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Last Words of Flight 447: From a Robot
French army air crewman patrol the presumed crash site of Air France flight 447. (French Defense Minister, ECPAD / AP Photo)
What happened, says aviation expert Clive Irving, was so sudden and so traumatic that the crew was disabled, perhaps unconscious from G-forces, leaving the computer to send a final burst of data.
The last person left alive on Air France Flight 447 seems to have been a computer. Accident investigators are baffled by the absence of any “Mayday” distress call from the pilots of the Airbus A330. But they do have data transmitted from the airplane as it was breaking apart. How was this possible?
Boeing and Airbus airliners have onboard computers that monitor and diagnose all the systems in real time—the engines, the power sources, integrity of the critical structures. But these were never intended to serve as guides to what may have caused a crash. They are there because they speed up maintenance—and more cost-effective.
It was several hours before the last piece of data was retrieved, at about the same time that it was established the airplane was missing over the Atlantic.
The Airbus system, called ACMS, or Aircraft Condition Monitoring System, picks up during a flight any new fault that needs attention when the airplane reaches its destination. On the ground, the mechanics have spare parts ready, and know what to look for. That allows a flight to be up and away again without delay.
When Flight 447 was stricken, the ACMS system apparently sent a final burst of data—first to a satellite and then to the Air France maintenance center in Paris. It was, according to reports, several hours before this data was retrieved, at about the same time that it was established the airplane was missing over the Atlantic.
From this, one chilling picture emerges: of a failure so sudden and so traumatic that the crew are disabled, perhaps already unconscious from violent G-forces.
The ACMS system, however, has a few more seconds of life and transmits. This does not, of course, describe what failed and why. Sudden events are usually of several kinds: an explosion triggered in a fuel tank by a spark or short circuit; a catastrophic decompression of the cabin, where the air is pressurized at the equivalent of an altitude of about 6,000 feet but where the outside pressure is far lower, so it pops like a burst balloon; or a structural failure, perhaps caused by extreme turbulence. There is also the possibility of a bomb, like the one that brought down the Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland. This is being discounted because it is not consistent with the ACMS’ indication of an electrical failure—and because of the violent electrical storm reported at the time.
A final answer can come only from the black box, wherever in the ocean it now lies. In the meantime, the data from the ACMS, the robust robot, is all there is.
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Clive Irving is senior consulting editor at Condé Nast Traveler, specializing in aviation.
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"The last person left alive on the flight Air France Flight 446 seems to have been a computer." Come on, Mr. Irving, you can't tell me you don't know the difference between a computer and a person...
Really, goddess? You're going to go that far?
Interesting article.
I don't know... I've met several computers in my day that were sadistic and had wicked senses of humor. I thought the comparison was rather witty... :)
Got to go with the goddess3a on this one - very weak. Anyone remember the movie with Jimmy Stewart about structural failure analysis in the 50's or 60's. There are more uses of composite technology on aircraft so there could have been a lighting failure plus very hard to replicate the force of nature(wind shear) in a wind tunnel or a mathematical equation. A confluence of small errors or set of circumstances can cause unforeseen failures. We don't know what we don't know. BTW Payne Stewart died from a lack of oxygen from a failed seal and the plane only crashed after it ran out of fuel. This was clearly a catastrophic failure.
Strange that in today's day and age, a black box would not be able to stream its contents in real time to a data center.
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No doubt... that seems very doable and logical.
Was thinking the exact same thing why is this now not in real time?
On a similar note, why wouldn't they be able to get a rough idea of it's location with GPS tracking? Don't they microchip doggies so they can be found if lost? Why not a black box?
I had watched a report on the news yesterday and they were talking about a deployable type of black box housed on the tail that would automatically deploy on sudden deceleration. It would be buoyant and send out signals immediately so recovery would take hours, not days. I said to myself, thats a no-brainer, not hard to do and not that expensive, why haven't we thought of this years ago. If we can build a plane out of carbon fiber, why didn't we think of this idea sooner.
I disagree that the lack of a mayday proves there was a sudden event which incapacitated the flight crew. Consider the pilot's training; which is to aviate, navigate, and then communicate in that order... if they had a catastrophic problem they would have tried to save the aircraft and had no time to send a message. I have also read that the HF radio used to communicate that far out over the ocean can take several attempts to get through so even if a call was made did anyone hear it?
Climate scientists have predicted meaner storms as global climate change acts up.
This disaster was on the first day of hurricane season.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/06/aircraft-lost-hurricane-season-beg ins.html
The headline says the "last words" of this flight, as if you are actually going to tell us those words. Don't use a false headline to draw readers in, that's Journalism 101! We may read this and never read anything else you write. If it was the editors who did it, shame on them.
Considering the final outcome, I just hope it was very fast and catastrophic and everyone died instantly.
Streaming not reliable in such mission critical applications. Besides, streaming would have had no advantage in this situation given the apparent collapse of event-time, a contraction of space-time so astronomical, computers became people, at least for that light-second.
More horrible "journalism" from Clive the expert. Shame on the Daily Beast for publishing such speculative garbage.
Clive the expert is convinced that the pilots were dead and the plane was sending out information. Consider this: Multiple serious malfunctions on the airplane (electrical, air data, pressurization) and the ACMS sends the error codes. The pilots are busy dealing with the problems and dealing with the monster wall of thunder storms blocking their route, the problems worsen and they have no time to declare an emergency. Just as geofbb says above: Aviate, Navigate, and Communicate - in that order.
But somehow Clive the expert knows that the pilots are already incapacitated and the plane is sending robo-calls.
He says it himself: "A final answer can come only from the black box, wherever in the ocean it now lies." . . . But for now, wild speculation will suit Clive just fine.
"If the black box is so indestructable, why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff"..............George Carlin
Thank you.
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