News Of The Day...

Old Timer wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

Old Timer wrote:Least we forget.

wish we could figure out a way to put an end to this obviously favorite [sadly] human past-time. I watch on t.v. as they are memoralized; young, bright, full of life and looking toward their furture rewards. War is no place to send our youth and squander their lives, that they have yet to fully realize. I reflect on them as I do my own: we accept them into our arms when they come into this world, love them, protect them, feed them the best we can put on the table, try to get them the best of medical care and education, event to the extent that some go to college. Such as one I heard of today; graduated magna-cum-laude from college, then went to Iraq and killed at 28 years of age. How is it that we send these our youth, our futures, into harms way, where in an instant, all that a parent has done for them and all that they aspire toward the future, is silenced, brought to an abrupt and violent end.
Seems like it would be better to send the older men - trouble is, most wouldn't fight, as they would be reflecting on the ridicolus plight that war repersents; one solved, others waiting, in the future. All because we humans have as yet achieved evolution, so as to rise above such stupidity and squalor.

So well said Coontie. I think we should send the polititions and buracrats that start these wars to fight them before we even think about sending our children. It should be a law that the president and congress will be first on the battlefield. No excuses accepted and no parties exempt. If they're able to start them, they damn well should be able to fight them.

Interesting new avatar C.H. - that's one of those Saturn images; there are worse and there are better circumstances, situations that are depicted, repersented by this energy... Somehow, it is all good. What is new, begins, is created, ALL, eventually must end. Mystery is: it makes way for the new. And somehow, in the scheme of it all [another mystery] we do make evolutionary progress, however painfully, however slow. It is difficult with we humans to relinquish, give up things... On the otrher side of the situation is that we often find pain and anguish in accepting what is new and different, strange. We seek to remain in some ideal, comfortable place, where it seems that all things are as we desire. Eventually though, we tire of this and want change. With change comes the new, different and strange. Then, there are new areas, places of pain and anguish; E're the 'twain' shall meet. That is all part of that Saturn friction and tension, as well. It is the pivotal point, the fuilcrum of all of the circumstances of our life. Without it, there would be no life.
Peace to all...

Really? I just thought I was into vampires and stuck a piece of my head onto a vampire skull pic I had, thought it looked cool. Guess I do have a dark side though.

But ya still don't look any better

Buddy... If I got any better looking no one could stand to be around me. I couldn't stand to be around me.

CarolinaHound wrote:

Old Timer wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

Old Timer wrote:Least we forget.

wish we could figure out a way to put an end to this obviously favorite [sadly] human past-time. I watch on t.v. as they are memoralized; young, bright, full of life and looking toward their furture rewards. War is no place to send our youth and squander their lives, that they have yet to fully realize. I reflect on them as I do my own: we accept them into our arms when they come into this world, love them, protect them, feed them the best we can put on the table, try to get them the best of medical care and education, event to the extent that some go to college. Such as one I heard of today; graduated magna-cum-laude from college, then went to Iraq and killed at 28 years of age. How is it that we send these our youth, our futures, into harms way, where in an instant, all that a parent has done for them and all that they aspire toward the future, is silenced, brought to an abrupt and violent end.
Seems like it would be better to send the older men - trouble is, most wouldn't fight, as they would be reflecting on the ridicolus plight that war repersents; one solved, others waiting, in the future. All because we humans have as yet achieved evolution, so as to rise above such stupidity and squalor.

So well said Coontie. I think we should send the polititions and buracrats that start these wars to fight them before we even think about sending our children. It should be a law that the president and congress will be first on the battlefield. No excuses accepted and no parties exempt. If they're able to start them, they damn well should be able to fight them.

Interesting new avatar C.H. - that's one of those Saturn images; there are worse and there are better circumstances, situations that are depicted, repersented by this energy... Somehow, it is all good. What is new, begins, is created, ALL, eventually must end. Mystery is: it makes way for the new. And somehow, in the scheme of it all [another mystery] we do make evolutionary progress, however painfully, however slow. It is difficult with we humans to relinquish, give up things... On the otrher side of the situation is that we often find pain and anguish in accepting what is new and different, strange. We seek to remain in some ideal, comfortable place, where it seems that all things are as we desire. Eventually though, we tire of this and want change. With change comes the new, different and strange. Then, there are new areas, places of pain and anguish; E're the 'twain' shall meet. That is all part of that Saturn friction and tension, as well. It is the pivotal point, the fuilcrum of all of the circumstances of our life. Without it, there would be no life.
Peace to all...

Really? I just thought I was into vampires and stuck a piece of my head onto a vampire skull pic I had, thought it looked cool. Guess I do have a dark side though.

But ya still don't look any better

Buddy... If I got any better looking no one could stand to be around me. I couldn't stand to be around me.

Well it is easy to see that there is not any conceit in either of our families cause we got it all. That makes us the two best looking guys on the planet.

CarolinaHound wrote:

Old Timer wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

Old Timer wrote:Least we forget.

wish we could figure out a way to put an end to this obviously favorite [sadly] human past-time. I watch on t.v. as they are memoralized; young, bright, full of life and looking toward their furture rewards. War is no place to send our youth and squander their lives, that they have yet to fully realize. I reflect on them as I do my own: we accept them into our arms when they come into this world, love them, protect them, feed them the best we can put on the table, try to get them the best of medical care and education, event to the extent that some go to college. Such as one I heard of today; graduated magna-cum-laude from college, then went to Iraq and killed at 28 years of age. How is it that we send these our youth, our futures, into harms way, where in an instant, all that a parent has done for them and all that they aspire toward the future, is silenced, brought to an abrupt and violent end.
Seems like it would be better to send the older men - trouble is, most wouldn't fight, as they would be reflecting on the ridicolus plight that war repersents; one solved, others waiting, in the future. All because we humans have as yet achieved evolution, so as to rise above such stupidity and squalor.

So well said Coontie. I think we should send the polititions and buracrats that start these wars to fight them before we even think about sending our children. It should be a law that the president and congress will be first on the battlefield. No excuses accepted and no parties exempt. If they're able to start them, they damn well should be able to fight them.

Interesting new avatar C.H. - that's one of those Saturn images; there are worse and there are better circumstances, situations that are depicted, repersented by this energy... Somehow, it is all good. What is new, begins, is created, ALL, eventually must end. Mystery is: it makes way for the new. And somehow, in the scheme of it all [another mystery] we do make evolutionary progress, however painfully, however slow. It is difficult with we humans to relinquish, give up things... On the otrher side of the situation is that we often find pain and anguish in accepting what is new and different, strange. We seek to remain in some ideal, comfortable place, where it seems that all things are as we desire. Eventually though, we tire of this and want change. With change comes the new, different and strange. Then, there are new areas, places of pain and anguish; E're the 'twain' shall meet. That is all part of that Saturn friction and tension, as well. It is the pivotal point, the fuilcrum of all of the circumstances of our life. Without it, there would be no life.
Peace to all...

Really? I just thought I was into vampires and stuck a piece of my head onto a vampire skull pic I had, thought it looked cool. Guess I do have a dark side though.

But ya still don't look any better

Buddy... If I got any better looking no one could stand to be around me. I couldn't stand to be around me.

Hmmm... perhaps an attempt to satisfy a hidden desire... bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah [with echo effect]

coontie wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

Old Timer wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

Old Timer wrote:Least we forget.

wish we could figure out a way to put an end to this obviously favorite [sadly] human past-time. I watch on t.v. as they are memoralized; young, bright, full of life and looking toward their furture rewards. War is no place to send our youth and squander their lives, that they have yet to fully realize. I reflect on them as I do my own: we accept them into our arms when they come into this world, love them, protect them, feed them the best we can put on the table, try to get them the best of medical care and education, event to the extent that some go to college. Such as one I heard of today; graduated magna-cum-laude from college, then went to Iraq and killed at 28 years of age. How is it that we send these our youth, our futures, into harms way, where in an instant, all that a parent has done for them and all that they aspire toward the future, is silenced, brought to an abrupt and violent end.
Seems like it would be better to send the older men - trouble is, most wouldn't fight, as they would be reflecting on the ridicolus plight that war repersents; one solved, others waiting, in the future. All because we humans have as yet achieved evolution, so as to rise above such stupidity and squalor.

So well said Coontie. I think we should send the polititions and buracrats that start these wars to fight them before we even think about sending our children. It should be a law that the president and congress will be first on the battlefield. No excuses accepted and no parties exempt. If they're able to start them, they damn well should be able to fight them.

Interesting new avatar C.H. - that's one of those Saturn images; there are worse and there are better circumstances, situations that are depicted, repersented by this energy... Somehow, it is all good. What is new, begins, is created, ALL, eventually must end. Mystery is: it makes way for the new. And somehow, in the scheme of it all [another mystery] we do make evolutionary progress, however painfully, however slow. It is difficult with we humans to relinquish, give up things... On the otrher side of the situation is that we often find pain and anguish in accepting what is new and different, strange. We seek to remain in some ideal, comfortable place, where it seems that all things are as we desire. Eventually though, we tire of this and want change. With change comes the new, different and strange. Then, there are new areas, places of pain and anguish; E're the 'twain' shall meet. That is all part of that Saturn friction and tension, as well. It is the pivotal point, the fuilcrum of all of the circumstances of our life. Without it, there would be no life.
Peace to all...

Really? I just thought I was into vampires and stuck a piece of my head onto a vampire skull pic I had, thought it looked cool. Guess I do have a dark side though.

But ya still don't look any better

Buddy... If I got any better looking no one could stand to be around me. I couldn't stand to be around me.

Hmmm... perhaps an attempt to satisfy a hidden desire... bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah [with echo effect]

A hidden desire to be good looking or a vampire? Already got good looking and I've been accused of being a vampire before.

