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A Germanwings (Lufthansa subsidiary) Airbus A-320-200 airliner has crashed in the French Alps. It is reported to have carried 154 people on board (including 6 crew members). Unfortunately, no survivors have been found so far. There were reports about the crew sending out distress calls shortly before the crash. The flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf was last registered on the radar at 6800 feet.
http://www.laprovence.com/article/actualites/3326948/un-airbus-a320-secrase-dans-les-alpes-de-haute-provence.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/24/us-france-crash-airbus-lufthansa-idUSKBN0MK0ZP20150324
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/24/german-a320-airbus-plane-crashes-french-alps
[Edit 16:35 UTC. janrinok. Source: BBC] The 'black box' has been recovered. The aircraft descent took place over a period of approximately 8 minutes, and communication between the crew and the French air traffic controllers was 'broken' when the aircraft was at an altitude of around 6000 feet. The TV pictures being broadcast show a large number of helicopters being deployed to a snow free landing-zone but the surrounding mountains have significant snow cover and there is a low cloudbase. French authorities have said that the recovery of the bodies will take 'several days'.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday March 24 2015, @01:39PM
The zerohedge link at:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-24/airbus-a320-carrying-148-crashes-french-alps [zerohedge.com]
Shows some wild descent rates, like 3000-5000 fps outta nowhere. Structural failure bad enough for panic descent but not bad enough to break up (immediately, anyway) in mid air? Structural failure leading to loss of pressurization, emergency descent so the passengers don't all suffocate, break apart in mid air when try to pull out of the dive? Sounds a little steep descent for a mere engine failure. Reported speed and heading don't fit a spin. Sudden controlled turn (to a divert airport?) and the heading being basically constant sounds about right for an inflight emergency and descent while under control. Then something gets worse, and can't pull out of the dive? Fire, maybe, instead of air leak/structural issue? Maybe the O2 masks failed so the pilots passed out and couldn't pull up?
(Score: 3, Informative) by TK-421 on Tuesday March 24 2015, @02:05PM
I am with you on everything you say above, but are you sure about the 5k fps decent? The data looks more like 57 feet per second (17.3736 meters per second) over a nine minute period, which is still pretty serious.
I haven't been able to confirm from another source but I thought I heard this morning on the radio that the elevation of the mountains at the crash site is right around 6,800 feet (2,072.64 meters). So in my mind that makes me question whether or not the plane was deliberately flown into terrain.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 24 2015, @02:36PM
Embarrassing. I read and thought standard feet per minute like off the VSI gauge and wrote FPS.
5000 is not out of line for an undamaged jetliner. Its serious but not all that steep. Supposedly, all dirtied up with the landing gear open and flaps and spoilers and idled engines an old 747 could perfectly controllably descend at more than 10K/min but the wind noise and descent angle would terrify the passengers.
from distant memory the 172 I flew in had its best glide ratio at 500 fpm at about 60 knots so if your engine fails you slow down to 60 and figure you'll loose half a thousand per minute, or you'll have a glide ratio of about a dozen so if you're cruising about a mile up (5000ft) you'd got about a dozen miles of ground range to find a nice place to land. Which frankly isn't very hard, there seems to be a dinky hole in the wall grass strip general aviation airport about every 5 miles around there.
