Autopsies suggest Air France jet broke up in sky

[&hearts (MEG)]

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Autopsies suggest Air France jet broke up in sky
By STAN LEHMAN and EMMA VANDORE, Associated Press Writers

SAO PAULO – Autopsies revealed fractures in the legs, hips and arms of Air France disaster victims, a Brazilian official said Wednesday. Experts said those injuries — and the large pieces of wreckage pulled from the Atlantic — strongly suggest the plane broke up in the air.

With more than 400 bits of debris recovered from the ocean's surface, the top French investigator expressed optimism about discovering what brought down Flight 447, but he also called the conditions — far from land in very deep waters — "one of the worst situations ever known in an accident investigation."

French investigators are beginning to form "an image that is progressively less fuzzy," Paul-Louis Arslanian, who runs the French air accident investigation agency BEA, told a news conference outside Paris.

"We are in a situation that is a bit more favorable than the first days," Arslanian said. "We can say there is a little less uncertainty, so there is a little more optimism. ... (but) it is premature for the time being to say what happened."

A spokesman for Brazilian medical examiners told The Associated Press that fractures were found in autopsies on an undisclosed number of the 50 bodies recovered so far. The official spoke on condition he not be named due to department rules.

"Typically, if you see intact bodies and multiple fractures — arm, leg, hip fractures — it's a good indicator of a midflight break up," said Frank Ciacco, a former forensic expert at the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. "Especially if you're seeing large pieces of aircraft as well."

The pattern of fractures was first reported Wednesday by Brazil's O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, which cited unnamed investigators. The paper also reported that some victims were found with little or no clothing, and had no signs of burns.

That lack of clothing could be significant, said Jack Casey, an aviation safety consultant in Washington, D.C., who is a former accident investigator. "In an in-air break up like we are supposing here, the clothes are just torn away."

Casey also said multiple fractures are consistent with a midair breakup of the plane, which was cruising at about 34,500 feet (10,500 meters) when it went down.
"Getting ejected into that kind of windstream is like hitting a brick wall — even if they stay in their seats, it is a crushing effect," Casey said. "Most of them were long dead before they hit the water would be my guess."

When a jet crashes into water mostly intact — such as the Egypt Air plane that hit the Atlantic Ocean after taking off from New York in 1999 — debris and bodies are generally broken into small pieces, Ciacco said. "When you've had impact in the water, there is a lot more fragmentation of the bodies. They hit the water with a higher force."

Lack of burn evidence would not necessarily rule out an explosion, said John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

If something caused the lower fuselage to burn or explode, "passengers would not be exposed to any blast damage" and the plane would still disintegrate in flight," Goglia said. "These are scenarios that cannot be ruled out."

Searchers from Brazil, France, the United States and other countries are methodically scanning the surface and depths of the Atlantic for signs of the Airbus A330 that crashed May 31 after running into thunderstorms en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 people aboard were killed.

Still missing are the plane's flight data and voice recorders, thought to be deep under water.

French-chartered ships are trolling a search area with a radius of 50 miles (80 kilometers), pulling U.S. Navy underwater listening devices attached to 19,700 feet (6,000 meters) of cable. The black boxes send out an electronic tapping sound that can be heard up to 1.25 miles (2 kilometers) away, but these locator beacons will begin to fade after just two more weeks.

U.S. Air Force Col. Willie Berges, commander of the American military forces supporting the search, said the black boxes emit beacons at a unique frequency, virtually guaranteeing that any signal detected would be from the pingers.

"The question becomes if the black box is with the pinger, because they can get separated," Berges said. "If a signal is located, the French would then send down a robotic vehicle that is in the area to look at it, confirm that it is the black box and bring it up."
Without the black boxes to help explain what went wrong, the investigation has focused on a flurry of automated messages sent by the plane minutes before it lost contact; one suggests external speed sensors had iced over, destabilizing the plane's control systems.
Without the black boxes to help explain what went wrong, the investigation has focused on a flurry of automated messages sent by the plane minutes before it lost contact; one suggests external speed sensors had iced over, destabilizing the plane's control systems.
Arslanian said most of the messages appear to be "linked to this loss of validity of speed information." He said when the speed information became "incoherent" it affected other systems on the plane that relied on that speed data. But he stressed that not all the automated messages were related to the speed sensors.

The automated messages were not alarm calls and no distress call was picked up from the plane, he said.

Air France has replaced the sensors, called Pitot tubes, on all its A330 and A340 aircraft, under pressure from pilots who feared a link to the accident.

Arslanian said a French doctor from the BEA was not allowed to participate in autopsies done so far on some Flight 447 bodies by Brazilian authorities, and those autopsy results have not been released to the BEA. He said he was "not happy" with this situation.
However, he added that French judicial authorities, who are conducting a parallel criminal probe, were present at the autopsies.

Brazil's Federal Police and state medical authorities in Recife who are overseeing the autopsies said in a statement that two French investigators, a dental expert and a doctor, had been following the examinations as observers since June 10.
The French are leading the crash investigation, while the Brazilians are leading the rescue operation.