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

Old Timer wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

CarolinaHound wrote:

coontie wrote:

Old Timer wrote:Least we forget.

wish we could figure out a way to put an end to this obviously favorite [sadly] human past-time. I watch on t.v. as they are memoralized; young, bright, full of life and looking toward their furture rewards. War is no place to send our youth and squander their lives, that they have yet to fully realize. I reflect on them as I do my own: we accept them into our arms when they come into this world, love them, protect them, feed them the best we can put on the table, try to get them the best of medical care and education, event to the extent that some go to college. Such as one I heard of today; graduated magna-cum-laude from college, then went to Iraq and killed at 28 years of age. How is it that we send these our youth, our futures, into harms way, where in an instant, all that a parent has done for them and all that they aspire toward the future, is silenced, brought to an abrupt and violent end.
Seems like it would be better to send the older men - trouble is, most wouldn't fight, as they would be reflecting on the ridicolus plight that war repersents; one solved, others waiting, in the future. All because we humans have as yet achieved evolution, so as to rise above such stupidity and squalor.

So well said Coontie. I think we should send the polititions and buracrats that start these wars to fight them before we even think about sending our children. It should be a law that the president and congress will be first on the battlefield. No excuses accepted and no parties exempt. If they're able to start them, they damn well should be able to fight them.

Interesting new avatar C.H. - that's one of those Saturn images; there are worse and there are better circumstances, situations that are depicted, repersented by this energy... Somehow, it is all good. What is new, begins, is created, ALL, eventually must end. Mystery is: it makes way for the new. And somehow, in the scheme of it all [another mystery] we do make evolutionary progress, however painfully, however slow. It is difficult with we humans to relinquish, give up things... On the otrher side of the situation is that we often find pain and anguish in accepting what is new and different, strange. We seek to remain in some ideal, comfortable place, where it seems that all things are as we desire. Eventually though, we tire of this and want change. With change comes the new, different and strange. Then, there are new areas, places of pain and anguish; E're the 'twain' shall meet. That is all part of that Saturn friction and tension, as well. It is the pivotal point, the fuilcrum of all of the circumstances of our life. Without it, there would be no life.
Peace to all...

Really? I just thought I was into vampires and stuck a piece of my head onto a vampire skull pic I had, thought it looked cool. Guess I do have a dark side though.

But ya still don't look any better

Buddy... If I got any better looking no one could stand to be around me. I couldn't stand to be around me.

Hmmm... perhaps an attempt to satisfy a hidden desire... bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah [with echo effect]

A hidden desire to be good looking or a vampire? Already got good looking and I've been accused of being a vampire before.

sounds like PURE unadulterated conceit to me... pls. explain the 'vampire accusation'... is IT what I imagine?

Well I tend to stay up all night and sleep all day. And when I was younger I was famous for strategically placed hickies. Grew out of that though.

Mother of five year old missing girl that is known to actively associated with two different registeredf child sexual offenders said that there is no connection with these two men having previously molested children and her missing daugther. She believes that just because they were previously sexual offenders is no reason now to suspect either man in the disappearence of her daughter.

Suspected wreckage of missing Air France airbus believed located on the surface of the Atlantic ocean. They are not sure yet what happend to cause the aircraft to go down. It is believed that because of the extensive fragmentation of the aircraft that it must have disintergrated in flight.
What are you feeling, how do you deal with the fact that 228 human beings were summarily killed in such a tragic situation.?
I figure for each individual, that they each were connected to at least three other people. That makes somewhere around 700 people that are still living whose lives have been permanently affected. No telling what the various stories are regarding how each life has been changed.
Look at those around you, the ones you love and care for. Consider your present happiness , satisfaction and comfort and know that you are blessed. And that within the next hour or day something could happen to change all of that dramatically.

It is always devastating when any plane goes down. I have been reading and looking at a pilot's weather satellite site ( for the conditions and cells at the time of lost radio contact and the plane's flight path before this) and chatting a bit about the incident on a Commercial Pilot's forum that I belong to. I hope they are able to recover the CVR and CDR. Many of us (including myself) are interested in the issues of the three weather cells the plane flew through and one large one. There is more than one issue at play in this terrible accident however. Lightning may have some role ( but I don't believe a pertinent one really) , possible engine flameout and perhaps ice issues, but horrendous turbulance causing some severe structural damage may be, very likely (and this has caused similar incidents in the past) even though this particular bird was only in service a little over 4 years. This just is not a lightning alone problem either or any one problem actually. I also read some data that was transmitted from the plane electronically, indicating rapid descent and the failure of many electrical systems. Weather I believe will be a factor in this crash, but there are most likely other events/systems (electronically and mechanically) in a series of events and system failures (and you have to remember that when many things go wrong at all at once and/or continue to multiply- the time you have to try and correct them all is very short indeed and sometimes they simply cannot be) that also took place in some sequence and when all combined, lead to this failure cascade that just could not be recovered from.

Here is some of the data transmitted: ACARS messages of system failures started to arrive at 02:10Z indicating, that the autopilot had disengaged and the fly by wire system had changed to alternate law. Between 02:11Z and 02:13Z a flurry of messages regarding ADIRU and ISIS faults (electronic) arrived, at 02:13Z PRIM 1 and SEC 1 faults were indicated, at 02:14Z the last message received was an advisory regarding cabin vertical speed and stall.

In plain English, this is not a good thing. The auto systems shut off (this happens in a dire situation so that the Pilot can try to attempt to regain control and this will vary (what he attempts) due to the type of plane and the situation and his training and experience and it also means that the auto systems could not correct the situation(s) ) and there are several electronic system failures reported. Two distinct and spread apart debris fields are of interest as well. This could indicate mid air breakup. For now though, it is all speculation until and if the recorders are recovered and the debris examined.

At any rate, there certainly was some horrible sequence of events that took place on this flight. The last several minutes of this flight were certainly an awful hell for everyone on board. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the crew and the passengers and their loved ones. This is a very sad event. The advice to live each day, appreciate what we have and never forget to tell our loved ones, family and friends how much they mean to us comes to the forefront even more when something like this occurs.

"Two seperate debris fields", largest object sptted so far is a aircraft passanger seat - no bodies. There is speculation that the Pilots attempted to turn the aircraft and return to land. catastrophic failure anticipated.
A woman whose husband was on board said that she hoped that he was asleep and wasn't afraid.
I doubt that anyone aboard was sleeping through the hell they were going through. I expect it was over pretty quick for everyone. At the altitude they were at, about 38,000 feet, it is severely cold and little air to breathe.
Once the cabin was compromised and despressurized and fragmented, I imagine they all passed out and were frozen solid and were dead in less than a minute and when they hit the ocean.
I wont comment on what I believe happen to their remains once they hit the water.
I flew in B-52 Bombers in the Air Force and went through all the flight training. We were told in very straightforward terms what happens to a person when exposed to the elements at those altitudes. We operated on the average at 40,000 to 45,000 feet. The aircraft could be taken higher, but then pressure suits would be required. I think they tested to 70,000 feet. The optimum flight altitude for a nuclear attack on an enemy target which thankfully we never had to do.
We had parachutes in case of an inflight problem. Had to wear our hjelments with oxygen mask, ahich were connected by a hose to a 15 minute oxygen cylinder in the pack as well as a electronic transponder. I think this was mostly all psychological 'window dressing' for our morale though. I doubt that we would have survived an ejection from the aircraft at those altitudes.

Central America: woman stopped boarding an aircraft for the 'states'. It seemed that the presence of Cocaine was deteced but after an extensive search they couldn't figure out where it was at. They almost gave up on it being a flase alarm. Then, they realized it was her luggae that was made from cocaine; a misture of the drug, glass and synthetic fivers.
This stuff is bad enough to use in the pure state, but can you imagine what the 'reconsituted stuff' would do to a user?
Of course these B******* don't care about what happens to users, they just want the money.

Coontie, I just had to laugh my ass off at the "15 minute oxygen cylinder and the hose" comment. ROTFL You are of course correct. That is about as worthwhile and useful as "your seat can be used as a floatation device". LMAO Many of these aids and safety features are nothing but completely worthless and must be done for a pyschological purpose because the powers that be figure they have to come up with some b.s. You have to wonder who comes up with this crap and just how gullible they believe people to be.

I just returned home and got an email from a pilot friend of mine with a copy of an overlay of the A330 track with that of the IR sat image at the time of the accident btw.

If one were to judge by what I am reading from it, they flew right through the worst CB activity in the region. I mean hellatious CBs. I am sticking with my theory of incredibly severe and horrendous turbulance issues, enough to cause some structual decay and with the combination of key electronic systems failures, loss of control stability/ manuerverability and lastly some depressurization issues. Those could be caused by loss of altitude as well as structrual damage.

I stayed up late last night reading more of the ACARS signals sent out during the last several minutes of the flight which all indicate with certainty an alarm sounded, indicating the deterioration of flight systems, more automatic messages indicated the failure of two other fundamental systems pilots use to monitor air speed, altitude and direction and other electrical failures in systems that control the main flight computer and wing spoilers and there were signals of the rapid loss of altitude along with the vertical position of the cabin towards the end. What is of interest to me also is that the ACARS obviously does not specify as the cabin vertical speed indicating a climb or a descent. It only indicates the speed and that is was vertical. This would have a significant meaning as to the events on board and would also affect how intact the plane might have actually been upon impact. The cabin vertical speed advisory was the LAST in the sequence of advisories on the ACARS and is an important piece of the puzzle here. I have not been able to discern if it was a negative or positive vert as of yet nor at what altitude this took place at either. This information would be very telling.

