• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Air France plane disappears above the atlantic

bub

bub

R.I.P. Léo
DP Veteran
Joined
Oct 2, 2006
Messages
9,649
Reaction score
2,173
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Independent
"An airbus from Air France has disappeared from the radars a few hours ago. It took off from Rio de Janeiro and should have landed in Paris 2 hours ago.

There were 215 passengers and 16 crew members inside of the Airbus."

7s7 Monde - 228 personnes et un avion ont disparu des radars (872199)

Wow I hope the pilot has successfully crash-landed his plane and that the rescue teams hurry the **** up, because I don't think they'll stay alive more than 6 hours in the water if they've not be killed during the crash
 
I don't like being pessimistic, but odds are big that a disaster has happened. What is their chance for survival if they hit the sea? It's a heavy plane, it'll sink pretty fast.
 
Apocalypse said:
I don't like being pessimistic, but odds are big that a disaster has happened. What is their chance for survival if they hit the sea? It's a heavy plane, it'll sink pretty fast.
Click to expand...

Apparently the problem is not that it sinks fast or not, it is that it is likely to have exploded when it hit the water

While there have been several 'successful' (survivable) water landings by narrow-body and propeller-driven airliners, few commercial jets have ever touched down 'perfectly' on water. There has been a good deal of popular controversy over the efficiency of life vests and rafts. For example, Ralph Nader's Aviation Consumer Action Project had been quoted as saying that a wide body jet would “shatter like a raw egg dropped on pavement, killing most if not all passengers on impact, even in calm seas with well-trained pilots and good landing trajectories."[1]

Also, in December 2002, The Economist had quoted an expert as claiming that "No large airliner has ever made an emergency landing on water" in an article that goes on to charge, "So the life jackets ... have little purpose other than to make passengers feel better."[2][3] This idea was repeated in The Economist in September 2006 in an article which reported that "in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero."[4]
Click to expand...

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_landing]Water landing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
 
It sounds like it may have gone down over land. Jungle. The flight from Rio to Paris crosses a big piece of Brazil before it goes over the ocean.
 
fig4-05.png
 
Apocalypse said:
They say it might have been struck by lightning.
BBC NEWS | Americas | French plane lost over Atlantic

What kind of a modern plane crashes from a lightning hit?
Click to expand...

I saw a show on Discovery Channel about this. Most planes can survive normal lightning strikes. But there is something called "sprite lighting" (I think I am remembering that correctly) that is much more powerful. That may be what happened here.
 
Whenever I travel internationally, I always say a little prayer inside. It's really eerie when you are flying right over the middle of the ocean and there is no land nearby for an emergency landing. They show you the status of the flight and an arrow that says "you are here"... and the plane is in the middle of nowhere. I'm not afraid of flying generally, but it's at that point that I feel the most tense.

If a plane goes down in the middle of the ocean, it's lost. All of the safety procedures they brief you on are pretty much useless 95% of the time. If the engines die in mid air, then the plane will do a high velocity descent and break up on impact. Water is more dense than concrete when impacted at high velocity. Just imagining it makes my spine shiver.
 
bub said:
"An airbus from Air France has disappeared from the radars a few hours ago. It took off from Rio de Janeiro and should have landed in Paris 2 hours ago.

There were 215 passengers and 16 crew members inside of the Airbus."

7s7 Monde - 228 personnes et un avion ont disparu des radars (872199)

Wow I hope the pilot has successfully crash-landed his plane and that the rescue teams hurry the **** up, because I don't think they'll stay alive more than 6 hours in the water if they've not be killed during the crash
Click to expand...

What? Did the plane get teleported to another dimension? How does a plane disappear?

How about, it CRASHED!!! Disappearing means it vanished, POOOF!
 
I think there are some suggestions that it might have been a tropical storm that the flight went into at it's most intense level (50,000 feet)
 
According to France, it is unlikely that any of the 228 people on the flight had survived. Sucks.
 
Based on what I am hearing, this could have been a terrorist’s bomb.

A sudden automatic transmission of an electrical failure followed by no communication from the aircraft suggests a sudden and massive decompression which can only be explained by an explosion in my opinion.

Unfortunately, flights over the vast oceans cannot be tracked by radar and have sparse radio contact with stations based on islands and peninsulas so data is difficult to obtain about what may have occurred. Hopefully they will be able to find the debris and locate the aircraft but we may not know anything substantive for a year.

Lightening strikes or turbulence is a wild-eyed speculation and doubtful reasons for the aircrafts disappearance. Flying at 39,000, you will not encounter weather to speak of but could encounter violent turbulence; but I have never seen one instance where turbulence caused a large aircraft like this to fail.
 
Truth Detector said:
Based on what I am hearing, this could have been a terrorist’s bomb.

A sudden automatic transmission of an electrical failure followed by no communication from the aircraft suggests a sudden and massive decompression which can only be explained by an explosion in my opinion.