10000 fpm best glide is like space shuttle territory, I'd guess a jetliner is in between the performance of a 172 and a space shuttle and they didn't even try to slow down to above stall so they're probably not engine failure time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday March 24 2015, @02:37PM
As usual for things like this it's going to be necessary to wait several hours before everyone starts getting even the most basic of details sorted out...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday March 24 2015, @02:55PM
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:22PM
The log suggests it went straight down at a significant rate, up to 5,000 feet per minute [from ~40,000 feet] at one point, which suggests it happened in a matter of seconds.". Quite possibly the news site mangled the quote, but while the rate of descent seems pretty reasonable the math on the duration of the descent is clearly way off
upto 5000 fpm, that sounds about right. The line
suggests it happened in a matter of seconds
has the word "it", which refers to the event that caused the crash. Sudden breakup, pilot suicide, faulty air speed readings, whatever "it" was - and we should find out quickly unlike with MH370, happened in a matter of seconds, everything was fine, then a few seconds later the plane started plummeting to the ground.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:31PM
I wouldn't be too sure of the speed with which this will be resolved. The crash site is in a remote mountainous region, covered in deep snow. It will be difficult to find all the pieces of the aircraft, both at the site and working back along it's route, in case the cause was something that separated from the aircraft. It is difficult to even reach the site at present. Weather conditions may also slow the investigation down considerably.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 24 2015, @05:16PM
The last 3 major airline crashes (>100 people) were MH370 (unlikely to ever be found, massive mystery), MH17 (ended up in a warzone), and QZ8501 (landed at the bottom of the sea).
By comparison retrieving the black box here is easy, and has already happened.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:32PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:47PM
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Wednesday March 25 2015, @12:54AM
5k FPS would translate into about 3,500MPH, or almost 5 times the speed of sound, so I think the 57fps is a lot more accurate.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2015, @05:14PM
Whay are we seeing these type of news here? I thought this was a geeky site with geek news!
If I wanted to see all the drama new forums offers I would hve been there. Same problem with /. Someone is happy to get to publish "Breaking News" that frankly has nothing to do with just about any of us.
Meanwhile I on purpose don't avail myself of the daily dramatic and catastrophic type of stuff spewed out by the normal media. Which mostly affect a small number of people while good news that does is not even reported. Creating a distorted and overly negative picture of the world.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hartree on Tuesday March 24 2015, @05:32PM
Because issues with aircraft flight control in fly-by-wire aircraft are indeed geeky tech related items. This is related to the risks of computer use (having a computer link in your control systems) and if it's appropriate for the well known RISKS mailing list, I'd say it's absolutely appropriate for here.
The A-320, IIRC, has had questions about its autopilot disengaging and the plane going into an uncommanded descent before. Whether that was a factor in this, it's still too early to speculate much.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday March 24 2015, @06:09PM
Firstly, you do not have to read every story. If this one is not to your liking, please feel free to read a different one.
However, if we disregard the loss of 250 people in an air disaster, aircraft are technical, and there are many technical issues that can be, and are being, discussed here. Geeks and nerds don't have to be associated with computers. Aviation in its widest sense is a topic for this site.
Additionally, when a large employer such as Boeing or Airbus suffers the loss of an aircraft it can affect the's jobs of people working in the aircraft manufacturing industry, the aircraft operators, the component manufacturers, and many other related areas. We do discuss business here at SN.
Finally, the stories are provided by the community. Someone in this community is interested enough to submit a story in order that we can, if we choose, discuss it and improve our knowledge of such things. I have tried very hard not to sensationalize the story, and the comments indicate that people are not entering into needless speculation too much. I believe that our coverage is unique in this regard.
If you have a feel-good story that you think the community would be interested in - submit it, please. It stands a very good chance of being on the front page as long as it meet the submission requirements.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday March 24 2015, @09:58PM
Geeks and nerds don't have to be associated with computers.
Not to mention that airliners are stuffed to the gills with actual computers.
Call these "why is this here" posts Seagull Posting--fly in, shit on the article, fly away.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by morpheus on Tuesday March 24 2015, @07:12PM
Since I was the submitter I can offer my own justification for posting this type of news to SN:
1. This is a great tragedy, yes, but as of now it is also a technical mystery: a lot of data is already available so what is the most likely cause? I studied the descent profile, airspeed profile and still cannot find any convincing clues as to what might have happened. In contrast, after Colgan Air accident, a cursory reading of the crash report made it clear that the airplane entered a spin.