[Rm1985]

I heard about this on the radio just a few hours ago. They where actually discussing how strange it is that their clothes where ripped off. Its a Comedic Talk Show and they where kinda joking about it. Its not something to joke about but it was kinda funny. The co-host of the show said something to the affect "How great would that be? The underpants you just crapped are being ripped off.... The Poor guy behind you can't be happy."

Like I said not funny but its does kinda make you chuckle.

[&hearts (MEG)]

Yeah, I get what you mean. But it's just awful to think about those people, how scared they would have been and all. I have only flown commercially one time, and I was scared shitless. My fiancee is a pilot and I fly with him in small planes all the time, but I think the biggest difference for me is I TRUST him.

[Rm1985]

For sure the trust factor can really make you more comfortable. I have never flown not a huge fan of planes.

[&hearts (MEG)]

I hadn't up until last year.
But seriously, those planes are scary and if the pilots don't have a clue or if they over correct, you are basically screwed. It's a scary thought.

As much as I would love to visit Europe, I am scared to fly over the Atlantic.

[Stutter560]

give me a boat and two oars any day

[Rm1985]

Jun 18, 2009 22:10:11 GMT -5 Stutter560 said:

give me a boat and two oars any day

I agree and I cant swim for crap. I also panic in water but thats ok its better than flying lol.

[&hearts (MEG)]

Crashes analyzed for insight and clues
By Alan Levin, USA TODAY

As the Northwest Airlines jet climbed past 16,000 feet, its speed began increasing mysteriously. A short time later, a horn sounded to alert the pilots that they were flying dangerously fast.

"Just pull her back, let her climb," the captain told the confused co-pilot, suggesting that they could slow the Boeing 727 down by making it climb even steeper.

Within minutes, this 1974 flight crashed into a wooded area in New York, killing all three pilots, the only ones aboard. According to aviation safety experts, it is one of a string of accidents around the world that could offer clues into what might have caused Air France Flight 447 to disappear as it cruised above the Atlantic Ocean on June 1.

The blaring warning horn and speed indicators in the cockpit of the Northwest jet were erroneous, investigators concluded later. The normally highly reliable aircraft was instructing pilots to do the wrong thing.

Instead of speeding up, the jet was actually slowing, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found. All three devices that measured air speed had become clogged with ice and were telling the pilots they were going far faster than they actually were. Faced with a jarring series of sometimes contradictory warnings, the pilots became confused.

The jet's speed got so slow that its wings no longer could keep it aloft. It plunged from nearly 25,000 feet in 83 seconds. Heavy buffeting began tearing pieces off the plane before it hit the ground.

Worrisome indicators

Though investigators have not yet retrieved the flight data recorders they hope will tell them precisely what happened aboard the Air France Airbus A330, a string of data messages from the jet point to problems with the air-speed indicators. The NTSB announced last week that it is investigating two other recent incidents aboard Airbus A330 jets that appear similar to the problems reported on the Air France flight.

The Air France messages — which were automatically transmitted via satellite to the airline as part of routine flight monitoring — indicate that some or all of the sensors called Pitot tubes that calculate speed had failed. When the Airbus' computerized flight-control system is not sure what the aircraft's speed is, it takes a number of protective steps. The data from Flight 447 show that the computer shut off the autopilot and the automatic throttle, requiring the pilots to fly manually.

By this time, the pilots would have been hearing various chimes and receiving computer-generated text warnings, according to several current and former Airbus pilots.

"There could have been a lot going on on the flight deck," says John Cox, a former airline pilot who flew Airbus jets and now works as an aviation safety consultant.

Pilots are trained to keep the plane level and maintain engine power if they get unusual airspeed readings. After the Air France accident, Airbus urged airlines to remind pilots of the rule.

Cox and other aviation experts caution that it's too soon to conclude what happened aboard Flight 447. But they say accidents like the one in 1974 demonstrate that pilots sometimes get so confused in such conditions that catastrophe can result.

The NTSB studied similar incidents during its 1974 investigation. "It was apparent from these incidents that some pilots who understood the basic principles of air-speed measurement failed to analyze the possible results of a blockage of the Pitot … systems," the agency said.

Deadly results

Other crashes have resulted from erroneous speed readings, according to accident reports:

• On Feb. 6, 1996, a charter flight operated by Turkish airline Birgenair crashed in the ocean off the Dominican Republic, killing all 189 people aboard. The Pitot tube that fed the captain's instruments was blocked, making it appear that the Boeing 757 was flying more than 400 mph. The jet's warning systems alerted the crew that they were flying too fast. As the jet was actually slowing to about 200 mph, a warning system alerted the crew that they were flying too slowly. The jet plummeted into the water.

• On Oct. 10, 1997, a flight by Argentine airline Austral Lineas Aéreas crashed in Uruguay, killing all 74 people aboard the McDonnell Douglas DC-9. The jet's Pitot tubes had become clogged with ice. The result: speed readings that were slower than the plane was actually traveling.

The pilots added power to the engines and began descending to pick up speed. The pilots also deployed panels on the wings that add lift. The jet, however, was flying so fast that the wind tore the panel off one wing and the jet veered out of control.

[&hearts (MEG)]

My fiancee is a pilot, so I keep up with all this and the NTSB reports on crashes!