Airliners-India

iflytb20 · Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 3:20 pm Post subject:

This site has almost all the photos taken so far of the disaster.

karatecatman · Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 10:22 pm Post subject:

Rudder could be cause of Air France crash, pilots and experts say
There's been a pattern of irregularities linked to the tail fin, but Airbus says it's too soon to know.
By Alexandra Marks
June 18, 2009

New York - As they work to unravel the mystery of Air France Flight 447, aviation analysts and pilots are now urging investigators to focus attention on the plane's tail fin, known as the vertical stabilizer, in addition to the design of the Airbus's computerized flight controls.

The vertical stabilizer is one of the largest intact pieces of the plane recovered so far, and the Times of London reported this week that "one of the 24 automatic messages sent from the plane minutes before it disappeared pointed to a problem in the 'rudder limiter,' a mechanism that limits how far the plane's rudder can move."

Aviation analysts note that several Airbus 300 series jets have had tail fin and rudder problems in the past. (The rudder is the flight control on the vertical stabilizer, or tail fin.)

The most recent incident was in 2005, when the rudder suddenly ripped off the stabilizer of an Airbus 310 flying at 35,000 feet from Cuba to Quebec, Canada. That plane managed to land safely.

The most deadly event was the 2001 crash of American Airlines Flight 587, in which 265 people died when the plane's vertical stabilizer tore off soon after takeoff. Investigators blamed that crash on "over use" of the rudder pedal by the co-pilot. But critics note that just prior to take off, that plane also had problems with a computer tied to the rudder. That computer was reset by a technician prior to takeoff.

Request to look again at Flight 587

In light of the circumstances surrounding the loss of AF447, some analysts and pilots are now calling for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to reopen the investigation of AA587 in light of potential similarities between the two crashes. They're also calling for a thorough review of all past vertical stabilizer, rudder, and computer incidents on Airbus planes.

"Absolutely the NTSB should reopen the investigation," says Lee Gaillard, an aviation analyst in Saranac Lake, N.Y. "Given the implications that seem to be surfacing in this Air France crash involving the rudder and potential computer problems, the whole [Airbus] computerized system needs to be taken a very close look at."

French investigators see progress

French investigators Wednesday said they're now developing "an image that is progressively less fuzzy" about what happened that stormy night June 1 over the Atlantic Ocean, when Flight 447 disappeared.

Judging from the wreckage and bodies recovered so far, and the few clues sent electronically in the last four minutes of the flight, investigators believe the Airbus 330-200 jet probably broke apart in flight, then scattered over several miles.

"We are in a situation that is a bit more favorable than the first days," Paul-Louis Arslanian, head of the French civil aviation safety agency told reporters at a press conference in Paris on Wednesday. "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."

He cautioned that the search is continuing for the flight data recorders, which could hold critical clues as to what happened.

Investigators so far have focused on the potential that speed sensors, called Pitot tubes, could have iced up and provided faulty information to the flight control computers. In the past week, Air France has replaced the Pitot tubes on all of its Airbus 330s.

That theory was gleaned from the burst of automated messages about mechanical events sent during the last four minutes of the flight. Most of the messages appear to be linked to "incoherent" speed readings, which then affected other systems of the plane, Mr. Arslanian said.

History of Flight 587 probe

But the report that one of those automated messages also indicated problems with the rudder limiter has renewed concerns first made public during the AA587 crash investigation in 2001.

At the time, a group of American Airlines pilots presented to the NTSB a 68-page dossier documenting incidences of uncommanded rudder movements in the A300 series jets.

The NTSB eventually concluded the cause of the crash was not a computer problem, but the co-pilot over-using the rudder pedal during some wake turbulence.

The animation in this NTSB simulation shows the pilots pushing the rudder pedals abruptly and sharply to the floor, which is what investigators believed caused the plane to lose its vertical stabilizer and crash.

But some pilots familiar with the A300 series jets still doubt that conclusion. They say that it would be physically very difficult for a pilot to make the kind of abrupt rudder pedal movements indicated in the simulation, particularly while going 250 knots, which the NTSB indicated was the plane's speed at the time.

"I just don't see the co-pilot making the kind of abrupt movement at that speed," says an A330 pilot with more than 20 years experience in military and commercial aviation. "At 250 knots I don't think you can move the rudder pedal that far. It's going full deflection [which means it would be extremely difficult to push down as far as the simulation asserts]."

