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I just caught this on CNN.com:



I think that means belly down, smacking the water at who knows how many hundreds of miles per hour. It doesnt seem to imply any kind of glide slope at all.. just straight down. The article goes on to say:



My guess - from hitting the water very hard and very fast? Is there any conceivable way that would be survivable?

I'm not buying this. This is France trying to save face for Airbus. A plane hitting the water doesn't explain the naked bodies, wide debris field, or anything that has been found to date.

None of that makes any sense - that would indicate a flat spin instead of a dive.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/ ... index.html

ok Mr. Knowledge - which part was bs - my question or Bouillard's answer?

Lighten up Francis.... I'm pretty sure that JHEM (Mr. Knowledge... nice there newbie ) is referring to the article. Oh...and you didn't ask a "question", you made a statement accompanying the link to the article.

Like the emoticons!!!

As for my $.02...agree this makes zippy sense. UNDERSTANDING tide could carry debris, bodies...one would just keep hope that MAYBE the black boxes will be located to answer the mystery. THE ONLY way and this is opinion, and reaching at best a plane that size at that alt. could end up flat into the water would be ONE HELL of a down burst from the cells they flew through. Tick tock tick on finding the box(s).

Theoretically, the OTHER way would be a flat spin. But the likelihood of that is fairly slim. There's already been enough evidence reported to suggest a loss of control and inflight break-up.

Good point, and thenk you for the 411 If just to humor me would you have any idea what could induce the flat spin, IF infact it were to be so? The msg about the rudder... I agree, with the second half of your idea. What good does it do the greater airline community and flying public to make b.s. up? Oh don't tell me...$$$

Sorry for the confusion, I was commenting on the article and the Frenchie's apparent attempt to obfuscate the situation.



"They call me MISTER Knowledge!"

Be a bit more vague, mate.




I'm not an expert by any means, but here's my take on this:

If the plane was moving so slow that it was almost vertical, it would have probably stalled, in which case it would've reacted... err, severely? Most likely spinning in which case it wouldn't be coming down "flat". If it had a decent amount of airspeed, then it wouldn't be almost vertically, and when coupled with rough weather, I doubt it would be so flat. Also, the way he says it, sounds like when your telling a B.S. story to a child just saying.

Anyone knows what was said between "vertically" and "towards" in the quote that they cut out?

I really don't think the quote is describing the pitch of the plane.

I am reading as if the plane went vertically straight down, flat spin, nose pointed straight at earth, whatever, but it came straight down and came straight down very very fast, not come down at a 45 degree angle from where the mishap took place.

I just don't think that a plane could fall straight down and still not break-up. The speed could well be towards Mach 1 which would most likely still result in a break-up of the aircraft. I still maintain that it was an explosive decompression that brought an end to Flight 447. I just don't see a plane falling 30,000 feet very, very fast without breaking up until impact.

I would agree with this finding based on the visual study of a picture that came out early on, of a section of the fuselage with distinct horizontal creasing consistent with a large load still being attached to it when it hit the water.

Hmmm...
Ah yes, there it is: http://www.fab.mil.br/portal/voo447/FOT ... foto_2.JPG

I'm trying to imagine a flat spin with a lot of vertical speed, and I can't unless the wings were broken off (partly). Visually it looks too much like a kite when it's flat and intact. If it's not nose down, it doesn't feel like it could be fast. Any guesses on the vertical speed of an airliner in a flat spin?

There were earlier signs of an inflight breakup, as two people mentioned; and to the contrary, the creasing of the fuselage (what part was that?) and perhaps an unmentioned pattern of injuries? If there are two stories being told by the evidence, could both things have happened? Inflight breakup, then pieces falling broadside into the sea? You'd expect some of the pieces to land sideways or upside down though.

I don't think it was ever implied in the article that the AC was in a "flat spin". It merely states that it impacted the water in a flat attitude. Who knows HOW it descended and what may have happened in the last seconds for it to hit flat.

Ms. Hawk, how can you just nod your head and say yep "I agree" when for one you have no clue what that piece of wreckage is in the picture? Nor do you seem to know a darn thing about forensic accident investigation.

And I'm even willing to bet my Airman Certificate that the subject in the photo is not an external "section of the fuselage" as you call it.

Not to rub salt...but that pc. in that pic is a part of the belly crew rest pod. IT is mentioned in the article by the author as one of the items said to indicate a straight vertical drop. WELL IMHO that piece could have been one of the many pieces falling that just so happened to hit the water flat. Until a FINAL report comes out with HOPEFULLY black box data, I am still hanging my hat on the idea of some sort of in flight break up of some part triggering an initial spin, or what ever made the whole thing end up in the Atlantic in pieces not as a whole. IF that were the case A330's would be falling like rocks on a daily / weekly basis.

Exactly! From an inflight break-up we'll probably never know how many pieces, their size, or the angle at which they impacted the water. But I'll be damned to hell selling ice water if the aircraft impacted the water with the airframe fully intact.

Ah ha, a side-wall panel off the crew rest mod pod.... I was thinking that it was the side of an insulated LD container at first, but the letters on the side aren't consistant with normal ULD coding. Looking at it now...sho-nuff it says CREW REST. I get to keep my Airman Cert. as I knew it wasn't a piece of the fuselage.

Flat impact or vertical impact? Can't be both, assuming (!) it was still in one piece.

These spokespersons (ptooey) are talking out of their *sses based on very few FACTS. Wait until (IF ) the FDR and CVR are found, only then can anyone speak with any certainty about what happened. And maybe not even then, unfortunately.

There's just no other way to put it, than right there....

Folks,

If you did not know, the "Interim" Report link can be found in the Squawks Section of FA. I briefly read it (a lot over my head) but it has all the interesting detail (to date), most of which we have heard before but, many graphs, pictures, etc. Got tired of going back to the acronym conversion table which is included.

One graph shows the spread of debris, bodies, and vertical portion of the tail assembly. It is spread over more than 100 NM! I agree with previous posts that in order to be distributed over that large of an area that one would assume it had to have disintegrated on the way down from FL350. One other question I have is why didn't the crew vector around these storms like the other carriers did, both preceding flights and those following? Just my thoughts!

- Don KDEN

Folks,

One other question: If France claims that the aircraft DID NOT breakup prior to hitting the water then the debris would be within a small area and then, if they say it was ocean currents that spread it out his does not make sense. If ALL of the debris was, let's say in a one mile area, wouldn't the same current move the entire one mile area to a different location? How would it separate and EXPAND to over 100 NM?

BTW - You all have a great Independence Day (while we still have one LOL) and watch for new altitude restrictions for bottle rockets!

- Don KDEN

It's all about density and surface size. Water currents move at different speeds (much like air currents) and more dense objects sink further than less dense. Also the larger the object, the move likely there will be resistance (drag).

I think it's not likely that a 100nm final spread of pieces is explained by in-flight breakup, and thus it doesn't require it either.

I'm sure there's actual data and models for debris field diameter, but on this scale it seems self-evident: from 5.8nm altitude, you'd really expect the pieces to have landed well within 6nm diam and they'd (have to) disperse by currents from there. (If you postulate that the breakup took a while, and that increased the initial spread significantly, it'd be a tough sell: 30 sec at 550 knots is only 4.5nm.) If the final locations spanned 100nm after 4 weeks, then the spread increases by ~25nm/week which is 6nm in <2 days. So at the end I doubt you could draw any conclusions about whether the initial spread was 0 or 6nm. I'll bet my FCC 3rd class license on that.

And I don't think it's worth worrying whether ocean currents could do this. First, the pieces weren't all picked up at the same time, and second, what else do you have to explain it?