Shit, this is so terrible sad and horrific. It's just depressing as hell. I am concerned that the FDR/CVR can even be recovered at such depths under these conditions even using subs. I have no idea what the currents and water conditions, weather and visability are underwater in that specific region either (except what I am researching) and I have no idea what the sea bed surface itself looks like (topography can play a role in masking the pingers and hopefully, they have not separated from the boxes) which, with debris will make this a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack in regads to finding the recorders let alone retrieving them. I have heard unofficically that a US P3 Orion was deployed and is searching for them currently. They are equipped with air-dropped sonobuoys with both passive and active sonar. The passive array buoys can detect underwater sounds including the ultrasonic pingers on DFDR's and CVR's. This is a good thing as least.

The pingers can nominally be heard for about 2 miles (10,000 ft) The depth of the ocean in this area appears to be about 10,000 feet, but varies between about 8,000 feet and 12,000 feet. It would be pure luck to drop a monitoring buoy in a position where it heard a pinger, given the depth in the area, and the fact that at the surface, the radius of success is substantially smaller than 2 miles.

The distance the pinger can be heard will also be affected by any thermal layers in the ocean, and the terrain where the wreckage came to rest, both reducing the range. I imagine that towed sensors that work below the surface will be deployed as soon as they reach the area as well. There are several types Naval ships on their way and this type of mapping will be obviously useful.

From photos I have seen this afternoon, there is a large 21km fuel slick as well to contend with as well. Another friend has emailed me that a seven-meter chunk of plane has also been located now near the slick. I believe that some subs should be arriving Friday and it will be interesting to see just what the actual wreckage looks like below, what is left of the integrity of the plane and how large and complete parts of it are. I believe there may be much more substantial and larger parts of the plane to be discovered on the ocean floor. It is however obviously imperative that every means is deployed to locate and retreive the recorders but this is not going to be easy. We will just have to wait and see.

The area has a undersea canyon ove four miles deep. I saw a topo of the area. It has a sharp peak that comes up relatively shallow but then drops off abruptly.
As far as cabing vertical velocity, I heard that that is was near nil and pitched up as in a stall position. Which would seem to indicate that the damn thing was falling off backwards, tail first.
I think they were just being literally thrown all over the place. I am really puzzled as to why they flew into such a storm. The Nav aboard could have certainly seen the wx ahead and known that it was catastrophically dangerous to proceed on that track.
Also, I don't like fly by wire. If I was a pilot I would like to feel in direct contact with my control surfaces, rather than have servos and transmitters sending control surface commands. But, that is supposed to be the ultimate aircraft control design now. Not sure why it was ever allowed to be established. I can see a joint ssytem, but not just solely fly by wire.
When I was flying, our chute packs had barometric switches that would not allow the chute to deploy until below 10,000 ft. SO obviously one would just plummit very quickly down to that altitude. Idea was to get a person to an altitude where there was breathable gasses and a possible decent air temperature. I heard of instances where chutes deployed higher up. The airman was then suck into updrafts and taken ap very high, often higher than when he left the aircraft. Then he would drop for some way, be picked back up and so on. One case they cited was that a man was frozsen solid when he finally hit the ground. I would imagine that those people on the Air Francwe flight were thrown out of the cabing into the air and probably thrown all over the sky before they finally came down. Likely encased in balls of ice.

A Republic of China has bought the G.M. Chevrolet Hummer Line. It will be manufactured by at least one assembly plant in the U.S.; the faciluity at Shreveport, Louisiana. This will be under management and direction of the Chinese. It is claimed that the Hummer is one of the most popular passanger vehicles in the entire world.
G.M. cannot any longer manufacture such a vehicle as under the government financial support program they must, in the future, manufacture fuel efficent automobiles and a new line of Hybrid vehicles.

Coontie, I will say that I am really enjoying this conversation! Where to begin....
In my research into these three storm cells, with the last being the largest, most violent and containing the horrendous CBs, the winds were also estimated at 100mph. On the nose that is no huge deal but on a wind shear effect or a sudden change of wind direction, this would be a big issue. The bigger danger in thunderstorms is the convective energy that can throw the plane around like a rag doll - easily exceeding structural loads, or placing the plane in an attitude that makes this likely to happen. Throw in a little hail and icing, and this is a real mixed bag of bad shit.

When I flew the Pacific route I was able to easily see cells on radar and always avoided large clusters. Now this makes for added time and fuel as the deviations can be a bit far and wide. I also never had any cockpit lights on during these times. Even at night without a full moon you can adapt your vison very quickly. The additional benefit is you can see the faint in-cloud lightning off at a distance and that is definitely the cloud to avoid. It's always been amusing to me that military aircraft never ever fly with the cockpit lights but commercial aircraft all crank up the storm lights. It used to freak out the crew a bit when ever I would go dark til they got used to it. lol But very experienced pilots turn that crap off. I know the lights are supposed to help with fatique on long flights but I always thought that was what buckets of coffee were for frankly and if needed, a couple of hits of oxygen and some rock and roll music. Hey, I am old school. lol

And I totally concur with you on this , you are spot on in your conclusion with auto and with wire - "fly-by-wire" electronic flight system which controls the wing and tail flaps had (by the ACARS transmission) shifted to "alternative law" after multiple electrical failures with the plane. That system enables the plane to continue functioning on minimum energy BUT and in this situation this is a large BUT, it also reduces flight stability- and in a situation where a pilot is trying to gain stability of the plane this is an issue, especially with so many other failures/turbulance, etc., all trying to be dealt with at once. (and this has been a bone of contention among long term exerienced pilots - they will tend to perform way more overriding and shut offs and switching back and forth which is so tiring and a pain in the ass but I believe is safer and gives more control where it belongs in some instances -to the pilot- there are all sorts of discussions and theories pro and con over hand flying versus auto and when this is appropriate) ...........one of the things I never liked about the 330 is the flying the airplane does FOR you. For instance, if it senses a drop in a wing not due to pilot input...it corrects and lifts it for you. Especially noticeable when you are on final and in strong gusty conditions. As a pilot, you correct the drop caused by a gust but the computer has already put it in automatically and you end up adding more to the necessary requirement. We call it "stirring the pot" because that's what the stick looks like as you are fighting it. If the autopilot was off at altitude and stick corrections were being put in in very turbulent conditions, I could see where overstress could happen. If it was in Direct Law by that point....it isn't like a yoke with a "feel"...it's a short stick and under stressful conditions.

The other issue I don't enjoy is the radar itself. I, as a lot of my compatriots do/did, run it in manual a lot more than in AUTO. Some stuff paints when it is not there, some stuff paints when it is there but can look worse or better than it really is. I have experience this hundreds of times. At least in manual...you can run the tilt up and down, the sensitivity can be adjusted to look. It's an issue and it even says so in the Cockpit Operating Manual we all carried. Fancy colors and doppler logic is just a piss poor substitute for aggressive tilt management as far as I am concerned.

Going dark in the presence of convective weather greatly enhances one's SA. I have experienced the "smokestacks" over the Pacific while flying. I could see it but couldn't paint it and thought can't be that bad. Kaboom! Big up draft gave me a valuable lesson and permanent lesson that I never repeated.

Why he flew through the 3rd storm which was the largest and most violent of the storms containing all the CBs is bit of a mystery for me. There are almost no good reasons to ever do this on purpose obviously. In giving some slack however, CBs, especially in the ITCZ have plenty of energy and can build faster that aircraft can climb. Even if you are looking ahead 40 miles, thats 5 minutes time wise and storms can built 20,000 ft in that time. Storms can build and collapse in a relatively short period of time. For those of us who have flown in this environment, at night, it is not pleasant. While I sure as hell do not know yet for sure what happened, we can all probably agree, unusual attitudes, at night and in the weather is one of the worst pilot nightmares.

I hit one of these snake thunderstorms over Texas once at night when I was a young buck. I was climbing out of MEM and saw this "smokestack" just at the last minute, so I couldn't avoid it entirely. My left wing clipped into the storm and immediately we started banking hard to the right. At about 45 degrees of bank the autopilot said "I've had enough" and disengaged. I had full left aileron and we still rolled to about 80 degrees of bank. Just like that we were out of it. It was a smooth roll, not choppy at all, and the pax never even knew we had been on the knifeedge. I figured out pretty damn early in my career, there is no such thing as a small thunderstorm and they are all to be taken seriously. We had the radar on and it only painted at the last second, just as I had visual contact.

It would be nice to have a more predictive radar. Trying to navigate around an area of growing CBs is like finding your way through a mine field using brail. Radar has improved greatly in the decades that I have been flying, but it still has a way to go. The thunderstorms near the equator in the Pacific can be hard to paint with modern digital radars and even in the midwest in the US. The lines in central prairies can run for 100 miles or more and, if they are big, are full of hail and turbulence.

I used to love the classic 747 because the old monochrome radars were much better at picking out the smokestacks, but you had to run the tilt far down to pick up the precip coming out the bottom of the CB.

Having said that, it is entirely possible that depending on how the radar was configured, they didnt see a really compact, tall, skinny CB that was right in their path at night. A CB strong enough to do some severe damage to an unsuspecting crew and aircraft. It still does not explain why he went though this last system. I would also like to know what his air speed was as he was flying through the last cell. Was it fast enough? So many many questions. It appears that both pilots had plenty of experience also. It just makes me more puzzled over this situation.

There is speculation that this was the type of thunderstorm that caught a UA 747 by surprise on a night flight from NRT-HNL, resulting in several major injuries to the cabin crew and one passenger death. The NW flight above and in front of the UA had no turbulence at all and neither did the NW flight above and behind. Radar tilt/gain management over the ocean at night is a demanding task, and inadvertant penetration of any top at FL350 can be just real bad news.

The newer radar on the B777 for example is, in my opinion only, not so hot in automatic, so I used to transferred between auto and manual for my own piece of mind. I think it has something to do with the way the Doppler works with the brain of the thing to pick out turbulence (WX+T only works within 40 NM). Early deviations and diligent monitoring was alway my motto.