This pilot suggests that a computer malfunction could also have caused the rudder to fluctuate wildly, particularly because of the past incidences of uncommanded rudder movements in some Airbus jets.

But NTSB investigators note that the investigation took almost three years, and they say potential computer problems were thoroughly investigated at the time.

"In that case, the flight recorder was the source of detailed information that indicated how rapidly and frequently the rudder was moved. Then it was just a matter of aerodynamic calculations to see [what caused the tail to tear off,]" says Richard Healing, who was a member of the NTSB at the time of the investigation. "We were totally convinced the pilot's feet were on the pedals and he was moving the controls manually."

But the A330 pilot and others note that Airbus's computerized flight controls are highly complex and have resulted in other uncommanded rudder and other component movements.

Two other unusual incidents

In addition to the rudder incidents documented by American Airlines pilots prior to the 2001 crash of AA587, last year two Qantas Airlines Airbus 330s experienced uncommanded pitches nose-downward.Nine months before that, in January 2008, an Air Canada Airbus 319 also "experienced a sudden upset when it rolled uncommanded 36 degrees right and then 57 degrees left and pitched nose-down," according to a report on file at the NTSB.

As a result, some pilots and analysts would like to see a more thorough investigation of whether a potential computer glitch may have played a part in the dramatic rudder movement during the AA587 crash. They believe that could hold a key to help understand whether a similar "uncommanded" movement could have played a part in the Air France plane suddenly breaking apart and losing its vertical stabilizer mid-air during a routine flight.

"Airbus has every single incentive to do whatever it takes to find out what could have gone wrong to be sure that information gets in the right hands to prevent further accidents," says Kevin Mitchell, chairman of The Business Travel Coalition in Radnor, Pa. "On the other side of the issue, if they have fundamental structural or design flaws and billions of dollars invested, then it doesn't get any worse in terms of strategic prospects. So organizations like the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration must be on the alert for potential conflicts of interests."

Airbus has not returned calls asking for comment on this story. But in a conversation earlier this week, an Airbus spokesman speaking on background cautioned against continued speculation about the cause of the accident.

"All we know at the moment is that, yes, there's a piece of the rudder that's been found and that we know that there were some maintenance messages sent from the aircraft, and one said there was inconsistency with air speed measurements. That's all we know, and it's not enough to build a picture of what happened to the aircraft, which is why it's so important to find the missing black boxes," he said.
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karatecatman · Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:16 pm Post subject:

Signals heard from Air France Flight 447 black boxes
June 23, 2009
Paris (AP): French newspaper Le Monde says French military ships have detected signals from the black boxes of Flight 447 in the Atlantic depths.

The report says a research mini-submarine, the Nautile, dived on Monday to search for the boxes based on a ``very weak signal'' from the flight recorders picked up by the French ships.

The report on Le Monde's Web site on Tuesday gives no source or other details.

Officials with the French military and the French marine institute that operates the mini-sub, and French air accident investigators, could not immediately reached for comment.

The plane fell into the Atlantic on May 31 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 people aboard were killed. The black boxes will only continue to emit signals until the end of this month.
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एअर इंडिया AIR INDIA Fly DVD --- Desh VIDESH Desh

Kabir · Member Joined: 24 Oct 2008 Posts: 322 Location: DEL

thats good news.
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Kabir
India Correspondent
Airliner World

karatecatman · Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:54 pm Post subject:

Bolivian TV airs 'Lost' photos as doomed Air France flight
A Bolivian television station aired photographs from the television drama Lost presenting them as images of an Air France airliner that went down in the Atlantic, the station's news director said on Monday.

22 Jun 2009

"On Thursday, two photographs were aired on our prime time news report and on Friday we apologised," said Eddy Luis Franco, the news director for the privately-owned PAT television station.

The photographs showed the interior of an aircraft.

In the first one, passengers are seen using oxygen masks to counter the effects of loss of cabin pressure, and in the second a passenger is shown being sucked out of the rear of the aircraft as its tail breaks off.

"These two photos were apparently taken by one of the passengers on the airliner the instant before the collision and after the aircraft crashed," the news presenter said in airing the images.

She said the photographs were recovered from the memory of a digital camera that belong to a passenger called "Paulo Muller," a Brazilian actor.

