An Air France A330 flight from Rio De Janerio to Paris was lost last night.  From what I have heard, no one knows what happened.  They simply disappeared . . .

Any info on this is appreciated.

I heard it got hit by lightning. and loss power and sent a emergency signal about the power lost. thats what I have heard so far.. very sad. 200 + people on board.

Well, I know that a lightning strike will do pretty much nothing to one of these planes. I've seen what goes into the design process to prevent accidents from happening. I was just going on the news I had at the time.

Same holds true for the message behind the error, no one is going to know until after an investigation and the results are released. All that I can figure out is that the message was about an "electrical circuit malfunction".

Although, it does look like the plane did run into storms. And something really bad had to have happened for it to disappear so quickly and without a mayday.

I feel that there could be persons alive over the watter ,waiting to be rescued

beaky wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2009 at 9:44am:



While I'm not an aviation accident investigator, I am a bit of a decently trained "normal" accident/incident investigator........

.......and I would think that even at a slow-ish speed, at a moderate altitude, a break-up may leave a bit more than a 3-mile debris field/trail.

But it's been reported that last (automated) comm was from FL350-ish at 450, or so, knots.  A breakup at that FL and IAS seems like it may leave more than a 15,000' long spot on the sea.  

Augerring in at high velocity, and given the elapsed time between incident and discovery, would seem to lend itself to credible speculation that all was intact til impact.

Just a guesstimate, IMHO.

BUT, like I said, I'm no aviation detective, just a guesstimator at this point.

Brings a chill to think that all of them may have been aware of the goings-on during the almost seven mile journey to the sea.

i hope they find the black box. they said it emits a sonar signal for 30 days. so sad

Update:

Doomed Air France Flight 447's last terrifying few minutes in the air have already been pieced together by accident investigators.
Aviation sources in France said automated messages sent by the plane's systems had allowed them to reconstruct events which appeared to show the Airbus broke up in mid-air as it flew through a hugely violent storm carrying 228 people from Rio to Paris.

The pilot sent a manual signal at 11pm local time saying he was flying through an area of CBs - electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning.
Satellite data has shown that towering thunderheads were sending 100 mph updraft winds into the jet's flight path at the time, several hundred miles of the coast of Brazil.

Ten minutes later, a cascade of problems began: automatic messages to Air France HQ indicate the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems.

Three minutes after that, more automatic messages reported the failure of systems to monitor air speed, altitude and direction. Control of the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well. The last automatic message, at 11.14pm, signalled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure - catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean.

The French accident investigation agency, BEA, refused to comment on the findings, as did Brazil's defence minister Nelson Jobim who said the "investigation is being done by France; Brazil's only responsibility is to find and pick up the pieces".

Meanwhile, the pilot of a Spanish airliner flying near where the Airbus is believed to have gone down reported seeing a bright flash of white light that quickly plunged to the ocean, said a spokesman for the Spanish airline Air Comet.

"Suddenly, off in the distance, we observed a strong and bright flash of white light that took a downward and vertical trajectory and vanished in six seconds," the pilot wrote in a report for the airline and Spanish civil aviation authorities.

The Spanish plane was flying from Lima, Peru to Madrid. The pilot said he heard no emergency calls.

I'm only in the learning stages of aircraft maintenance, and I've learnt some pretty horrible things during training, but when I first read that story, my jaw was on the floor. I'm obviously no expert when it comes to pilot training, but surely the weather radar would have built up a nice red picture on the display and the pilot would have changed course. 

So many explanations to this I guess. Some light has been shed on what happened, but it's clearly best to wait for the first official report to come out.

Alec