Cripes somebody has bigger ones than me. It's funny, I would terrified to jump from any plane at any altitude. They would have to drug me, shove my ass out the door and have some kinda remote control to open the chute for me. I am sure I would have a heart attack long before I hit the ground though. lmao I cannot fathom parachuting in the day light, let alone at night. I only went up in a chopper once in Hawaii because my wife made me and I hated it. It felt like I was in a flimsy bird cage. I would never even consider bungie jumping. My brother took some lessons years and years ago in Torrey Pines and I went and watched him once heave himself off the cliffs there holding on to this fakata kite and I knew he was crazy. I could'nt even watch him anymore. Yet, I have had loads of issues and incidents of varying degrees (like any pilot has had in their career) and never got too shook up, ever. Go figure.

As far as the vertical, Christ I hate to imagine if this is the case. I know there was a stall signal form the ACARS for a fact. I was hoping for nose down (like it matters now). I hate to even fathom tail first shit. Cripes that is bad. The wreckage under sea will be more scattered if this is the case and especially if the break up while in flight was massive. It will be very telling as to how wide spread the ocean floor debris is and what sections are how far in distance from other sections when/if they are found as to the condition of the plane (body intregrity) that it was in before the crash. Debris fields were reported to be separated by as much as 140 miles. Part of that can be explained by a difference in the way individual pieces of debris are affected by the wind (i.e. high floating light material is more likely to be blown along by the wind than low-floating heavier debris that is more likely to be influenced by the water currents). The scattering of debris by the forces inside of a thunderstorm could also be a factor, but probably not over an area 140nm wide. The biggest influence; however, is where the individual pieces hit the water. With as much as 50 to 140 miles between the pieces, the highest probability is likely to be that parts of the aircraft separated in flight and the aircraft continued for a while before the final crash. That would mean that the aircraft structure disintegrated over a period of time.

The biggest clues will be if they find individual flight control surfaces separated by miles from the wreckage and if large chunks of fuselage were missing from the wreckage along with the missing flight control surfaces. For example, if I were investigating, I'd be interested in whether or not the vertical stab is located with the rest of the fuselage wreckage. That scenario would be similar to the Air Japan B-747 that lost its vertical stab due to an improper repair of the aft pressure bulkhead - it continued to fly for 32 minutes. A B-52 that lost its vertical stab (or at least most of it) flew on and continued to a safe landing. Of course, the 2001 Airbus that lost its vertical stab crashed immediately afterward - so there is a wide latitude of how far an aircraft may fly with no vert stab. The same can go for most any flight control surface based on how much is lost and what it takes with it. Such failures are not unheard of - the MD-11 elevator counter-weights have been known to destroy the elevators in severe buffeting conditions due to the twisting moments caused by the inertia of the weights themselves against the rest of the elevator which is being held static by the hydraulic actuators.

Stresses may have been so severe that the separation of parts of the aircraft could have resulted in breaches to the structural integrity of the cabin and/or cargo compartments. In that case, the majority of the aircraft would continue along a trajectory while debris from within the aircraft could be spread across a wide area. That scenario would be similar to the Aloha 737 mishap. (the thought of this just sickens me) Depending on how the structure was breached, the loss of several components (hydraulics, electrics, etc) would be possible if not probable and the damage could be so severe that even fail-safe systems could be eliminated and cause an eventual loss of control or continued flight in turbulent conditions could result in the eventual complete destruction of the aircraft. I was so hoping for not an enormous break up while in flight. Crap.

From your observation with the topography it is certainly going to be an issue for finding the boxes isn't it? I am losing hope for that even more now. Shit. There is some ship carrying mini subs on the way but there is a limit to their capabilities in this type of attempt. I don't know diddle about them however, just some very general stuff. It will be interesting to see what plays out over the weekend.

Well, now the Brazilian Air Force has recovered 17 bodies (besides more having been spotted on the surface and currently being retrieved as I post this) and they are finally in the correct debris field. I have been looking at the photos and videos on their website. So far, I have recognized part of the port wing, a section of the crew rest station, more pax seats, a lot of misc items/luggage from the cargo hold, some various types of insulation, other structural parts not yet identified. I am using a google translator from portuguese to english to read some of their reports as well, which is not perfect but pretty good. There is quite a plethora of items listed such as oxygen masks, lcd screens, wiring, etc. I am grateful and hopeful that as many pax and crew as possible, can be recovered for the sake of their families. Thus far it has been all floating debris and until the subs arrive, we won't know what is on the sea floor let alone where the actual area(s) are where the plane entered the water and is at rest. Very sad.

Life in America is better and stranger than fiction!... Recently, a woman struck up an aquaintance with another on "Face-Book". Their focus developed into children and circumstances regarding same. Then, one encouraged a personal meeting of the,other whom it was established was pregnant with child.
Cutting to the chase - they met, the one woman murdered the pregnant woman and cut her baby out of her - a boy child and then buried the dead woman's body in a crawl-space under her house. She kept the infant, which lived for a while, then died.

Put It Out There Baby wrote:Well, now the Brazilian Air Force has recovered 17 bodies (besides more having been spotted on the surface and currently being retrieved as I post this) and they are finally in the correct debris field. I have been looking at the photos and videos on their website. So far, I have recognized part of the port wing, a section of the crew rest station, more pax seats, a lot of misc items/luggage from the cargo hold, some various types of insulation, other structural parts not yet identified. I am using a google translator from portuguese to english to read some of their reports as well, which is not perfect but pretty good. There is quite a plethora of items listed such as oxygen masks, lcd screens, wiring, etc. I am grateful and hopeful that as many pax and crew as possible, can be recovered for the sake of their families. Thus far it has been all floating debris and until the subs arrive, we won't know what is on the sea floor let alone where the actual area(s) are where the plane entered the water and is at rest. Very sad.

One interesting development regarding the operation of the aircraft - all Airbus Aircraft, for that matter, is the varation in airspeed indication from Pilot to Copilot, on the instruments. Sounds to me as though there was icing on the Pitot tubes measuring velocity. Indicating there could have been a failure of the heater system on one or both tubes.

Hey Coontie......last evening I had a three way with my brother, who is an avionics expert and inspector for a major carrier and a friend of his who is an aeronautical engineer. We went through some theories, discussed the VS being found basically intact with the full rudder still attached and part of the ferring as well. It is common to find this item in many crashes and it could have come off just prior to the plane hitting the water or afterwards, but really it may be meaningless anyways. We discussed many systems and scenarios together and still have mostly questions, many plausible (we think-but who knows) possibilities and not too many answers, still.

At any rate we went over the ACARS messages again in detail. The timeline is very very grim indeed. There is more than pito tubes here at play and with all the other system failures taking place in a cascading failure rate, they may not have even mattered. There have been directives out about the tubes and there have been a few incidents (nothing major that anyone is aware of) with them since May of last year. There were directives given of what to do when they fail and for them to be replaced, but the failures thus far have been only a few and they were very short in duration. They would stop giving readings and then start again and continue with no issue and there less than a dozen of these events. Why the heaters, which are on separate circuits and wiring failed to begin with I don't know. And why did all of them fail? If they were giving conflicting airspeed messages, would the auto pilot disengage? Not neccessarily. Another mystery thus far. Plus they are turned on (the heating wires) automatically. They can be turned off manually but they are always auto/on and even on the ground before take off you would/should get a warning if they were not functioning. You certainly would get one right after takeoff as well if they were blocked on the ground (which has happened) So at one point, they did work. Also nothing was reported about them being blocked (does not mean they could not have become blocked at some point) for several hours into the flight. Now I will confess that there have been more than a few fatal and non fatal crashes/planes brought down by blocked pito tubes on other makes and models of aircraft with a wide variety of carriers worldwide over the years. Obviously, not knowing your true airspeed is huge and often ends with catastrophic results.

Again, none of us are experts but we have over 80 combined years of commercial experience, but these are just our opinions and what we believe thus far. In the casscading sequence of events, the first event is that the auto pilot disengages and a warning is sent to the flight crew. What caused this? We don't know.
Then, the flight control computers fails/faults (alternative law). This is to keep in theory the plane from performing any manuever in flight which it is not built to perform. It is to keep the plane in the correct "rules" of flight performance and it fails. Why? Again, we don't know.

Then appears two flags on the Captain's and FO's readouts on the autopilot system of it's failure. The pilots )assumingly) now begin to fly the plane manually.
Then the PFD (the primary flight display) is suddenly lost. This display contains most of the information that the pilot needs to fly the aircraft.
Now, they are flying blind at night, no horizon, no data, nada.
The aircraft now can be put (unmeaningly by the pilots) into any number of unsafe flight envelopes and there is the strong potential to go beyond it's design limits.
Next the damn auto throttles shut off, so the FO or the Captain has to now manually provide the thrust.
Then the TCAS fault appears and there are multiple computer failures occurring simultaneously. This is a massive, devastating casscades of significant electrical failures. In fact, at three different times stamps the computers try to re-boot themselves and fail to do so each and every time.
In the daytime in good weather, this scenario would be horrific but possibly, possibly, the flight culd be saved. But at night, in a storm, with turbulance, over the open ocean they are doomed.
Both the FO's and the Captains computers try to reboot and fail yet again. All three systems including the back up fail- left/ right and back up.
Then there is a rudder flag warning. It is a rudder trim limit fault. The rudder at this point may have exceeded it's travel limit of normal flight. We cannot know this for sure however. There are other faults, even ones pertaining to the heads and the wastewater systems and their vacuum pumps. Could just be a maintaince things. Who knows?
Then some maintainance issues appear but we don't know what they are. They are sent for maintaince so that they can be corrected when the plane lands, replaced, repaired, parts ordered etc. This is common for all planes and are configured by each carrier.
Then there is a message appearing for Pito number #1 and then a message for Pito #2. (no mention of #3 and no specific data of what is up with the tubes to begin with and no one seems to know what the message means at this point, among us at any rate, so there has been much speculation over them at this point by everyone it seems. Plenty of maybes and what ifs.
There is then a warning PFD of the flight control system. There are two more PFD warnings: airspeed limit warning (error code 2283) and another PFD flag was a "flight path vector" warning (error code 3412)
The computers try to reboot yet again and fail.
There are infact 14 major failures in only a few minutes time, which are mainly electrical in nature.
The ISIS informational displays fail. the IR2 inertia reference unit on the FO's and on the Captains side has now failed. The primary left and right displays and the secondary displays all fail.
Then there is a NAV ADR disagree message. Two different sets of info for the Captain and the FO and the back up has failed at this point so now there is a warning that is basically saying that the info and the computers are confused and it's basically saying that no data agrees and it does not know what to do. t is receiving conflicting data, which it cannot resolve. Another mystery.
There are then more faults in the primary and secondary computers flashing (#1 and #2)
The pilots are basically flying on their own with no information from the computers, no visual and no technology that is needed to fly the damn plane at this point. There is another maintainace advisory, a warning of partial cabin pressure loss, a message of the cabin vert angle and then the messages end.

