Airbus A320 crash in Southern France

originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
I think we should really hold off speculating too much until we know what in-flight voice recorder and black box have to tell us about what happened. Since it's already been recovered, I imagine answers will come soon.

France is stating that there should be something released by tomorrow afternoon.

a reply to: starviego

It's entirely possible that jets in the area were alerted and launched to intercept the nonresponsive aircraft and chased it to the crash site.

originally posted by: theabsolutetruth
Latest live updates from the Guardian. Looks like at this initial stage, investigators suggest it was not an on board explosion scenario but a controlled descent due to perhaps pilot confusion or loss of control, possibly in thick cloud.

Ummh, maybe you inform yourself about modern Glass Cockpit instrumentation and especially one called Primary_flight_display : its absolutely impossible for a pilot to loose orientation, even in a cloud, at night or in bad weather, except when both pilots were drunk.

I wonder if its accidentally that the plane crashed not far from Marseille, basically a muslim City with probably a lot of ISIS/Terrorist sympathizers. Russian or even american shoulder fired Surface to Air Misssiles are not hard to come by these days.

Just my feeling today was that looking at how the plane ascended faster then it was coming down at the end, and how they said they lost radar contact at around 6000 ft, then they said the plane was down around 2000m which is around 6500ft.. i thought they hit the mountains.. and then i have seen a report that eye witnesses said they did not think the plane would miss the mountains and it crashed.. i believe the pilot was trying to do an emergency landing.. probably after two engine failures.. (just my thoughts).. apologies if this has already been mentioned in this forum but there are a lot of posts..

So I believe the pilot who was very experienced was doing a great job and it was unlucky where they were.. this is my question I paramotor and sky dive and you dont fly over something (on training) that you cant recover from.. so should planes be flying over the alps..? whats the point of having a plane that can glide with no engines if you cant land it..

My thoughts are with the families.. I use that route to fly between spain and greece its an excellent airline, for me it is a stark reminder on the reality of flying.

a reply to: ZEV93

Maybe you could go tell that to the AVIATION INVESTIGATION EXPERTS that suggested it.

originally posted by: theabsolutetruth
Latest live updates from the Guardian. Looks like at this initial stage, investigators suggest it was not an on board explosion scenario but a controlled descent due to perhaps pilot confusion or loss of control, possibly in thick cloud.

www.theguardian.com...

The Guardian’s transport correspondent, Gwyn Topham, has been talking to experts about what might have caused the crash.

The airline said it could not give any reason why the plane crashed and added that it was too early to speculate on possible causes. The unverified flight data from plane tracking websites however appeared to rule out a large-scale explosion, with the plane apparently flying on relatively intact, or a midair stall, which would cause a much faster descent. Experts said planes would also be able to glide for longer in the case of total engine failure.

David Gleave, an air accident investigator and aviation expert at Loughborough University, said that based on the unverified data from plane tracking websites, “The descent appears to be consistent about 3000 ft a minute - not fast enough to be an explosive decompression, but it’s too fast if you were gliding. It appears to be a controlled descent.”

Tony Cable, who was the senior investigator into the Concorde crash, the last major air disaster on French soil in 2000, said that if there was no distress call made by pilots during the descent, likely starting points for investigation would be either a loss of control or pilot confusion, or a combination of both. One cause might be what investigators term a CFIT or controlled flight into terrain, where loss of instruments or irregular readings can make pilots lose their bearings and only become aware of danger too late if there is no visual reference - possible in the case of descending through thick cloud.

a reply to: nosmokinggun

Apologies here is the article..

Eyewitness article

originally posted by: starviego

Another military shoot down?

www.dailymail.co.uk... ldorf-francois-hollande-Lufthansa-4U9525.html#ixzz3VKSG0nLO
Pierre Polizzi, the owner of a nearby camping site told Al Jazeera:
'There was loud noise and then suddenly nothing. At first I thought it came from fighter jets that often hold drills in the area.' ...
One eyewitness in the village of Le Vernet, where some wreckage has been sighted, told Le Parisien newspaper: 'This morning I heard a massive thud and soon after saw several jets fly over.

I received a Squawk 7700 from Italian Airforce jet MM7168 at 10:53GMT on flight radar but have seen other stay the squawk was at 10:35GMT. I did not look on the map at the time but twitter suggested the jet was in the area. There's probably nothing to it but you never know....