2. On a philosophical level, what is and what is not news depends on the context. It is a testament to the great sophistication/complexity of modern technology (I use this word very loosely) that failures are rather rare and make (sometimes tragic) news. In a sense, this does not paint a dark picture of the world at all, quite the opposite. As a chief pilot used to say at a company I worked for: `The most dangerous system on the airplane is the pilot'. Is it in this case? Think of it this way: `hundreds of airplanes carrying thousands of passengers crossed the Atlantic under ten hours today' is a very reassuring statement which would be pure science fiction a hundred years ago. And today ... it is not news.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 25 2015, @11:54AM
Do you watch the news because you have this nagging feeling that taking notice of the horrible things that happen in the world are a moral obligation? Or a responsibility?
Because if you want horror, consider how much isn't news because it's happening every day.
Planes hardly ever crash. When they do it's news.
Disease kills many more daily. But that happens every day and isn't news.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 24 2015, @08:11PM
Airplanes are very complex systems, when complex systems break, that's news. This isn't some crap about someone being shot, or about US government tedium.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 25 2015, @09:20AM
I agree this news shouldn't be on a tech-centric site. /. pulls this crap too, sometimes it's even news about celebrities! The whole appeal of sites like SN and /. is that they are for a very specific audience, bringing news that you don't find on other news sites.
Every other news site is already all over this crash, it's not like you're providing a community service to nerds who need to know what's happening in the world.
Whether the crash had anything to do with technology is pure speculation at this point with no opportunity to draw any conclusions. An investigation into what caused the crash has only just begun and it'll be months before we get results.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 31 2015, @10:42AM
If you want to ask that question, and by all means it's a valid question to ask given the way the original site went downhill in the last 10 years (although I argue this story did have a potential systems failure - and indeed it did, with an extreme case of OSI layer 8 failure - meatware always has unusual bugs), but why not ask about this trash? [soylentnews.org], with no tech angle whatsoever?
(Score: 3, Funny) by darkfeline on Tuesday March 24 2015, @05:59PM
>5000 fps
What is fps? Fucks per second?
That IS pretty fast. If I were cursing 5000 times per second something must have gone seriously wrong.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday March 24 2015, @10:03PM
I wonder why articles published to the general public sometimes seem determined to use annoying units. Is it so hard to put speeds in MPH or KPH? That way I don't have to do the unit conversions to have any idea how fast it was going. Just from looking at inches per second vs. miles per hour, the size of the number doesn't tell you anything.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2015, @10:57PM
#MLGSWAGYOLO5420FPSDESCENT
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pkrasimirov on Tuesday March 24 2015, @01:46PM
Last flight of D-AIPX: http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/d-aipx/#5d42675 [flightradar24.com]
May God have mercy on their souls.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday March 24 2015, @02:00PM
One oddity of that link is that the last flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf is listed as "cancelled". Apparently that site doesn't have a code for "crashed".
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Tuesday March 24 2015, @02:23PM
Also https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CA3cSHoXEAAeUfL.jpg [twimg.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by francois.barbier on Tuesday March 24 2015, @05:04PM
Yup.
Then they remove it from all the screens, so people wondering where the flight went go ask why to a ticket counter where they receive the bad news.
Thus no need for a loud message across the airport that might frighten other people.
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday March 24 2015, @02:24PM
Artifact of their flight data importer, I bet.
Its been a long time since ground school, but you could only delete a flight plan up to two hours before scheduled takeoff and anyone can cancel a plan (anyone, as in ATC, FSS, you on your cell phone) but once its open I think it was a legal thing that only the PIC who activated/opened the plan can close it as a successful flight. And there seems little point in letting the plan time out and getting the french equiv of civil air patrol out to search when they already got planes orbiting the crash site.
So can't delete because its after T-2 hours of takeoff, can't close it because the guy who opened it is probably dead and its illegal (or at least "bad form") for anyone else to close a plan, but controllers cancel plans all the time for good reason. And they gotta do something or the civil air patrol will be automagically alerted although they've already found the crash site. So... cancel the flight plan, and it shows up on the website as cancelled.