There were 14 ECAM messages in the first 4 minutes and multiple cascading electrical failures and I believe that obviously the pilots were simply beyond overwhelmed (and God knows what the weather was like or the turbulance also) and the plane simply became unmanageable with the multiple NAV failures and no displays. This may explain why no May Day messages were received by anyone (aircraft or ground). (my brother states even if they were sent, did they really get transmitted to begin with, and they were not received at any rate and we will only of course know if they tried to send any when and if the recorders are not only found but retrieved) I do not believe they had any time to send any myself. They had no time to do much of anything and were so overwhelmed and overloaded with trying to control the plane and all the warnings and faults and man, this is just enough to really sicken anyone just thinking about such a scenario. If they flew too fast, there could have been severe structural damage to the plane and if they flew too slow, they could have stalled. Plus we still don't know how severe any turbulance was, lightening issues, etc.,you name it were. It's a mess. We do know that the Captain and FO were very seasoned and experienced and had many hours on the bus though.

Again, we are all left with many, many questions and few answers at this point. I believe and I may be full of shit however, that there were many events that took place that caused even more events that simply could not be overcome and everything just unraveled. Unless the recorders are found and found intact and then can even be retrieved, which seems somewhat ify at this point, we may never fully know the answers. For now it is all theory, educated guesses and speculation with what little we have to go by at this point. We have the ACARS and not much else and some of the ACARS is simply not detailed enough in some of the messages and with some of the messages........ we are unclear about their true/actual meaning.

A nuclear sub is on scene now but sadly I have not heard of any more bodies being recovered beyond the 41 so far. That is dissapointing. Often in a water crash, no one is recovered from the forward section of the fuselage but I am hopeful for more recoveries at least for the sake of the families and loved ones. The prayers continue.

I attempted to post a somewhat lenghty reply to your article last evening, but somebody on here was messing around and blocked the damn thing when I attempted to post it. Not sure what was going on?
Anyhow, gist of my comments was the airspeed situation; noticed now that Air France is empathically stating that the airspeed deviices didn't cause the loss of the aircraft... Do I smell preemtive attempts to stave of impending litigation? Is this the end of Air France? So much litigation debt that they go bankrupt.
Again, the proverbial situation of doing something about a known problem after it is known to exist and results in catatrophe? Undoubtedly!
Anyhow, I was wondering about the preflight weather briefings - I am sure they were told there was violet weather on their intended flight path... Destour to a safer area? Naww, that would take additional fuel and time... cost the airline money..
And then, there's the crew, in the air; they are in charge of it ALL now, as once they break the surly bonds of earth they are a entity unto theirself. They make their own decisions and take their own actions, as indicated by the performance of the machine and the conditions and effects of the elements. So I am wondering, navigator manning the doppler radar and can readily see the blips of these storms and should be experienced, trained, informed to know what hell is contained within these high altitude storm cells. We've all seen the cumo-Nimbulus, towering high, just under the stratosphere, the top wispy and brushed back into the 'anvil-head' configuration. The wispy tops is ice, like a raging snowstorm. High winds - 200 - 300 mph, updrafts and large chunks of ice hurling around in there. Then the lightning discharges - the only way they strike an aircraft is when the aircraft crosses through the discharge path. Doesn't matter though, because the high volatge discharges are like missiles and they can really do some damage to things that get in their way.
So why did they go into such weather, why didn't they divert? We'll never know now... I think the thing disintegrated in the air and all, everything, was flung out. No really large pieces of the aircraft ever survived to hit the water.

You know Coontie, I have been wondering about all that you have been saying myself. I obviously feel badly at pointing any fingers, especially at a fellow crew and especially when I don't have all the answers. But I will tell you that an Iberia flight that left just behind the Air France flight, in the same exact flight path, diverted and reported diverting around two storms (that Air France apparently flew through), seeing others, and did not fly through them. Because they had diverted they said that they did not even see the third storm which was the largest that Air France also flew through. They experienced some brief moderate turbulance but that was it. They had no problems reading the storms and avoiding them, which is what all pilots do. Yet this has not been mentioned has it? The Iberia crew was interviewed as soon as they landed but you don't hear shit about that anywhere do you? At 8 miles per minute, modern jets can easily fly around storms. And there is much real time data available on weather conditions and ways to manually and physically see storms (as I explained in a post above). This route is very heavily travelled. This is is mystery to me right now.

This area and route is famous for these storms and it is the rainy season there. It is a tropical zone. So the weather is certainly no surprise to anyone who has been flying this route either. It is famous for it's weather issues. It's one of the most well known ITCZ's on the planet for cripes sake.

I will tell you also, that money issues have not been a good thing with any carrier in the last 20 years. There are heated discussions about this and there have been for years on every pilots forum there is on the net. It's always about cutting costs and cutting corners with every damn carrier out there. Always. If the pito tubes were an issue and of course Air France is playing that way down, then they should have been replaced immediately and all Air Bus traffic grounded until they were. That has been done in the past for other mechanical and electrical issues with other planes. Money. Also now, just in the last day and a half, mostly likey by Air France pooh poohing the tube issue, more reports now are comming out by pilots (I read 5 today and they were all long distance flights as well from several carriers) that Air France is not admitting to, where the tubes gave conflicting air speed data in flight.

But hell, Air France has also been pooh poohing the ACARS messages as well. I had them a few days, as did many pilots and maintainace crews, inspectors etc., before they were made available to the public and then the public and the media only got a very limited version (I mean leaving out the majority of the data), of the messages and what ACARS means was never ever and still has not been properly explained to the public or the press. They have never been told that these messages are sent by every plane in flight for every airline in the world, (in fact the software is specifically configured for each airline carrier for their specific needs and wants by the manufacturer of the software) and that they report maintainance/flight issues an that they are generated independently, accurately and immediately and time stamped in sequence and go to the ground crews at the destination airport so that problems can be checked out, repairs effected, isssues looked at, parts ordered, the plane inspected etc. before it ever leaves the ground again. This is one reason, for flight delays, flights cancelled and so forth. They have down played the messages as though they were meaningless. Now Air France has even stated that the pilots did not lose their visuals. Bullshit! It's right there and generated by the computers on board during the flight in black and white!!

Also, most people are not aware of the fact that planes flying over the open oceans of the entire world, are not tracked by any radar for many, many legs of the flight. (hours at a time) They are tracked for instance up and down the coasts of the US but over the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean etc., not all the way at all, ever. There are many hours of long distance flights that are not tracked by radar because there is simply none available. It does not matter if the path is only 100 to 150 miles out to sea, if it's night and you are over the ocean and the flight is lost, you are screwed. This is why they have no idea where or exactly when the damn plane went down.

Another problem are the reception/ transmission issues. While in this case, May Days may not have been sent because of the complete chaos on board, but even if they had, many many May Days are never received, again due to transmission/distance issues and are blocked by disance, weather, mountains, any number of things. Only so much "receiving" is / can be done (and it complicated because of the types of antennas( VHF, HF etc., so am not going to get into all of that here, as it is rather technical and you know how that works anyways. There are different types of frequency/distance issues etc. and more than one type of broadcasting antennas on any plane and what can receive them) and it is not again available and functioning along the entire flight path. So, you just go missing. They don't want the passengers/public to know all this shit do they?

Why are there not refined, specically designed GPS systems linked to satellites on every plane? Even if they would not work 100% of the time due to satellite availabilty but would work the majority of the time?? Money. Why aren't the boxes for the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder linked to a special designed GPSt hat would signal at the time of a crash? Money.

And yes, Pilots are briefed on weather conditions, for not only their flight path, but the current conditions from where they are departing and for the conditions (which are updated to them before they land) of their destination. This is ALWAYS done by conscientious pilots from the flight service station by telephone, personal computer, or in person and before departure and landing by the Control Tower itself. So did this crew get a briefing? Who the hell knows. How extensive was the briefing? Who the hell knows? I ALWAYS got them and relayed the info to the crew, always. Do all pilots do this all the time??? To be honest, not neccessarily and perhaps not in the detail it should be.