Mr Franco said the photographs came to the station via the internet.

Lost a series produced by ABC Studios and Bad Robot Productions, tells the story of survivors of an air crash in a mysterious island in the Pacific.

This was another scam that was doing the rounds on the net. Inbox got flooded with this. Confused

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एअर इंडिया AIR INDIA Fly DVD --- Desh VIDESH Desh

karatecatman · Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 2:12 pm Post subject:

Danish and German media now say the the signals have been located from a depth of 4,800 m. But there is a fear that these could be from detached beacons and that the black boxes could be somewhere else.
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karatecatman · Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:44 am Post subject:

France is officially pulling out of the search and has called it closure.

So the real reason why AF447 happened may lie at the bottom of the ocean.
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karatecatman · Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:13 pm Post subject:

France clarifies that the search is still on. It is only changing the method of search.

The submarines will still be looking out.
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Punjabi Boy · Member Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 208 Location: LONDON LHR

karatecatman · Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 1:31 pm Post subject:

HAWK21M · Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 2:43 pm Post subject:

The Search will go on,however the success percentage will def be much lower in tracing the SSFDR & SSCVR now.
Hopefully one day the units can be located.

regds
MEL.
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Think of the Brighter side !!!

shivendrashukla · Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 9:15 pm Post subject:

Guyana finds possible debris from Air France crash

karatecatman · Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:32 pm Post subject:

http://in.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idINLU37295920090730
Airbus to fund extra search for Air France black box
Jul 30, 2009
PARIS, July 30 (Reuters) - Airbus (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) will help fund an extended search for flight recorders and debris of an Air France (AIRF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) airliner that crashed into the Atlantic last month, a newspaper said on Thursday.

Flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed on June 1, killing all 228 people on board, but investigators have found only 4 to 5 percent of the disintegrated plane, La Tribune said.

Citing Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders, the paper said the company would spend some 12-20 million euros over at least three months to support a public investigation into the crash.

Investigators have so far failed to pick up any signals emitted by the "black box" recorders. The extra financing would allow them to extend the search beyond the Aug. 22 deadline and use two or three boats as well as at least one mini-submarine.

The paper said Airbus still hoped to find the black boxes, which in some other cases had been found months after a crash.

Evidence from recovered wreckage indicates the plane was broken apart by impact with the water, which it struck facing downwards.
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sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 772 Location: Singapore

Airbus recommended carriers operating A330/A340 widebody aircraft to exchange pitot tube speed sensors manufactured by Thales with units from Goodrich (Bloomberg/Reuters, 30-Jul-2009). The European Aviation Safety Agency also announced its intention to officially recommend that all A330 and A340 aircraft currently equipped with Thales pitot probes should be fitted with at least two Goodrich probes. No timescale for the proposed changes was released. A330/A340s are equipped with three pitot sensors. Approximately 800 A330/A340 aircraft operate with Goodrich sensors and 200 with Thales sensors.

Airbus: “On the basis of the limited available information from the accident, and despite all the Pitot tubes meeting their objectives, we have decided to recommend to A330 and A340 operators with Thales Pitot tubes to exchange them, or at least to have two Goodrich probes,” Stefan Schaffrath, Spokesman. Source: Bloomberg, 30-Jul-2009.

Sri_Bom

karatecatman · Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 12:15 pm Post subject:

www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLK683729
Submarines stop search for Air France black boxes

Aug 20, 2009
PARIS, Aug 20 (Reuters) - French submarines have halted their search for the flight recorders of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic on June 1, killing all 228 people aboard, investigators said on Thursday.

"The search has not been able to locate the wreck of the plane," France's BEA air investigators said in a statement.

However, the BEA indicated it had not lost all hope of finding the so-called black boxes and said a team of international experts would meet in the coming weeks to decide how best to continue the search process.

Despite the fact the flight recorders have not been found, investigators have stitched together information gleaned from a final burst of automated messages sent by the plane just before disaster struck, and from debris recovered in the sea.

The Air France plane was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean not far from the equator after hitting a powerful storm.

The final messages showed sensors on the Airbus 330 were providing incoherent speed readings, sparking speculation that the pilots might have inadvertently stalled the jet.