Supposedly you get a nastygram in the mail (maybe worse?) if you fail to close your plan and the FAA sends out the searchers for you. Usually the destination ATC gets a call asking if you landed as the first step, but if they send out CAP and alert the emergency services you'll get a nastygram in the mail if it turns out you just forgot. And if you closed someone elses plan and they were huddled at a crash in the woods you'd be in big trouble. So I'm not sure of the border between illegal and merely hugely impolite WRT closing someone elses plan.
Most cancellations are paperwork/data entry F ups in the olden days (no I'm not flying from Chicago to Austria, something got messed up, cancel and start over) or the weather changed so either cancel the VFR plan and make a IFR on the fly or cancel the IFR because the weather is beautiful or screw the flight plan I'm going sight seeing along the way, or medical-ish (I got me a tummy ache so the layover is now going to be half a day not 30 minutes to top off the tanks).
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by isostatic on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:17PM
Why bring magical faries into the conversation?
Allah Akbar!
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday March 24 2015, @05:21PM
More like Inshallah : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:30PM
> May God have mercy on their souls.
They crashed in highly secular France. God may optionally get involved, after the State is done with the bodies.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2015, @01:50PM
Did not the very same company just recently have a computer glitch?
The computer put the plane into a fast decent for about a 1000 meters.
Makes me worry about flying just about now.
Even though you have humans to take control, if the computer goes crazy, what is the human going to do? Reboot to a blue screen of death before kissing ass goodbye?
(Score: 5, Informative) by TK-421 on Tuesday March 24 2015, @02:29PM
The A320 has multiple levels of computer control, called "law", with one of them being zero. When all else fails it will drop down into direct law. Yes it is still fly-by-wire, but it no longer is making any decisions on behalf of the pilots, pilot demand is directly translated to flight control surface movements.
With that said there are still some things about Airbus that I find concerning. I am not a licensed pilot though a few in my family are and my spouse and I have taken a few lessons. With that said I feel confident in saying my opinions fall solidly in the "enthusiast" category. First, even in direct law the flight controls (stick, rudder, and trim) are configured for "summing". So if the captain pulls back on the stick to pitch up maximum and the first officer pushes forward on the stick to pitch over maximum the plane does nothing because both pilots contributed inputs that cancel each other out. If the crew are not communicating with each other they have no way of knowing that they are fighting each other while the plane keeps doing what it's doing. If you study some of the bigger crashes in the last few decades you will find plenty of examples of both pilots disagreeing on proper course of action to regain control of the plane. One thinks the plane is going too fast and the other thinks the plane is on verge of a stall. Second, some of the flight controls on the stick do not have enough authority over the flight control surfaces to handle extreme events. An example would be when operating in one of the alternate law modes and the failure that got you there is causing the plane to pitch up thus screwing up the angle of attack and setting the stage for a stall. If the pitch is bad enough then neither pilot's stick has enough authority to fully push the nose over. The manual trim wheel must be used in conjunction with the stick. Like I said, I am just an enthusiast. I would be very concerned that if it were me in that situation I would forget to use the trim wheel. In fact XL Airways Germany Flight 888T had that very problem and crashed in 2008. If an experienced air crew can forget to use the manual trim wheel I know damned well I would too.
Here are links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes#Mechanical_law [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XL_Airways_Germany_Flight_888T [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:18PM
Which is why you have the verbal 'I have control' - 'You have control' handshake so that this situation is avoided. There should never be any doubt as to which pilot has control. If one of the flightdeck crew is incapacitated, and therefore unable to acknowledge the 'handshake', then he shouldn't be countering the input of the other. But, as VLM has already pointed out, it is much too early to have any significant facts regarding what happened - most of what is being discussed is speculation.
I can think of some scenarios where communication becomes almost impossible - but I don't think that any additional speculation will contribute positively to this discussion.
(Score: 1) by TK-421 on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:57PM
Roger that!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2015, @06:57PM
Captain Oveur: Roger!
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Tower voice: L.A. departure frequency, 123 point 9'er.
Captain Oveur: Roger!
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Victor Basta: Request vector, over.
Captain Oveur: What?
Tower voice: Flight 2-0-9'er cleared for vector 324.
Roger Murdock: We have clearance, Clarence.