At this point, we don't even know who the hell was flying the plane do we? There are three pilots on a bus. Captain, FO and a relief pilot or 2nd Officer. The plane was over four hours into it's flight and most likely cruising, so did the Captain go hit the crew station for a nap? Who knows, but this would be common practice. Some pilots never ever do this, ( I didn't- I preferred at most some walk around and stretching, coffee, oxygen, food, cold water etc., and stayed awake. I never left the deck for any extended length of time on a flight in my life and never strayed very far. I certainly took breaks depending on weather, where in the flight we were etc., I did give breaks obviously to the crew. I might hit the head or the galley and get up and stretch and stand just outside, visit the cabin crew, shoot the breeze, maybe visit first class, but that was it. I took breaks seated in my seat, would have my shoes off, tie undone, and would read or listen to music a bit or yak, do some isometrics, or whatever, but I was right there, where I was needed. I got used to it. I prepared and slept before long flights. I slept afterwards. You condition yourself pretty quickly. I only slept once for a brief time when I had developed a terrible cold. I wasn't really very sick when I left, but became rather ill after about five hours. That was it. Plus I had two other pilots there at the time and I still never left my seat. I also got many back, shoulder and neck rubs from the cabin crew. lol seriously, but it all helps and they were used to doing it. At least they were back in the old days before sexual harrassment bullshit. But, I was old school. Some pilots will and some won't sleep. At night during a cross ocean flight, this is very common practice among the crew of a bus especially and it is done on some other carriers by some crews. So, if the pilot was asleep and the incident happened, could he even get to the flight deck in time? Perhaps not, considering turbulance and where the crew station is located from the flight deck on the bus. So who made the decsion not to deviate from the flight path to avoid weather (and in this case) multiple weather issues? Was it the Pilot or the FO? We don't know. Who was "reading the weather to begin with? We don't know. All planes are loaded with extra fuel and as the Captain, you can request even additional fuel (done it many times) when you know you are flying in hinky weather areas (ice, snow, rain, storms etc.,) and you have a large margin of fuel to divert not only around any weather condition and do it more than once, but also to divert to another airport as we know happens all the time in the Winter for instance, when runways are closed or in case of an on board emergency. So fuel should not have been any issue in this case.

I am finding Air Frances' little press annoucements to be really bothersome at this point for many many reasons. But, on one hand I am not surprised. I have seen this before and I have seen it vary from airline to airline. I believe that the only reason they even mentioned the ACARS it that someone leaked the messages to the press, 3 days after many of us had them, otherwise, the press would never have even heard of their existance. When they finally make their conclusions (which I think are months away now without the recorders) you can be sure they will come up with a scenario that will have some of the truth but not all of truth and not all of the details. And yes there will be lawsuits. Just google what Air Frances's quarterly and yearly profit and loss statements form the last few years have been and they are not good. This has partly led to the recent joint venture between KLM/Air France and Delta with long distance flights abroad.

I am concurring with you more now on more breakup in flight than after hitting the water as well, than I originally thought. After studying more how many many miles apart the bodies (44 thus far) and the debris have been found, it's looking grim. I do not expect as much recovery of the bodies now with all the length of time that has passed, how swift the currents are and where the bodies may have landed (some from the air-some from the water), predators in the water etc., anymore either. To my knowledge the largest piece of debris has been the VS and it's rudder. The second largest piece has been a head door, a small piece of one wing and one slab of I don't what the hell it was for sure from looking at the photos on the Brazillian Air Force site, except it was part of bit of the fuselage, I could make out the insulation and facade and it seemed to be a ceiling area I believe, because it had just a zillion wires strapped together (it was just dozens of separate electrical harnesses wrapped in series as you would find) and you could see the orange ribbed housings/covers that go over them as they are run in series through those from forward to rear. It was no bigger though than part of the top of one side of the crew station that was recovered and that was not all that large either. What ever is resting on the ocean floor, I am concerned, may never be found and may contain more bodies as well. The rest is scattered over so many ,many hundreds of miles in various directions, it's a mess. I am still not not hopeful for the finding of the boxes either, given the vast distances to be covered and the topography and depth of the sea let alone the recovery of them either. A recovery has never made made of them at depths even half of where they may be. And in terrible crashes, pingers have been know to simply disodge themselves, that has happened in the past. Plus from just the photos again from the airforce site, even though the bodies are encased, you can tell as they are on boards and stretchers that we are hardly talking complete bodies. This again leads o thoughts of more mid air issues. Certainly autopsies will tell something. I imagine that when DNA tests are completed and remains identified (if they can identifiy some of them) and this is matched to the seats, this will tell us something as well.

One of the debates again with the bus as it is the only plane really of it's kind, is how much flying and control should be left to computers and systems alone and how much should the pilots be left out of the equation? How much do pilots leave themselves out and rely too much on them? Is this a good thing? Obviously not always, is it.

I found this while surfing the internet the other day. I had forgot to bookmark it. It took me a while to remember where I saw this.

Anyway, this person seems to use what little data is available to draw all kinds of conclusions as to what happened. Such as no severe weather caused the crash. I even remember a day after the disaster happened, some were saying cover-up. Now I just have to shake my head at such statements.

Here is what I do know. We have some data. Not enough data to say yet 100% for sure what happened to cause the failure of the Air France flight. The inflight data recorders have not been recovered. So some people are making all kinds of claims as to what happened.

I have enjoyed the back and forth between put it out there baby, and coontie. I think you both have looked at this rationally. So now I will give you a link to a website to see that I am sure you will have comment for. I don't endorse or agree with what the author is saying. I just want to show how some people think they have all the answers without all the necessary data to back up said claims. So I would really like to see how you dissect what this person is claiming.

Here is the link.......

http://jmccsci.com/

Theophilus wrote:I found this while surfing the internet the other day. I had forgot to bookmark it. It took me a while to remember where I saw this.

Anyway, this person seems to use what little data is available to draw all kinds of conclusions as to what happened. Such as no severe weather caused the crash. I even remember a day after the disaster happened, some were saying cover-up. Now I just have to shake my head at such statements.

Here is what I do know. We have some data. Not enough data to say yet 100% for sure what happened to cause the failure of the Air France flight. The inflight data recorders have not been recovered. So some people are making all kinds of claims as to what happened.

I have enjoyed the back and forth between put it out there baby, and coontie. I think you both have looked at this rationally. So now I will give you a link to a website to see that I am sure you will have comment for. I don't endorse or agree with what the author is saying. I just want to show how some people think they have all the answers without all the necessary data to back up said claims. So I would really like to see how you dissect what this person is claiming.

Here is the link.......

http://jmccsci.com/

Also I wanted to add that this is such a sad story. I cannot even begin to imagine nor do I want to imagine what the people on that doomed flight went through. I do remember back in 1977 I built a radio by hand, by myself. Looking back I don't even know how I had the smarts to do that. Though I did. I had an incredible fascination with radios at the time. I tuned into a station and the first thing I heard was a 747 had crashed. I was only 11 at the time. It was very disturbing to me at the time. Just a few months back I had taken my first flight in a small plane. My parents knew I had an interest in flight, so they paid for me to fly with an instructor in a small plane. Man my first time when the pilot yelled "clear" and the plane started man I was nervous, but thrilled non the less. When we took off I was gripping the yoke so tightly I don't know how the pilot was even able to take off. Though I had a great time. Now my family was not rich by any means so they just could not keep spending money to teach me to fly. As a young kid I used to go to airport all the time. Almost everyday. I would hang out with the mechanics and ask all kinds of questions. I would look at all the aircraft, and just be amazed by the different designs, and the uniqueness of the engineering of different airplane and what they could do. I used to go to the airport and sit in different airplanes all the time. I would tell the people at the airport " I won't touch anything I just want to sit in that airplane" They would let me. I was there all the time. They knew I would not touch any switch or do anything that would be wrong. I just loved airplanes. So I would sit in incredible airplanes and imagine myself flying them.

Well I am not a pilot. I wonder what happened to that person I used to be. The person with dreams and ambition. I often wonder about the boy who could build a radio at age 11 by hand, by myself. I don't even know today how I did that. I don't know how I knew what materials were needed to do so.

Well, so now lets think about the people on the Air France flight, and the people who went down in 1977. For that matter all the people who have died in air accidents. I wonder about the dreams they had. I wonder about what they could of offered the human race.

I do know that air travel is really one the more safer ways you can travel. Though disasters do happen. The thing is with air disasters is when you have a problem with a commercial airliner, that problem can be as difficult to solve as the airliner is big.

So I hope we can find out exactly what brought this airplane down, and prevent another disaster like this from happening again.

I hope I didn't say anything that was wrong or offending as that was not my intent what so ever.

Well for one thing, this guy states that no other planes saw any severe weather and that there were no storms in the area (yikes lol) and that simply is not true. The Iberia flight behind Air France, simply diverted around the weather and reported the storms.

I am having a hard time believing this guy has an m.s. in physics and I am not sure how that makes him an aviation expert or a meteorologist either. When he claims that "the speed of the plane could have been 100 miles per hour" ....that told me pretty much all I need to know about him. lmao He knows zip about the bus, or any plane for that matter. But it's a damn funny read. In doing a quick google search on James, he seems to have a lot of very bizarre theories on many subjects and is kinda "out there". He is on many strange websites.

I found this comment about him on one forum:
"Re: James M. McCanney, from what I read about this guy he ought to be taken out, TO THE LOONEY BIN
THINKS cell fones will fry your brain, which means he doesnt know the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, and he claims to be a physicist!"

and this one was very telling:

"I think the main reason McCanney isn't talking as much about comets any more is that the recent Japanese and American research has pretty much invalidated his theories."

And McCanney's not a physicist and never was; he was a graduate math instructor for a couple of years back in the early eighties, but his main source of income over the past couple of decades (besides his books) comes from his efforts as a massage therapist." Yikes!!! Apparently he has some kind of radio show also. I did find this note also, "James McCanney (sometimes referred to as "Professor James M. McCanney, M.S." although the title "Professor" appears to be self-applied) is a non-mainstream physicist whose theories involve electromagnetism playing a larger role in planetary motion than is commonly thought. His work asserts that the solar system is ever changing and is electrically active. He has openly opposed the mainstream view supported by NASA and others that outer space is electrically neutral.
McCanney was an instructor of introductory Physics and Mathematics at Cornell University before leaving on bad terms because, according to his account, his research of raw data feeds from Jupiter probes led him to conclusions about the electrical nature of the universe that did fit with the prevailing "comets-are-dirty-snowballs" paradigm." Yikes again.

At any rate, regarding the weather systems during Flight 447......