Airbus has since urged clients to switch speed sensors on about 200 similar airplanes, replacing equipment made by France's Thales (TCFP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) with parts supplied by U.S. firm Goodrich (GR.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The plane plunged into a very remote part of the ocean and experts said the wreckage could have fallen to a depth of anywhere between 2,835 and 13,120 feet (864 and 4,000 meters), making any search extremely difficult. Just as the hunt for the Air France wreck was wound down, French authorities announced that a boat with an underwater robot had arrived at the place where a Yemeni jet had plunged into the Indian Ocean on June 30, killing 152 people.

The French foreign ministry said the robot would be used to try to recover the black boxes of the Airbus 310-300 which crashed in bad weather off the Comoros archipelago.

A French submarine detected a signal from the plane's flight recorders in July and the underwater robot will now be used to try to locate the precise site and extract the recorders.

Officials say the cause of the crash remains unknown.

The plane was flying the final leg of a trip from France to Comoros, via Yemen. Only one person, a 14-year-old-girl, survived the crash.

Let's hope this get solved soon.
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एअर इंडिया AIR INDIA Fly DVD --- Desh VIDESH Desh

HAWK21M · Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 3:27 pm Post subject:

Damn.....I hope those Recorders are found one day.
regds
MEL.
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Think of the Brighter side !!!

karatecatman · Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:53 pm Post subject:

www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLV89335
France seeks help with Airbus A330 crash search
Aug 31, 2009

PARIS, Aug 31 (Reuters) - France wants to launch an expanded international effort to find the missing wreckage and flight recorders of the Air France (AIRF.PA) jet which crashed in the Atlantic in June, the country's top crash investigator said on Monday.

Around a thousand fragments of the Airbus A330 which crashed on June 1, killing 228 people, have been examined but most of the aircraft is still missing and it is still too early to say definitely what caused the crash, he said.

"We are going to see how we can optimise our search. We are going to expand it to other countries to bring in the maximum international dimension and seize every chance we can to avoid missing new clues," Paul-Louis Arslanian, director of France's BEA air crash investigation board, told journalists.

European planemaker Airbus (EAD.PA) is expected to help fund the move, which could cost several tens of millions of euros, he said, adding an announcement could be made in the autumn.

The United States, Brazil, Britain and Germany are among the nations likely to take part, he said at a specialist briefing.

Authorities have been combing an expanse of ocean the size of Switzerland in a fruitless bid to find the voice and data recorders and the bulk of the plane, which plummeted some 30,000 feet (9,000 metres) in four minutes before crashing in an equatorial storm.

After failing to pick up radio tracking signals that the recorders were designed to emit for around 30 days, investigators took up the search using a French survey vessel, sonars and submarine but the "black boxes" are still missing.

The third phase would involve sending sonars or robots to the relatively unexplored seabed, up to 4,000 metres below the surface.

Flight AF447 crashed near the equator while en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro.

Authorities have found wreckage including the vertical tail and 51 bodies, but are unsure exactly where the crash happened because winds and currents quickly dispersed the debris.

"The work is a bit like crossing Switzerland by foot, trying firstly to listen out for the noise of a cricket and now looking for debris with a pocket torch in the dark," Arslanian said.

Speculation on the cause of the crash has focused on the aircraft's speed sensors after error messages suggested inconsistent data readings. But Arslanian said it was still too early to tell if the so-called "Pitot probes" were to blame.

The full investigation could last over a year, he said.
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karatecatman · Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:06 pm Post subject:

Copyright

Copyright

What remains of the flight. The wreckage being sorted out in France.
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karatecatman · Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:24 pm Post subject:

Sent by email

Future aircraft ‘Black Boxes’ will stream data to earth in real time
16 September, 2009]
Michael Cosgrove

An exclusive interview with the leading developers of continuous data-streaming flight data recorders.

The AF447 disaster and its inconclusive aftermath have once again highlighted how crucial the contents of the "black box" flight data recorder, or FDR, are in analysing the cause of accidents. The plane crashed into the Atlantic in an area where the ocean’s depth is around 6000 meters. That meant that the FDR’s have not yet been found. If that remains the case the causes of that accident may never be known.

A Canadian company, AeroMechanical Services, has developed an updated version of the FDR. This new generation of FDR continuously streams flight data to ground-based reception facilities in real-time, and the system may soon make black box searches in aircraft crash zones a thing of the past.