Captain Oveur: Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?
Tower voice: Tower's radio clearance, over!
Captain Oveur: That's Clarence Oveur. Over.
Tower voice: Over.
Captain Oveur: Roger.
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Tower voice: Roger, over!
Roger Murdock: What?
Captain Oveur: Huh?
Victor Basta: Who?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Steve Hamlin on Tuesday March 24 2015, @05:12PM
"which is why you have the verbal 'I have control' - 'You have control' handshake so that this situation is avoided. There should never be any doubt as to which pilot has control."
There are also technical solutions to help alleviate this problem, in addition to proper CRM, such as providing feedback between the dual controls.
Air France 447, the Airbus A330 that crashed in 2009 in the mid-Atlantic between South America and Europe: "The flight controls are not linked between the two pilot seats, and...the left seat pilot who believed he had taken over control of the plane, was not aware that [the right seat pilot] had continued to hold the stick back, which overrode [the left seat pilot's] own control." [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Human_factors_and_computer_interaction] [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday March 24 2015, @06:03PM
If the incapacitated pilot is slumped over the controls it could be a problem.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday March 24 2015, @06:12PM
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday March 24 2015, @06:17PM
Yes, providing he's wearing it...
(Score: 2) by TK-421 on Tuesday March 24 2015, @06:21PM
Always wear your harness!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_5390 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by TLA on Wednesday March 25 2015, @10:47AM
wow, that is nuts!
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday March 24 2015, @02:54PM
if the computer goes crazy
Tangentially the most interesting thing pre-80s sci fi got wrong was invariably there was "the" computer. For all of the moon, or an entire starship, or whatever. Reality most interestingly seems to average at least one independent processor per 100 pounds of "thing".
So if the autopilot blue screens who cares, shut it down and fly manual the rest of the way. MFD#3 fails, who cares you got 3 others. The embedded controller in VHF radio 2 fails, who cares ya got two. Engine computer 4 fails, so what you got 1 2 and 3 and all the other engines too.
I'm trying to think of one computer that could fail and take out the plane... Might be situations where you simply run out of time, like the anti-lock brakes computer fails after landing such that you run off the end of the runway before you can stop on a snowy day?
(Score: 1) by TK-421 on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:53PM
I agree, the design is solid, no single failure you listed is a big concern. However, in my opinion, there is another source of the second failure, the pilots.
Now don't misunderstand, I absolutely believe humans should be in the cockpit and they should ultimately be in charge. However they absolutely can be the second failure.
A few examples:
1.) Birgenair Flight 301. A Boeing 757 crashed as the result of a single pitot tube failing while the other pitot tube worked perfectly. This resulted in two different indicated air speeds (IAS). By believing the wrong IAS the captain slowed the plane to the point of stall. The stall warning systems all told him he was in a stall and he totally failed to believe anything other than the faulty IAS.
2.) Air France Flight 447. An Airbus A330 crashed after all three pitot tubes failed and resulted in no IAS of any kind. Rather than configure their plane so as to allow stable flight in the absence of an IAS the air crew falsely believed they were flying too fast and flew the plane into a stall.
3.) XL Airways Germany Flight 888T. An Airbus A320 crashed after both angle-of-attack sensors failed as the result of being pressure washed on the ground. They worked fine until the water in the sensors froze. This one is interesting, to me at least. The sensors didn't "fail" to the point that the computers could disable them so direct law was never achieved. The sensors told the computers that AOA was low and the computers attempted to compensate by pitching the nose up. The air crew had to either manually drop to direct law or take extreme measures such as the trim wheel to get control. Why didn't they? Ah, great question. They were on a shake down flight. The plane was changing owners. The air crew was purposefully engaging all the safety features of the plane so they were purposefully putting the plane into situations that forced the computers to do their magic. The air crew were "expecting" silly crap to happen and didn't realize quick enough to determine that something serious was actually happening.