Im not suggesting it shot it down but a jet/plane could of hit the tail

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

I wouldn't be surprised if the truth will be swept under the carpet in the interest of political correctness or to avoid so called 'islamophobia' ; remember rotherham.

a reply to: nosmokinggun

The only reason that the airplane would've flown the path it did if the crew was attempting an emergency landing was if the crew was either grossly incompetent or grossly overwhelmed. They would've tried to glide to the nearest airport and land there. A dual engine failure also doesn't explain the descent rates that the plane went through.

IIRC, there were reports of loud noises coming from the airplane before it crashed posted earlier in this thread, but I'm not 100% sure.

originally posted by: ZEV93

originally posted by: theabsolutetruth
Latest live updates from the Guardian. Looks like at this initial stage, investigators suggest it was not an on board explosion scenario but a controlled descent due to perhaps pilot confusion or loss of control, possibly in thick cloud.

Ummh, maybe you inform yourself about modern Glass Cockpit instrumentation and especially one called Primary_flight_display : its absolutely impossible for a pilot to loose orientation, even in a cloud, at night or in bad weather, except when both pilots were drunk.

I wonder if its accidentally that the plane crashed not far from Marseille, basically a muslim City with probably a lot of ISIS/Terrorist sympathizers. Russian or even american shoulder fired Surface to Air Misssiles are not hard to come by these days.

Really? You think that a primary flight display ensures that it is absolutely impossible for a pilot to loose orientation?
Then you can explain :

Pilot error is the leading cause of commercial airline accidents, with close to 80% percent of accidents caused by pilot error, according to Boeing. The other 20% are mainly due to faulty equipment and unsafe, weather-related flying conditions.

Source: BBC
And, these are conservative estimates, as many, including the NTSB think it is even higher.

originally posted by: ZEV93
Russian or even american shoulder fired Surface to Air Misssiles are not hard to come by these days.

A shoulder fired missile would never be able to reach the reported flight altitude of this aircraft.

a reply to: nosmokinggun

There was simply no input from the pilot as if they were not in the cockpit or they were unaware of what was happening for the last 10 minutes of the flight untill it slammed into a mountain wall.
The area is a 'no go' in case of problems, which means the aircraft would have diverted from its flight route, this did not happen.
It was flying on course as planned except for the descend which obviously must have been noticed by the pilots and could have been corrected by flying manually if there was a glitch in the autopilot.

a reply to: justwanttofly

I have actually flown that route and the scenery is spectacular alps all around you.. difficult i would imagine to land in trouble..

Ascent to 38k was ok and plane leveled out!
Within minutes the plane started to drop!
Organised decent/controlled decent!
Both engines failing is unlikely!
Fuel lines separate for each engine!
=
Suicide or Hijack

but could be wrong.

a reply to: RP2SticksOfDynamite

Decompression. Frozen AoA sensors. Frozen pitot tubes.

There are three mechanical reasons for it.

a reply to: charlyv

I was told by my first flight instructor that there is no machine so simple that the pilot could not be blamed for an accident. The pilot is always the one who is the cause of the accident when no obvious explanation is available.

a reply to: nosmokinggun

It's not difficult to glide into a nearby airport, say Marseille for example, when you have 38,000 feet of altitude and aren't deep inside the alps.

a reply to: RP2SticksOfDynamite

Suicide and hijacking are far from the only two possible causes.

Magnetic anomaly perhaps?
Tide of the century was only a fee days ago? Following the eclipse.
Maybe that could be an explaination as to why the sudden decent, maybe like I said before the onboard instruments were effected.
Just asking........or am I not allowed again?

Or let me guess are we to rule everything out apart from blaming pilots or terrorism again?

The A320 was the first civil airliner with FBW Steering.

"A CIVIL AVIATION FIRST
The use of fly-by-wire controls with their optimised side-stick controllers is a primary competitive advantage for Airbus, which has applied this innovation on each jetliner in its product line since the technology’s introduction in the civil air transport sector with its A320.
Fly-by-wire has now become the industry standard, with a large majority of pilots praising the handling qualities of Airbus aircraft and their commonality across the complete range of products, from the company’s smallest aircraft – the A318 – to its double-deck A380 and new-generation A350 XWB.
Years of reliable service around the world have underscored fly-by-wire’s significant benefits through commonality, improved flight safety, reduced pilot workload, a reduction of mechanical parts, and real-time monitoring of all aircraft systems."
hmm I wonder if FlyByWire could be hacked.