Here is the detailed anaylsis by a highly respected meteorologist, Tim Vasquez with live satellite photos of the area exactly at the time of the flight and an anaylsis and data on the storms.

http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/

"The resulting satellite photos clearly show an active mesoscale convective system (MCS) across the flight path. About 90% of the cloud material seen on the closeup images are actually multiple levels of convective debris fields from dying storms and activity that occurred previously during the day, with extensive cirrus fields. The active thunderstorm areas are actually defined not by the bright coloring but by small-scale mottled areas of cold cloud tops. Compare with this structural diagram below of a similar tropical MCS in the same area in 1977.

Temperature trends suggested that the entire system was at peak intensity, developing rapidly around 2300-0100Z and finally dissipating many hours later around dawn. From a turbulence perspective, the cold spots described above would be the areas of highest concern as they signal the location of an active updraft producing new cloud material in the upper troposphere.

The satellite imagery indicates that numerous cumulonimbus towers rose to at least 56,000 ft, and were embedded within extensive stratiform anvils with tops ranging from 35,000 to 45,000 ft. This kind of configuration is actually quite normal for equatorial storms due to the higher tropopause height, but it emphasizes that the aircraft was certainly within the bulk of an extensive cumulonimbus cloud field for a significant amount of time and that storms could indeed have been a contributing factor to the crash."

It is a long and detail, well mapped report and also click on the links on the bottom of the report to read the replys from pilots (inlcuding myself), various scientists, NASA, professors, other meteorologists and just a huge host of experts and professionals praising Tim on his findings, adding in their two cents worth on this data and Tim's research and conclusions and possibilities.

James McCanney does not know his ass from a hole in the ground frankly.

He mentions that VS (vertical stabilizer) was found separately and away from a small piece of the wing that was recovered. Umm so what? He forgets to mention that the small part of the wing was picked up four days before the VS was even found and indeed they were no where close to the same area. In many crashes land and sea, the VS is mostly found on it's own. It is always found in water for example floating as it is made of two composite materials and the internal structure is a honeycomb construction. If it became dislodged from the tail section upon hitting the water, it would have floated a very long distance carried by wind and currents in a weeks time as well, so the tail section is God knows where at this point. (If the tail was complete upon impact) This VS was found mostly intact and with the complete rudder, which again is almost always the case that it is found intact and often with the rudder in place and this is nothing unusual. It does not however tell anyone if it becames dislodged during flight or after hitting the water. It is interesting that only real damage to it is on the leading bottom edge and not the trailing edge. Even some of the ferring and bolt loops are still intact. Very difficult to draw any true conclusions over the VS.

He makes some very wild and unfounded conclusions over this which do not even make sense. He seems to have no knowledge of the currents in the area which are very swift moving at all either. And he certainly has no referneces to other water crashes or breakups over water, so I am guessing he has again no real knowledge or research into this.

He also talks about some pilot seeing a "a flash" in the sky. This flash turned out to be a small meteor by the way. But somehow he thinks it means something else, which it does not. Meteors are often seen by pilots and the meteor was confirmed and tracked by telescope and satellite that evening and did not occur in a close time frame to the Air France incident.

He makes a piss poor attempt to try and approximate the area where the plane may have gone down. The problem with this however is no one knows at all where the plane was when it went down. If they did, they would be seraching there wouldn't they? It was not being tracked by radar, nor was it giving out any type of signal that would pin point where the plane was. We only know when the ACARS data ended. The plane, traveling at such a high rate of speed (and don't forget we don't even know it's final altitude either at the time of possible breakup over the sea either- we only know the last tracked position and altitude) could have been very far from it's last position, the plane and mostly likely diverted far off it's flight path and could have even been headed in another direction all together. He is drawing conclusions based on no facts whatsoever.

He also makes a big deal out of finding oxygen masks. Well, so far it is my understanding that less than a dozen masks have been recovered. (according to the Brazillian Air Force) Even if more have been found.....so what? If toilet paper did not disolve in water they could find that as well in the debris. The oxygen masks will drop down for various reasons such as loss of altitude not just loss of cabin pressure (that is pressure loss a structural nature occuring) so this is meaningless. It is obviousl that there was a very fast descent and loss of altitude of this flight- hense cabin pressure issues-hence the crash. And when a plane severely breaks apart in water or land, you will find a little of most things on board the plane. It does not mean what he is inferring. The debris fields are enormous as well. He makes the conclusions that some bodies and masks have been found, but he leaves out the detail, that they were found many miles apart. It really means nothing. We just don't know how much of the plane may have broken up in flight at this point either.

I actually have the images and the graphs from the Brazillian Air Force of the search area, the flight area (last known position) and the positions of the debris fields and where the bodies have been located.
I have never figured out how the hell to post one stinking picture except my damn avatar on here yet however. lol I can post videos but cannot figure out how to post a pic of anything. You cannot just copy and paste on here like I used to do at Scam all the time.

Howdy, you are much smarter at this stuff than I am lol, can you give me instructions on how to do this?? I could post some greats pics of info I have on this incident if I knew how the hell to do it. I've tried saving them to my documents which I can easily do and posting them from there and that does not work. So I am clueless how to make this happen. I have pics and charts of the ocean currents also, some of the debris picked up all kinds of crap.

He also states that "planes get hit by lightning ALL the time". They in fact do not get hit "all the time". lol The average commercial plane in regular service through out the year takes an average of one to two hits per year according to the NTSB's statistics. Planes have "static wicks" attached to ailerons and the tips of wings to dissipate the charge from a lightening strike into the surrounding air also. Then there are the aluminum skins, that add to deflection.

He acts like it's no big deal but it can be. An analysis of U.S. National Transportation Safety Board data showed 40 lightning-related accidents between 1963 and 1999, including 14 involving commercial airlines, of which four caused 280 fatalities. The rest were private aircraft, causing 37 fatalities.

There are two categories of aircraft lightning damage. The first, known as direct effects, include "holes in metal skins, puncturing or splintering of non-metallic structures such as the plastic radomes that cover the radars located at the front of aircraft, welding or roughening of movable hinges and bearings, damage to antennas and lights located at aircraft extremities, and fuel ignition. Fuel ignition is the most dire direct effect, which is why fuel tanks have thicker metal skins, and valves are specially designed to prevent sparks.

In 2001 in Spain, for example, lightning is thought to have caused a catastrophic complete failure of electrical systems on a Fairchild Metro II turboprop, which crashed into the ocean killing 10.

An Airbus 320, in 1996 in Greece, lightning entered the aircraft above the front right door, followed the cabin windows and burned out 30 rivets, and exited from the top of the rear fin, where it burned a one-inch hole.
In 1967, 23 people died when a Lockheed jet flown by the Imperial Iranian Air Force was brought down by lightning.
In 1981, 91 people died when a Lansa flight crashed in Peru after a lightning strike caused a fire and separation of the right wing.

In 1988, in Germany, a Swearingen Metro aircraft lost its wing after being struck by lightning, and 21 on board died.

A close call came just this March 13, when an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Houston was struck by lightning, putting a hole in the left side of the fuselage, according to FAA records.

Lightenting strikes have caused on board fires as well. The Lansa flight crashed because of this specific event. There are many many more documented incidents on record world wide.

I have exerienced this myself on many occassions. And I did once have some electrical issues from a strike. All planes are always inspected as soon as they land when this occurs. This is not done because the strikes are meaningless and no big deal. It's interesting to see the scorch marks believe me.
So on one hand he states that planes are struck all the time (that's a large exaggeration) and that it is harmless, which is not always the case.

I enjoyed the link Howdy very much. On the professional pilot forums were I belong, (and these are international forums for regional and commercial pilots) the mods are also pilots and the forums are by membership and heavily moderated. They consist also of flight crew, ground crew and tech guys, air traffic controllers, engineers etc. and are really great forums. Lately (because of this crash) everyone and his brother has signed up and is posting all sorts of random crazy theories from UFO's to all kinds of shit. These posts are being deleted as fast as they are posted and man the poor mods are tired. You just don't see this kinda crap on there ever and it is not allowed.

I read a forum that is for plane buffs and I could not begin to believe the crap on there. It was even worse. lol A friend had looked at it and said you have to see his crap. It was amazing. Now we know where the media gets half of the b.s. that they write.

excuse any typos, I am pooped, worked all day and its late and I am off to bed and not going to correct them all, too tired for more editing.

Theophilus wrote:

Theophilus wrote:I found this while surfing the internet the other day. I had forgot to bookmark it. It took me a while to remember where I saw this.

Anyway, this person seems to use what little data is available to draw all kinds of conclusions as to what happened. Such as no severe weather caused the crash. I even remember a day after the disaster happened, some were saying cover-up. Now I just have to shake my head at such statements.

Here is what I do know. We have some data. Not enough data to say yet 100% for sure what happened to cause the failure of the Air France flight. The inflight data recorders have not been recovered. So some people are making all kinds of claims as to what happened.

I have enjoyed the back and forth between put it out there baby, and coontie. I think you both have looked at this rationally. So now I will give you a link to a website to see that I am sure you will have comment for. I don't endorse or agree with what the author is saying. I just want to show how some people think they have all the answers without all the necessary data to back up said claims. So I would really like to see how you dissect what this person is claiming.

