Posted in an Aviation Social Group on a Motorcycle website I frequent:
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Received this via E-mail... Bloody French Junk I reckon..!
Yesterday while coming up from Hong Kong to Tokyo , a 1700nm 4hr. flight, we experienced the same problems Air France had while flying thru bad weather.
I have a link to the failures that occurred on AF 447. My list is almost the same.
http://www.eurocockpit.com/images/acars447.php The problem I suspect is the pitot tubes ice over and you loose your airspeed indication along with the auto pilot, auto throttles and rudder limit protection. The rudder limit protection keeps you from over stressing the rudder at high speed. Synopsis;
Tuesday 23, 2009 10am enroute HKG to NRT. Entering Narita Japan airspace.
FL390 mostly clear with occasional isolated areas of rain, clouds tops about FL410.
Outside air temperature was -50C TAT -21C (your not supposed to get liquid water at these temps). We did. As we were following other aircraft along our route. We approached a large area of rain below us. Tilting the weather radar down we could see the heavy rain below, displayed in red. At our altitude the radar indicated green or light precipitation, most likely ice crystals we thought.
Entering the cloud tops we experienced just light to moderate turbulence. (The winds were around 30kts at altitude.) After about 15 sec. we encountered moderate rain. We thought it odd to have rain streaming up the windshield at this altitude and the sound of the plane getting pelted like an aluminum garage door. It got very warm and humid in the cockpit all of a sudden.
Five seconds later
the Captains, First Officers, and standby airspeed indicators rolled back to 60kts. The auto pilot and auto throttles disengaged. The Master Warning and Master Caution flashed, and the sounds of chirps and clicks letting us know these things were happening.
Jerry Staab, the Capt. hand flew the plane on the shortest vector out of the rain. The airspeed indicators briefly came back but failed again. The failure lasted for THREE minutes. We flew the recommended 83%N1 power setting. When the airspeed indicators came back. we were within 5 knots of our desired speed. Everything returned to normal except for the computer logic controlling the plane. (We were in alternate law for the rest of the flight.)
We had good conditions for the failure; daylight, we were rested, relatively small area, and light turbulence. I think it could have been much worse. Jerry did a great job fly and staying cool. We did our procedures called dispatch and maintenance on the SAT COM and landed in Narita. That's it.
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Airbus info is starting to flow in.
Following the French accident investigators preliminary report into the crash of Air France Flight 447 Thursday, Airbus may be forced to ground it's entire fleet of long-range airliners after story.
Its believed a respected senior aviation reporter for a large world news agency is poised to report that the European Aviation Safety Agency will be demanding why Airbus has not taken action to remedy a well-documented problem with the A330 and A340 series of aircraft, and why the fleet has been able to continue in-service with the fault.
The EASA has cited weather as a likely factor in the June 1st incident, but is changing its focus on faulty electronic speed reporting equipment as the principal problem leading to the breakup of the aeroplane in flight.
The aviation reporter is believed to also be in possession, and report on, information that Airbus first knew of problems with the system in 1994 and that the company suggested remedies, did not require any action be taken.
EASA is following closely other investigations into two other recent incidents involving A330 series aircraft in which the crews got faulty airspeed information from the triple-redundant pitot tubes and onboard computers.
Nearly 1000 of the airplanes are in service, and the Air France 447 disaster is the first time one has been involved in an incident with passenger fatalities.
Prelim report!
http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp...90601e1.en.pdf----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So Pitot ices up - you lose rudder control limitation, overstress the rudder and the tail plane separates... a/c rolls over into a dive an the whole lot goes into the sea - really really fast.
Sounds like fun to me.
