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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, 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.
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