The company has begun in-flight service testing of its FDR with several airlines.

The current generation of flight data recorders, which are heavily protected in case of accident, record up to 88 flight parameters such as speed, flight patterns and position, as well as data related to the plane’s various systems including computers, hydraulics, engines and flaps. The data is recorded and stored in real time, but it is not transmitted to the ground. This means that the data they contain can only be accessed and analysed when the plane lands or if it crashes. FDR’s are fitted to almost all large modern aircraft and are mandatory on airliners.

There have been several instances of FDR’s never being found and many others where they were so badly damaged that the data they contained was wholly or partially unusable, considerably reducing the chances of finding out why the accident happened.

That’s where data-stream FDR’s, also known as ‘Smart Boxes’ or ‘Live Boxes’ come in. They send all their data to the ground in real-time, so even in the event of an accident all the data sent by the plane is received up to the moment the plane crashes or the FDR’s are disabled for another reason.

Any investigation into an accident could thus instantly begin analysing the data sent. That would considerably reduce the time taken to identify the causes of an accident and that would mean that airlines and the aviation industry would be able to react more quickly in order to take the necessary steps to avoid similar accidents in the future.

If a continuous data-stream FDR had been in use on AF447 when it crashed, all the data sent by the plane would have been received up to the moment the plane hit the water or it could not transmit for another reason. That would have made the search for the FDR unnecessary, and French aviation authorities would most likely already know exactly what caused the crash.

Both airlines and pilots have called for them to be developed but the technical problems involving the transmission of so much data at once have proved to be insurmountable up until recently.

Bill Tempany, AeroMechanical Services Chairman, told Flesh and Blood today that the new FDR being tested, called AFIRS, for Automated Flight Information Reporting System, has so far done very well in tests.

“Our ground tests were very successful” he said “so we now have AFIRS installed for testing on aircraft belonging to three airlines. Those tests have gone well too.”

One of the biggest challenges faced by the system’s developers has been to find a way of sending large amounts, or ‘packets,’ of data in real-time and from every corner of the globe. Current satellite systems cannot handle that much information at once.

AFIRS uses Iridium satellite communications, which have the advantage of covering every part of the globe. They too can only handle a limited bandwidth, thus they cannot handle large amounts of data, but AFIRS contains new data compression technology designed to reduce the size of data packets and fit them into the available bandwidth.

This is the system which is being tested, and Tempany explained how its real-time features are used.

“We don’t just receive and store the data. In fact there’s more than just data because we work with Flightscape, which is a flight-simulator software system. That software is able to reproduce the exact conditions of the flight in visual terms, including what’s happening on the dials in the cockpit.”

Another feature of the new generation of FDR’s is its real-time use to help aircraft and their crew if necessary. An airline knows instantly if anything happening to one of its planes needs to be brought to their attention

“We are able to react with a plane in real-time” explains Tempany. “If necessary, we can speak to the pilot or send him text messages in order to resolve problems and keep him informed of what’s happening on the plane.”

All the information received by AFIRS can also be used to improve maintenance quality and reduce its cost because it instantly reveals any anomaly in the plane’s systems and thus makes trouble-shooting more efficient.

Tempany explains that “It’s more than just a flight recorder; it’s a service to airlines too. It will help reduce airline costs in many ways, both in the air and on the ground. By providing precise details of so many flight parameters to them, airlines will be able to react to situations more quickly and develop more efficient operating methods.”

In a related development, Airbus recently announced that it was exploring the possibility of using continuous data-streaming FDR’s in the wake of the AF447 disaster, but Tempany could not confirm that his company was in contact with the airline.

Airbus representatives in France and England were not available for comment, although one employee denied to Flesh and Stone that they were in contact with any developers, contradicting the official Airbus statement by its chairman Thomas Enders which said it was discussing the system with “..our partners and suppliers.”

Airlines all over the world will be following and analysing the results of the tests on the AFIRS system closely, and Tempany sounded optimistic, saying “This system, in financial terms, will be amortized by airlines much more quickly than existing versions, and it will offer more benefits.”

If those tests are successful, the nature of the technology used in Flight Data Recorders is likely to change almost overnight and searches for them in the event of accidents may soon become a thing of the past.
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karatecatman · Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 5:17 pm Post subject:

NEW YORK TIMES
France to Renew Search for Plane’s Data Recorders
NICOLA CLARK
October 26, 2009

PARIS — France is preparing to spend as much as €20 million next year on a renewed search for the flight data recorders and undersea wreckage of the Air France A330 jetliner that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in June, killing all 228 people aboard, the new head of the French agency charged with investigating the accident said Monday.

