Air France Flight Missing

[freightdogfred]

Flying around in Saudi Arabia you see dry lighting with normal frequency. Incredible amount of lighting cloud to cloud and cloud to ground and yet no precip.
Lighting has nothing to do w/ precip. It has to do with a difference in potential from the cloud and ground which is caused by static.

What is dry lightning?
Dry lightning is lightning that occurs without rain nearby. The NOAA Storm Prediction Center routinely forecasts dry lightning because this kind is more likely to cause forest fires.

This is like herding cats. What is a cloud? Frozen or liquid precip. It may or may not contain other matter such as dust or salt but it is these molecules colliding that cause the difference in potential, hence the lightning. The precip falling thru a warmer layer may evaporate and not reach the ground but it's there, without it you cannot have the lightning.

 

[embpic1]

CNN is reporting that the ocean depths in the area of debris is 21000ft! I don't think we have anything that can go that deep to retrieve the boxes.

 

[HA25]

If F.I. was a city it would have high crime rate.

And I'd be it's Joe Arpaio!

 

[ImbracableCrunk]

Please don't feed the trolls.

If you want to discuss religion, I suggest you go to religioninfo.com.

 

[Lear70]

This is like herding cats. What is a cloud? Frozen or liquid precip. It may or may not contain other matter such as dust or salt but it is these molecules colliding that cause the difference in potential, hence the lightning. The precip falling thru a warmer layer may evaporate and not reach the ground but it's there, without it you cannot have the lightning.

Meow.

Actually, that's a true statement. Dry lightning is produced by cells that have precip that never reaches the ground.

The issue is having huge remnant thunderstorm cells still producing extremely heavy updrafts and downdrafts without enough moisture remaining in them after they've dissapated to show up on a radar return as anything other than light or moderate rain.

Happens all the time.

 

[LJ45]

Surprised no one is talking about the flight control ADIRU seeing as how Quantas had an uncommanded over the limit negative G push over last year and this year the FAA and International Authorities have posted not one, but two, emergency airworthiness directives on the system.

This aircraft was not equipped with the piece of equipment that was the subject of that AD.

 

[freightdogfred]

Well, I'm not here to argue about radar returns and in the spirit of keeping this thread on track i got a link that overlays the wx and his proposed routing. I didn't file his route, so if I'm wrong disregard the link. It does not look pretty to me.

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

I apologize if it was previously posted.

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

Tropical weather can be a bit difficult to paint at times and behaves quite differently than what we see in the states... I'd be very surprised if it didn't have anything to do with this.

In regards to the ADIRU failure and stickpusher- apparently the sequence of mx messages was the same as the other A330s?


RIP to the pax and crew.... what an absolute nightmare.

 

[Lear70]

Well, I'm not here to argue about radar returns and in the spirit of keeping this thread on track i got a link that overlays the wx and his proposed routing. I didn't file his route, so if I'm wrong disregard the link. It does not look pretty to me.

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

I apologize if it was previously posted.

No, that's a great link, and a lot more interesting thread responses on that page that, if the people are who they say they are, seems to point towards what we've all been speculating about... that for reasons unknown, they either knowingly or unknowingly penetrated a severe line of dissapating thunderstorms and through some chain reaction, whether lightning or severe turbulence/windshear or both, paid for it with their lives.

A couple interesting quotes:

Hi Tim, thanks for an excellent analysis. I'm a First Officer with Gulf Air, flying the A330. Previously, I flew in West Africa for ten years which taught me a healthy respect for the ITCZ. Prior to reading your website, I had looked at the satellite images on the NASA website and the Met Office U.k, and your analysis confirms my fears. I'm disappointed that a flight could have been planned and dispatched through such dreadful weather. I'm not sure what factors came into play to lead to such a fatal decision.

Regards,
Richard Lambo

G day Tim

I am an Air France Captain, found your post very interesting and if true, will be hugely damaging for Air France.
Best regards

B-----

Steven C wrote: "I think one key issue is whether the in flight conditions across the ITCZ is unusual or is it common practice pilots to fly through such weather conditions."

Having spent many years flying from the West Coast to Australia, I can safely tell you that massive thunderstorms in the ITCZ are quite common. Going from 10N to 5N was always an adventure, and often not a pleasant one. The massive line of storms from west to east as shown on your image is not unusual in the Pacific. You always pass through in the middle of the night, so your greatest hope is a full moon that hasn't set yet. You have radar, but sometimes all you see is the entire top of the screen in yellow and magenta. Dispatch has access to satellite images, and sometimes that helps when you are trying to decide in which direction to deviate.

But sometimes the lines of storms are so extensive that you can't go around them because of fuel, or ATC has concerns about you flying into the opposite direction track. Then all you can do is seat the Flight Attendants, turn on the continous ignition, pucker up, and pick through the line as best you can. Keep in mind that as soon as you enter the area you're in the clouds and visually blind. You can never climb above the big storms, but being higher helps clear some of the weather (but gives you less of a performance margin).

One other thing to remember is the "dry thunderstorms" in the ITCZ. There's a lot of violent storms in that area that don't have enough moisture in them to show up on radar. There is a "turbulence mode" on your radar that picks up the doppler wind shifts, but you have to be in the lowest distance settings for it to work.

Kenneth ----

Very, very interesting reading...

 

[BLing]

Tropical weather can be a bit difficult to paint at times and behaves quite differently than what we see in the states... I'd be very surprised if it didn't have anything to do with this.

I agree with you 100%. Ive taken paint off at 35,000ft over Central Africa when my FO and I thought deviating 150 miles off course was enough to get around a line...