The air crew is sometimes the second failure that results in the big crashes. Fortunately in the third example there were no passengers but all three were total losses with no survivors. Computers fail but flight was happening long before computers. Air crews need to know how to fly their air planes and I can tell you without a doubt, there are air crews that rely too much on the computers. When the computers fail, the humans fail too sometimes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday March 24 2015, @05:00PM
In all those examples its interesting that the "computer as a third pilot" hasn't entered existing cockpit procedures.
There's a technical term for the operations/discipline of a pilot team WRT who does what, who says what, keeping each other informed, noise discipline no chatter during critical times, cooperate, checklists, formal discussion of who has control, and the pilots and copilots have been trained to do pretty well as a team but sometimes, some flight instruments and flight computers are almost a parody of the opposite of proper cockpit discipline. Like if the copilot was in a confused panic but refused to inform the pilot, or pilot decided to ignore all input from the copilot, everyone trained in cockpit discipline would be all over them, like what idiot trained that yahoo, how did he ever get past his check flight, who hired this moron, etc, but when computers misbehave as part of a pilot team, "eh, well, computers, you know, they just kinda do what they want".
The first example is a classic dude with one clock knows what time it is even if he's wrong, dude with three clocks can make a scientific estimate of the time, but dude with two clocks doesn't know much about the time other than he owns two clocks.
(Score: 2) by TLA on Wednesday March 25 2015, @10:53AM
I was just reading about a flight over Corsica in 1981 that clipped the summit of a mountain due to the ATC guy and the pilot both making (terminally incorrect) assumptions about the disposition of the aircraft (the ATC didn't have RADAR at the time), ultimately on the pilot who then chose to ignore the ground proximity warning costing 180 lives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inex-Adria_Aviopromet_Flight_1308 [wikipedia.org]
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 2) by TLA on Wednesday March 25 2015, @12:23AM
how many winter landings have overshot the runway at Reagan and ended up in the Potomac?
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 3, Touché) by ikanreed on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:25PM
Where do you bury the survivors?
It's a trick question.
Everyone died.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday March 24 2015, @10:14PM
Why would you bury live people anywhere?
Parse Error
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 25 2015, @02:21PM
Phil Robertson would, if they are atheists.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:44PM
It happens more often than it should: plane gets maintenance on Monday, crashes on Tuesday (or later that week).
I would not be surprised if they figured out that the maintenance was done quite by the book. It doesn't take much to not put something back quite right, with devastating consequences.
(Score: 4, Informative) by isostatic on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:00PM
A maintenance "A check" occurs about every 125 hours of flying, so with a utilisation of say 12 hours a day, that's every 10 days, so there's a good chance a plane that crashes shortly after maintenence.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:12PM
I think that you meant to say "wasn't done quite by the book"?
But I agree, human error is far more often the cause of an accident that we would like to believe.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:21PM
D'oh!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:25PM
The flipside is that if the engineers did the inspection/maintenance by the book, then they are off the hook, that's what the book is for.
For everyone's sakes, I hope (which is a useless thing to do) that indeed it was all by the book, and this is just a freak catastrophe. If not, then culpability needs to be addressed harshly, sometimes the strict rules are really there to protect you.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday March 24 2015, @06:11PM
It's a bit of a delicate balance. If the consequences are too high, everyone will lawyer up and you'll never learn why the plane crashed.
As long as the responsible party isn't a psychopath, they'll beat themselves up enough to make sure it doesn't happen again.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday March 24 2015, @10:17PM
Why would you hope it's a freak thing? If there was a mistake somewhere that people can point to, in theory that mistake can be fixed.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 25 2015, @12:26AM
If something wasn't right there's blame. There's something that was done wrong. Therefore the loss of lives was likely avoidable. That's a way way worse situation IMHO.
I.e. it's not better to be bad such that you can improve.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday March 25 2015, @12:57PM
With respect to safety-critical items in aviation, I respectfully disagree. If something fails, there is ALWAYS blame. Maybe not always blame in the sense of specific punishable culpability, but at least blame in the sense of something done wrong or some highly unusual condition occurring and not successfully detected and mitigated. The design was inadequate, or the construction was poor, or the workmanship was lacking, or the crew was inattentive or not adequately trained or experienced, or a part of the aircraft caught fire, or the structure was overstressed due to very rare external conditions which were not adequately detected, or something in the cargo caught fire, or intentional mayhem, or software behaved unpredictably, or icing was allowed to proceed to criticality, etc.