Here is the link.......

http://jmccsci.com/

Also I wanted to add that this is such a sad story. I cannot even begin to imagine nor do I want to imagine what the people on that doomed flight went through. I do remember back in 1977 I built a radio by hand, by myself. Looking back I don't even know how I had the smarts to do that. Though I did. I had an incredible fascination with radios at the time. I tuned into a station and the first thing I heard was a 747 had crashed. I was only 11 at the time. It was very disturbing to me at the time. Just a few months back I had taken my first flight in a small plane. My parents knew I had an interest in flight, so they paid for me to fly with an instructor in a small plane. Man my first time when the pilot yelled "clear" and the plane started man I was nervous, but thrilled non the less. When we took off I was gripping the yoke so tightly I don't know how the pilot was even able to take off. Though I had a great time. Now my family was not rich by any means so they just could not keep spending money to teach me to fly. As a young kid I used to go to airport all the time. Almost everyday. I would hang out with the mechanics and ask all kinds of questions. I would look at all the aircraft, and just be amazed by the different designs, and the uniqueness of the engineering of different airplane and what they could do. I used to go to the airport and sit in different airplanes all the time. I would tell the people at the airport " I won't touch anything I just want to sit in that airplane" They would let me. I was there all the time. They knew I would not touch any switch or do anything that would be wrong. I just loved airplanes. So I would sit in incredible airplanes and imagine myself flying them.

Well I am not a pilot. I wonder what happened to that person I used to be. The person with dreams and ambition. I often wonder about the boy who could build a radio at age 11 by hand, by myself. I don't even know today how I did that. I don't know how I knew what materials were needed to do so.

Well, so now lets think about the people on the Air France flight, and the people who went down in 1977. For that matter all the people who have died in air accidents. I wonder about the dreams they had. I wonder about what they could of offered the human race.

I do know that air travel is really one the more safer ways you can travel. Though disasters do happen. The thing is with air disasters is when you have a problem with a commercial airliner, that problem can be as difficult to solve as the airliner is big.

So I hope we can find out exactly what brought this airplane down, and prevent another disaster like this from happening again.

I hope I didn't say anything that was wrong or offending as that was not my intent what so ever.

Wow. That was a great post and very insightful. I am glad that you shared that. I really am. It gave me a smile. You have stated nothing disrespectful at all either. I have to get my ass to bed because I am flying early in the morning (doing the wretched race circuit with my clients I pmed you about lol) and I won't be back til evening sometime and I am working again Saturday. (but only a few hours I hope) But I am off Sunday and I want to post a reply to your post in the next day or so. I am really glad you have joined the discussion here, Howdy.
That boy full of wonder, that pilot, still lives in your heart and soul my friend. He is still there and so are your dreams.

I just thought I'd inject a thought that came to mind while reading reading your posts. This is just coming from my experiance fishing off shore from NC. I certainly have no experiance in how this would effect aircraft. I know very little about flying and so far have managed to avoid flying all together due to a strong fear of hights.

Our waters off shore is just coming out of what I assume they concider tropical waters. And I've been out there many times 50 miles or so off shore on clear days, no reports of bad weather, and no indication of bad weather coming. Trust me, when you're that far out on a relativly small outboard fishing boat, you keep up with the weather. But with all the precautions and weather reports, we've still had bad storms pop up out of nowhere with no warning in a matter of just a few minutes, with us right in the middle of it. The best you can do sometimes is just keep an eye on the sky and start heading in full throttle at the first sign of high winds and possobly lightning. Sometimes you don't have that much warning and just have to ride it in and have faith in your skill to keep your boat right side up and faith in God to keep lightning from hitting you.

Now I'm certain piloting an aircraft is a lot different than piloting a boat, and they probablly have access to better more accurate weather info. Plus aircraft has a lot more speed and capability to fly around a storm. But still, if one of those storms popped up with them in the middle of it without warning, which I can see happening. Especially if they were already having trouble with their instruments. Those electrical storms can throw a boats compass and and radio communications off. I can only assume it could affect a planes electrical and radio communications even worse. (Again, I know nothing about aircraft).


Any way, I'm just saying, those storms can pop up out of nowhere out there, especially this time of year. And storms can spin off of other storms that can cause issues too. And in a boat sometimes all you can do is head for shore and hope for the best. Perhaps it's possible they got caught in a spin-off storm and all they could do was do their best and hope for the best outcome. Just my 2 cents of limited knowledge on the subject.

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The photos were taken by the Brazillian Air Force and from their site. I have a large thanks to give here to my dear friend Howdy for sending me instructions last night on how to finally post a pic. My wife created a photobucket account for me today and I just downloaded the best images of the debris recovered thus far. I just got home a bit ago (earlier than expected-yeah! lol) but I am pooped and hungry. I will respond to you CH, because your post is correct and insightful as well. Meanwhile I am headed to soak my poor tired bod.

Coontie, what do you think? It's not pretty. I see no evidence so far of any type of fire damage. I have more photos from the past week, but I am just putting up these as the best representation, and didn't see any on any other recovered debris either.

There is a report in the Brazillian news within the last hour which has not hit the states yet (and who knows if it will) and I used a translator on Google for it, so the English is not perfect.

In brief, it states:

"The 16 bodies we have pre-autopsied, so far, can´t be recognized and or identified by parents/related persons. No one of the recovered bodies had clothes on. No one of the bodies had water in their lungs nor signs of smoke. No one of the bodies apresented any kind of fire/heat exposure. Allmost all bodies show middle to heavy internal contusions."

"The theory comes near that the AF 447 suffered a quick decompression while in almost cruising altitude with or without total desintegration of the a/c and that the passengers and crew may have died before the impact on the ocean."

Put It Out There Baby wrote:The photos were taken by the Brazillian Air Force and from their site. I have a large thanks to give here to my dear friend Howdy for sending me instructions last night on how to finally post a pic. My wife created a photobucket account for me today and I just downloaded the best images of the debris recovered thus far. I just got home a bit ago (earlier than expected-yeah! lol) but I am pooped and hungry. I will respond to you CH, because your post is correct and insightful as well. Meanwhile I am headed to soak my poor tired bod.

Coontie, what do you think? It's not pretty. I see no evidence so far of any type of fire damage. I have more photos from the past week, but I am just putting up these as the best representation, and didn't see any on any other recovered debris either.

There is a report in the Brazillian news within the last hour which has not hit the states yet (and who knows if it will) and I used a translator on Google for it, so the English is not perfect.

In brief, it states:

"The 16 bodies we have pre-autopsied, so far, can´t be recognized and or identified by parents/related persons. No one of the recovered bodies had clothes on. No one of the bodies had water in their lungs nor signs of smoke. No one of the bodies apresented any kind of fire/heat exposure. Allmost all bodies show middle to heavy internal contusions."

"The theory comes near that the AF 447 suffered a quick decompression while in almost cruising altitude with or without total desintegration of the a/c and that the passengers and crew may have died before the impact on the ocean."

I can understand the tired. I just came in from working outside not long ago. Got the garden weeded and some trees pruned back from the driveway though. Was 95 out there today and humid. Took a shower and was too tired to cook, too tireds to go get anything. So I'm eatting bachlor style tonight. Doritos and salsa. At least I'm getting my vegies.

So what would off happened to their cloths? The decompression suck their cloths off?

Yard work, especially cutting, trimming, and pulling and then the clean up is back breaking. I understand how tired you are as well CH, and the humidity just drains you. It was very humid here today as well, small mild showeres on and off in different parts of a couple of counties, low clouds, updrafts and some nice bumpy flying today and hundreds and hundreds of sea gulls that came to roost ashore and made a real nusiance of themselves at two airports today.

I also forgot to mention that multiple bone fractures were also found in all of the bodies examined so far. Six more have been found now so at least that is 50 in total. Their clothes or most of them would surely be torn off due to a break up in flight and/or a body in free fall at a high distance and considering weight, its a mess. The wind and suction in a decompression caused by a breach of the hull of the fuselage at any point would suck many things out of the plane's interior.

The chilling thing for me for some reason is the last photo. This appears to me to be the flight attendant jumpseats from the aft section (due to the small radius of the bulkhead) of the plane with the seat belts stowed and the seats still attached to the bulkhead. That kinda shook me up.

I will respond sometime this weekend to you and Howdy and your post about tropical weather systems, of which you are by the way, you are spot on. They can appear very very quickly and grow very fast. The most dangerous and unpredictable time of a storm is actually when it is forming and when it is decaying.

I have clients again tommorrow for a few hours and am hoping to get a haircut and get to the grocery store with the coupon queen. The cupboard is bare around this joint. I got so little done around here for 4 days (last Friday-Monday - except post on here) as I was very ill with a bad case of bronchitus. I got some meds but I am still just a bit under the weather and have not had enough sleep and pushed myself working last week and probably went back too soon this week, but what can you do. My eustachian tubes are not totally open yet, but getting there. I'll live. I was just paying bills, balancing our personal checkbook and my business one and trying to do some filing til I couldn't focus any longer and quit, and catching up on emails a bit ago and I have paperwork from hell to do this weekend and my routes and plans to file and crap to do for next week already. Where the hell does the time go? I was out watering last night, naked in in the dark. lol Well, it was the back yard and the side yards only and no one can see in here. I loved the dinner CH. Sounds as bad as me. I was starving but didn't want an actual meal. I grabbed a little sammie on the fly today and that was it all day. I just had cantelope, a banana, a fuji apple, some watermelon and grapes and pineapple and cottage cheese. I am too pooped for cooking and didn't even want a real meal or anything hot actually. I did take some motrin and had a nice long hot soak though. Man that helped.

I am going to drag myself to bed with some orange juice in a frosty mug from the freezer, and hope to fall asleep watching a movie or anything...don't really care, with the ceiling fan on, curled up with Sue and the babies. (her cat from hell and one dog, as Max ( the retriever-my dog) sleeps in his own bed-thank God. It's bad enough I am in there with one cat and a dog, their tiny blankets (yes our animals have linens lmao) and three stuffed animals, (don't ask-they are Sue's) her IPod which somehow always winds up under my butt, misc magazines and books and crossword puzzle books that get dragged in there. Add to that my recent wad of kleenexes and bag of cough drops and it's a real love nest. lol. I reached under one of the pillows the other night, just getting comfy and there was one of her nail files. What is it with women and nail files? They are in every single room of the house and in the car and in their purses. WTF?

Take care of yourself man and try to get some rest.