Unfortunately, flights over the vast oceans cannot be tracked by radar and have sparse radio contact with stations based on islands and peninsulas so data is difficult to obtain about what may have occurred. Hopefully they will be able to find the debris and locate the aircraft but we may not know anything substantive for a year.

Lightening strikes or turbulence is a wild-eyed speculation and doubtful reasons for the aircrafts disappearance. Flying at 39,000, you will not encounter weather to speak of but could encounter violent turbulence; but I have never seen one instance where turbulence caused a large aircraft like this to fail.
Click to expand...

Air France experts disagree with you, they say it's likely a lightning strike (the plane was flying through what pilots call "the black box", apparently it is a kind of huge lightening storm around the equator)

7s7 Monde - Le plus "vraisemblable" est que l'avion a été "foudroyé" (872312)

No one talks about bombs. No terrorist organisation has claimed it had destroyed the plane.
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
bub said:
"An airbus from Air France has disappeared from the radars a few hours ago. It took off from Rio de Janeiro and should have landed in Paris 2 hours ago.

There were 215 passengers and 16 crew members inside of the Airbus."

7s7 Monde - 228 personnes et un avion ont disparu des radars (872199)

Wow I hope the pilot has successfully crash-landed his plane and that the rescue teams hurry the **** up, because I don't think they'll stay alive more than 6 hours in the water if they've not be killed during the crash
Click to expand...

There is only a limited amount of fuel for a plane, does anyone know if the plane realistically ran out by now? It must have crashed or landed, just heard on BBC that the chances of survivors are small. Not good :(
 
TheHat said:
What? Did the plane get teleported to another dimension? How does a plane disappear?

How about, it CRASHED!!! Disappearing means it vanished, POOOF!
Click to expand...

It has disappeared from the radar screens, that's what the newspaper was saying
 
Laila said:
There is only a limited amount of fuel for a plane, does anyone know if the plane realistically ran out by now? It must have crashed or landed, just heard on BBC that the chances of survivors are small. Not good :(
Click to expand...

It took off like 20 hours ago should have landed 10 hours ago...an Airbus can't fly 20 hours on a row!

I hope it has softly "crash landed" on the sea, but according to what I've read it's unlikely, as airliners usually explode when they do this
 
bub said:
It took off like 20 hours ago should have landed 10 hours ago...an Airbus can't fly 20 hours on a row!

I hope it has softly "crash landed" on the sea, but according to what I've read it's unlikely, as airliners usually explode when they do this
Click to expand...
And if it was truly crashing because of a lightning strike...
Well I didn't have any hopes from the start for survivors, but it's still sad. 228 people...
 
bub said:
It took off like 20 hours ago should have landed 10 hours ago...an Airbus can't fly 20 hours on a row!

I hope it has softly "crash landed" on the sea, but according to what I've read it's unlikely, as airliners usually explode when they do this
Click to expand...

It can do that? Well if the result is explosion that would explain it i suppose.
 
bub said:
It has disappeared from the radar screens, that's what the newspaper was saying
Click to expand...

There are no radar screens for transatlantic flights. But again, it is also a stretch to think that lightening strikes at 39,000 feet and would take down a large aircraft; there are no events that support this scenario.
 
Truth Detector said:
There are no radar screens for transatlantic flights. But again, it is also a stretch to think that lightening strikes at 39,000 feet and would take down a large aircraft; there are no events that support this scenario.
Click to expand...

No reason to believe terrorism (...)

It is quite likely the airplane was struck by lightning.
Click to expand...

What happened to Flight 447? | U.S. | Reuters

Lightning regularly strikes airplanes. In fact, as far as anyone knows, the odds are that each airliner in the USA will be hit by lightning once a year. (Obviously some would be hit more than once, some not at all.)
Click to expand...

USATODAY.com - Answers: Does lightning hit airplanes

A Virgin Blue aircraft returned to Melbourne after being hit by lightning on Friday afternoon.
Click to expand...

Virgin Blue plane struck by lightning - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o2oachaHXY[/ame]

A plane carrying U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy from western Massachusetts to his home on the coast was struck by lightning Saturday and had to be diverted to New Haven, Conn., his spokeswoman said.
Click to expand...

FOXNews.com - Sen. Ted Kennedy's Plane Struck By Lightning - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

Plane Struck By Lightning Video by Chester - MySpace Video

Touché par la foudre, un avion se pose en urgence
Click to expand...

Touché par la foudre, un avion se pose en urgence - Faits divers - 06/02/2009 - leParisien.fr

Bliksem slaat vliegtuig | madbello

Vliegtuig mogelijk door bliksem getroffen
Click to expand...

PAROOL: BUITENLAND - Vliegtuig mogelijk door bliksem getroffen

Das Flugzeug könnte durch Blitzschläge verunglückt sein. Ein totaler Stromausfall nach einem Blitzschlag würde erklären, warum die Piloten kein Notsignal von sich gaben. Doch das Einschlagen eines Blitzes in ein Flugzeug passiert häufiger, wodurch normalerweise keine großen Schäden resultieren.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom