about when it comes to aviation...

BlueSky1976 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:04 pm

My thoughts are with families and close ones of those who perished. May their souls rest in peace.

AIR MALTA · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:05 pm

Quoting r2rho (Reply 174):
Could someone post a screenshot of the FR24 track? It seems the link or site is down. Thanks

http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/d-aipx/#5d42675

R.I.P for all involved!

WPIAeroGuy · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:06 pm

Quoting HPRamper (Reply 186):
Additionally, news these days is focused completely on speed instead of accuracy. Journalism has turned into a cheap game of who can tweet the fastest breaking news with little regard for actual fact. It should surprise nobody that such simple things as airplane manufacturer or stock photographs are rarely correct on any major network.

Exactly. My friends and family will wonder why I get so heated over "minor details" like aircraft type; but if they're this lazy with information that can be verified by a 2 second Google search, imagine what they could misconstrue with something that was actually important. I'm not a doctor or a politician or an economist, so I can't always call their BS on those stories, but I know its there.

My condolences to everyone on board and I hope they find survivors.

sebolino · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:07 pm

eielef · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:08 pm

I heard AENA made special arrangements in BCN T2 for the family of the missing passengers.
You might find Lufthansa people in T2 rather in usual T1.
(T2 is the old terminals ABC, T1 is the 2009 terminal)

wilco737 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:08 pm

Part 2 now available:

Germanwings A320 Crashed Enroute BCN-DUS! Part 2 (by wilco737 Mar 24 2015 in Civil Aviation)

Thanks.

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