More on AF447

An excellent resource to be found here. This is emotion free and has good sources.

Reuters reports the LH planes that passed through the same space as the first was a 747-400 and the second was an MD11.

The area where the crash occurred is deep water and finding the "black boxes" will be difficult. Since the A330's two black boxes, which can emit signals for up to 30 days, it is likely the French will have a submarine on station in the area quickly to listen for the signals. The theories of the crash are pretty standard.

What seems clear is that there are a several key questions to ask -

Available data indicates a possible massive decompression.

Was this in the front or the back of the plane?

Would a multiple lightning strike cause a window to fail?

Could the plane's pitots have frozen and generated misinformation to the systems?

These are initial thoughts that came from a a discussion with one expert today. Suffice to say this crash has caused alarm in aviation circles. Nothing about AF or the A330 raises any questions. And everyone has to be very careful about speculation.

The last communication was the data link message at 2.15am reporting a failure of electrical power, pressurization and other systems, suggesting that the aircraft was already out of control. Some airline pilots speculate that the plane could have flown into a powerful storms cell strong enough to turn a big aircraft on its back and that are usually avoided.

In other news --

• VH-71 canceled
• Another missile story
• Delta's Kenya plans on hold
• Ryanair makes a loss

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