The news comes amid mounting tension within Air France as the airline prepares for an external audit of its flight safety procedures next month.

The agency, the Bureau of Investigations and Analyses, has begun preparing for a third attempt to locate the black boxes of Air France Flight 447 that it expects will begin early next year, with the support of experts and specialized equipment from the United States, Britain, Brazil and Russia, said Jean-Paul Troadec, who took over as head of the agency this month.

The agency, which has already spent roughly €10 million, or $15 million, scouring the ocean floor for clues to what caused the accident, plans to spend an additional €10 million to €20 million for the next phase of the search, Mr. Troadec said.

Air France Flight 447 left Rio de Janeiro and was en route to Paris when it went down on June 1 during strong thunderstorms in an area about 960 kilometers, or 600 miles, off northern Brazil. Search teams recovered over 600 pieces of debris from the ocean, representing about 5 percent of the airframe, investigators have said. The bulk of the wreckage has not been found and is presumed to be lying on the mountainous seabed, deep below the ocean surface.

Investigators have yet to pinpoint the cause of the disaster, although they suspect that a malfunction of the aircraft’s speed sensors may have contributed to the crash. A preliminary report published in July said an examination of the floating debris indicated that the plane had hit the water intact.

“We still don’t know what happened in the cockpit, and we will need to find and analyze the recorders to understand,” Mr. Troadec said at the agency’s offices in Le Bourget, near Paris. “Our knowledge of this accident does not allow us to develop a scenario.”

But he did say that autopsy reports recently received from Brazilian medical examiners appeared to confirm that the crash victims died “on impact with the water.”

In December, the agency plans to publish a second intermediate report that will include detailed analysis of the evidence gathered so far as well as some recommendations about how to improve the storage and transmission of flight data to aid future crash investigations, Mr. Troadec said.

Investigators in July abandoned an audio search for the flight recorders’ “pingers,” which are designed to emit a signal for 30 to 40 days. A second phase of the hunt, using diving equipment and sonar scanners towed by a French frigate, ended in September without success. Mr. Troadec said there had been no further search activity.
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karatecatman · Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:29 pm Post subject:

Jetstar malfunction link to Air France Atlantic crash
Geoff Easdown and Geraldine Mitchell

Herald Sun
November 04, 2009

A JETSTAR plane may have last week suffered the same malfunction that brought down an Air France jet over the Atlantic, killing all on board, five months ago.

Australia's air safety regulators - the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority - are probing similarities between both incidents.

At 1.30am on October 29 the pilot of the Jetstar Airbus 330-200 reported an instrument blackout as the jet carrying 200 passengers passed through storm clouds midway between Japan and the Gold Coast, the Herald Sun reports.

Investigators downloaded information from the jet's flight data recorders before the jet was released back to the airline.

After normal flight was resumed the crew radioed Jetstar's Melbourne headquarters for engineering advice when it was determined that the plane should fly on to the Gold Coast.

The aircraft landed five hours later at 6.20am without passengers knowing what happened in the cockpit.

During the six-second blackout, the automatic pilot malfunctioned and fluctuating readings were transmitted by one of the jet's three airspeed indicators - a similar situation to what the pilot of the Air France jet is said to have reported in his final radio message before his aircraft broke up and plunged into the ocean.

Jetstar said last night that early indications were the airspeed sensing system suffered a momentary interruption, after which the instruments returned to normal.

"The crew remained in full control of the aircraft at all times and responded in accordance with training and procedure," an airline spokesman said. "We are also liaising closely with Airbus."

He said several parts were replaced during a detailed examination of the jet before it was allowed to resume flying.

The Jetstar and Air France jets were similar models - Airbus 330-200 jetliners.

The report came as two Qantas pilots were stood down after their plane came close to landing without wheels down at the end of a Melbourne-Sydney flight last week.
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Nimish · Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:23 pm Post subject:

While scary, this is probably good news as it'll help investigators figure out the weak links. It's obvious that there is a weak link on the 332 - both from the AF crash and the black out suffered by Jetstar.
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