Personal Injury Law

Remains of Airliner Found Off Brazilian Coast

By Jane Akre

Debris sited

Remains of an airplane have been spotted in the sea near where Air France Flight 447 is believed to have disappeared Sunday night on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. 

Brazil's Air Force reports there is very little material given the size of the plane with 228 people on board. Radar found metallic material and oil and an airplane seat were spotted in an area about 400 miles northwest of Fernando de Noronha.

A report came in Monday morning from another Paris-Rio flight of glowing spots on the ocean, possibly fire.  No people have been found. 

Among those on board were Americans Michael Harris, 60, and his wife, Anne, 54. He worked as a geologist for Devon Energy in Rio de Janeiro. The couple was on their way to Paris for training and a vacation, reports CNN. 

The Air France A330 last made radio contact Sunday night saying they were leaving Brazilian airspace after more than three hours into the flight.  Around 11 p.m., the plane encountered strong turbulence and automated maintenance signals were sent to Air France headquarters indicating a failure of electrical components and an air pressure problem.

The Airbus A330 has a strong safety record and this is the first crash of one in commercial service. 

The pilot had logged 11,000 hours in flight, including 1,700 on two Airbus models, reports CNN.

Can Planes Be Hit By Lightning? 

The plane was traveling at a cruising altitude of about 35,000 feet, which is generally considered the safest part of any flight. 

Air France Chief Executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon tells the Wall Street Journal that the crew was very experienced but a loss of pressure could have incapacitated the crew and caused structural damage.   Lightning can damage an aircraft, though that is highly unusual since jetliners encounter storms routinely.

WSJ reports that experts are concerned that automated flight controls sent from an onboard computer throughout the plane (fly-by-wire) might have been disabled by the electrical storm.

The A330 has several back-ups and even a wind-powered generator to allow radio transmission and basic controls which would still allow it to fly without the fly-by-wire system.   

The area the plane went down was technically outside of Brazilian radar which could have warned of storm areas. The crash is likely to renew calls for installing weather radar on planes to give pilots an idea of what areas have turbulent lightning and winds. 

The location of the crash is known as the Intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) where maritime winds, rain and electric storms meet and can rise up to an altitude of 52,000 feet, above what commercial airlines fly. 

Planes fly through the ITCZ every day and are designed to absorb turbulence, reports CNN.  #

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on June 02, 2009 (boomark / email).