Airbus A320 crash in Southern France

a reply to: Zaphod58

a helicoper landed near the crash site and has confrimed there are no survivors

uk.reuters.com...

In Paris, Prime Minister Manuel Valls told parliament: "A helicopter managed to land (by the crash site) and has confirmed that unfortunately there were no survivors."

This should be telling to some degree for our aviation knowledgeable folks:

bigstory.ap.org...

The owner of a campground near the crash site, Pierre Polizzi, said he heard the plane making curious noises shortly before it crashed.

"At 11.30, I heard a series of loud noises in the air. There are often fighter jets flying over, so I thought it sounded just like that. I looked outside, but I couldn't see any fighter planes," he told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "The noise I heard was long — like 8 seconds — as if the plane was going more slowly than a military plane. There was another long noise after about 30 seconds."

It sounds (to me) like the campground owner is describing catastrophic engine problems.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Sad. Also some reports from a camper near the crash site that said they heard loud banging noises coming from the aircraft, before it went down. Wonder what that could have been?

a reply to: Nyiah

Wow, we posted similar at same time. I guess I would agree that there may have been severe Engine trouble.

a reply to: Answer

I've seen more accidents and incidents happen right after major maintenance than I can count. I had an aircraft come back from PDM that flew crooked for the rest of its life, because when they reattached the wings, they didn't ensure they were straight.



After depot level maintenance, they failed to ensure the bolts holding the wing on were attached properly.

A C-130 was lost with all on board when, again after maintenance, the wing separated because they failed to ensure it was attached properly.

Shifts change, and people coming on miss that they have to check something, thinking the person going off shift did it. The person going off shift thinks that the oncoming shift will do it. The QA inspector has something going on at home and is distracted, and misses a cotter pin isn't attached. A mechanic completes a job, and doesn't do a proper tool check, because his shift ends in 10 minutes, and misses that there's a tool laying in the aircraft electronics bay.

a reply to: alysha.angel

From the pictures that I'm seeing it would take a miracle for anyone to have survived. There is nothing recognizable left of the aircraft. There aren't even large pieces left.

a reply to: charlyv

Read in finnish papers that two locals had described it as a loud fighterjet sound that lasted for 30sec or so followed by a silence and a loud bang/boom

a reply to: RP2SticksOfDynamite
So far what ive read spanish and germans made of of the majoirty of passangers with both over 50 a pice

its a tragic indeed,

From the crash site:





What we know so far.

The airframe had 58,300 hours on it, and is the 28th loss of an A320. The last fatal accident involving Lufthansa was a runway overrun in 1993 where two people died.

here is more vital information that iv found and im sorry if im repeating what everybody else is saying .. im trying my best to keep as up to date as possible .

www.airlive.net...

We have reports crashed #Germanwings #4U9525 plane has 'disintegrated,' and 'largest debris is the size of a car’.

French officer at Germanwings crash site says no apparent survivors; recovery likely to take days.

From reports we have, #Germanwings #4U9525 The plane is completely disintegrated. Debris spread over more than 2 kilometers.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

The crew did not send a Mayday. It was air traffic control that decided to declare the plane was in distress because there was no contact with the crew of the plane

most likely because the plane had already disintergrated .

a reply to: alysha.angel

No, the air traffic controller declared an emergency for the crew when they noticed the aircraft descending without any kind of radio calls or contact with ATC. This was before the aircraft crashed.

a reply to: Zaphod58

thank you for the correction , this is still a horrible .

Here is the crash area of GermanWings in the french alps "les trois évêchés".


Video of Crash Site

If the debris is spread over 2KM wouldn't that suggest it broke up before hitting the ground?

a reply to: Vasa Croe

No. An impact like this that spreads a lot of small debris around is going to throw debris a decent distance. It was found over two square kilometers, which is consistent with an intact aircraft hitting the ground.

a reply to: Jukiodone

I was just thinking along those line.....

Why all of a sudden so many commercial aircraft disasters?

a reply to: combatmaster

Aircraft accident rates are lower than they've ever been. Last year was the safest year ever to get on a commercial flight. Numbers are higher, both in flights and passengers carried, than ever so it appears that there are more accidents, but it's a false correlation.

originally posted by: combatmaster
a reply to: Jukiodone
I was just thinking along those line.....
Why all of a sudden so many commercial aircraft disasters?

Because life, machines or humans aren't perfect?

Their have always been plane crashes at a minuscule rate compared to successful flights.
Basic statistics would say then that as the number of flights increases the % of crashed flights would also increase.

Reports are that they're already recovered the recorders.

The largest pieces of debris reported are the size of a car.



They were on the exact same flight path as the flight yesterday, operated by a different aircraft.

a reply to: Zaphod58

. Last year was the safest year ever to get on a commercial flight

I stand corrected....

But its still funny.... the safest year ever was the year MH370 went missing. Ironic.

Not to throw this thread off topic but what is your theory on MH370? (PM maybe?)