The closest thing to something where only god or nature can be "blamed" is something like fatal destruction due to clear air turbulence or fatal loss of control due to wind shear when in close proximity to terrain, and these have progressively been reduced to vanishingly small probabilities through technical measures and achievements.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 25 2015, @01:38PM
It also appears you don't believe in black swans - have you thought of a career in finance?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday March 26 2015, @10:16PM
I'm not saying freak things don't happen. But if it's not a freak thing, it can be prevented in the future. I would much rather somebody gets blamed and fired over it, and the problem fixed, than we just say, "Oh well, it was an act of God. Maybe it'll happen again. But at least no one's feelings were hurt!"
Deciding whether or not the accident could have been avoided seems like a rather pointless exercise. It wasn't, so the bad thing happened. At that point you just want to know whether it can be fixed/avoided next time. Saying "this guy fucked up" doesn't bring back the victims.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 27 2015, @10:02AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday March 27 2015, @03:35PM
No, you hope it was a freak accident and I hope somebody fucked up.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2015, @06:30PM
I'd rather worry if the last maintenance was a year ago.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mendax on Tuesday March 24 2015, @07:35PM
Airbus does seem to be having problems with their planes lately. Probably a statistical fluke in this case, but I can't help wondering if the complacency in pilots created by modern avionics used by Airbus aren't part of the problem in this crash and the crash in the Java Sea a three months ago.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday March 26 2015, @12:17PM
I'm not sure how boring would be immune from a suicide by the only person in the cockpit.
This crash was indirectly caused by poor airport security in the states (which led to 9/11 which led to reinforced cockpit doors)
(Score: 2) by mendax on Friday March 27 2015, @06:47AM
Oh, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaassssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeee! It was caused by a weak link in the system, one that can never be fully prevented. If anything, Lufthansa went a bit overboard in the cockpit door security area.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday March 24 2015, @11:34PM
Is there any photos of the crash site?
(Score: 2) by TLA on Wednesday March 25 2015, @10:12AM
there are videos but I'm not sure what you expect to see. An aircraft hitting the ground at 600+mph doesn't leave much wreckage. Particularly if it's carrying a nearly full fuel load as well. Apparently it's spread over a 4km-long tract of mountainside.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday March 25 2015, @11:24AM
Here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germanwings-crash-rescuers-discover-a-picture-of-horror-on-a-french-mountainside-10131414.html [independent.co.uk]
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/25/us/new-day-five-things/index.html [cnn.com]
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150325/1019981255.html [sputniknews.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday March 25 2015, @12:40PM
Thanks.
(Score: 2) by TLA on Wednesday March 25 2015, @10:38AM
"This is the worst air disaster ever seen in Mainland France."
What, worse than Air France 4590?
(in case you forgot, that was the Concorde that took off at CDG with a wing on fire after a tyre blew through it, then crashed through a hotel killing all 100 passengers, 9 crew aboard and 4 on the ground. It could have been a LOT worse. Not to belittle this disaster in any way, but at least this one crashed away from any heavily populated area).
Or the Turkish Airlines DC10, flight 981, in 1974 that claimed 349 over Bois d'Ermenonville?
How about the IAA flight 1308 over Mt. San Pietro, Corsica in 1981 that claimed 180 souls when the aircraft collided with a mountain at 6800 feet?
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday March 26 2015, @12:15PM
Concorde had 113 deaths. This was 150. But yes the others were worse.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday March 25 2015, @04:06PM
There are two black boxes: one for flight data and one for voice. The latter was found: http://mashable.com/2015/03/25/germanwings-black-box/ [mashable.com] Don't worry, the memory is in that round good-looking thing. The smashed box is the power source.