Air France 447

Last week I awoke to the most disturbing of stories, that an Airbus A330 with 228 souls on board had disappeared somewhere over the Atlantic ocean. Having just broken out of a deep slumber, my first thought was that I was actually still dreaming. Having dismissed that theory after realizing that the information was emanating from my bedside clock radio, I then ascribed the narration to an author touting the merits of his/her new fiction novel. Sadly, neither prove to be the case. In fact, an Airbus A330 with 228 souls on board HAD disappeared somewhere between Brazil and France.

Instantly, I was overwhelmed by a tremendous sense of disbelief. I felt as though I had instantly been transported by to the early 1900s. Not that there is anything particularly significant about the early 1900s, but rather that somehow in my mind, had this event occurred in the early 1900s, it would have been more acceptable to me. At least, far more acceptable than it is for mid 2009.

With reality setting in, I naturally began to ask some questions.

#1. Given GPS technology, how can we not know where this aircraft is and/or was? For a mere $300, I can affix a Garmin GPS to my wrist and tell you where I am at any point so long as I have a clear look at any one of the numerous satellites that circle the world and contribute to our GPS mapping capabilities. One would have to figure that the technology available to a multi-million dollar jet being flown and serviced by a multi million (billion?) dollar company might have the same, or better, abilities.

#2. How is it that aircraft seats and life preservers are recovered in the area that the aircraft went down, but that they don’t belong to the A330. Keep in mind that this is 400 nautical miles north of Brazil, not a mere few miles offshore. Can I take this to mean that other aircraft are going down in this reason and are not accounted for? Or is there some aircraft wreckage yard somewhere in the world whereat citizens throw debris into the worlds’ ocean currents and watch them drift away – a modern version of the message in a bottle technique?

#3. There is chatter that the black box may never be recovered given that the ocean depths in the area in question are about 24,000 feet – a mere 5000 feet short of Mt. Everest’s height (~29,000 feet). So another question comes to mind. If black boxes are so vital to reconstructing accident events, and given the percent of the earth’s surface that is water, would it not be reasonable to make the black box buoyant? I fully recognize the durability requirements of the black box; after all, it is supposed to survive all manners of accident that involve tremendous G forces. I also recognize that there may be some value in having this box located in a region where it is well-integrated with other aircraft systems. HOWEVER, would it not be possible, at least on newer aircraft, to have it encased in enough buoyant material to offset its weight? And, furthermore, given its purpose, would there not be intrinsic value in having it easily break free from the rest of the wreckage at which time it would emit ELT like signals? In this way it could be more easily retrieved from the water’s surface, and would be easily located due to the signals it would emit.

#4. How is it that we hear absolutely nothing from the pilots before the aircraft went down? To me, this is SOOOOOOO bizarre. Theorists have suggested that the plane was travelling into an area with heavy storms. Fair enough, but suppose that this storm was intense enough to break up the aircraft. Even under those circumstances, the pilots would certainly have said something, at least a mayday call? To me, this simple piece of information alone suggests that whatever happened, it happened VERY suddenly!

At the end of the day, it will be some time, if ever, before we know all the details about the flight.