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BREAKING: Germanwings Airbus A-320-200 Crashes in the French Alps

posted by janrinok on Tuesday March 24 2015, @01:18PM   

morpheus writes:

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'.

• Re:descent rate 5000 fps? Re:descent rate 5000 fps? (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:22PM

  by isostatic (365) on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:22PM (#161972) Journal

  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.

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• Re:descent rate 5000 fps? Re:descent rate 5000 fps? (Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:31PM

  by janrinok (52) on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:31PM (#162004) Journal

  ..we should find out quickly [what caused the accident]..

  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.

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  • Re:descent rate 5000 fps? (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 24 2015, @05:16PM

    by isostatic (365) on Tuesday March 24 2015, @05:16PM (#162029) Journal

    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.

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• Re:descent rate 5000 fps? (Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:32PM

  by zocalo (302) on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:32PM (#162005)

  No, the word "it" definitely referred to the descent. The following part of the quote, that I dropped since it was obviously a crap platitude, stated that it was unlikely that the passengers were aware there was a problem. That's clearly bullshit since it's pretty obvious that any barring a catastrophic explosion or similar event that there is no way that anyone onboard an aircraft suffering a major incident at altitude resulting in a sudden descent is NOT going to be aware there is a problem of some kind - let alone when the descent takes several minutes as the source believed to be the case here. Even then there's a possibility of surviving the initial calamity - viz. the theory that some of the crew of Challenger might have survived the initial explosion and died in the impact with the ocean some minutes later, albeit most probably losing conciousness during the descent.

  --
  UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

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• Re:descent rate 5000 fps? (Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:47PM

  by janrinok (52) on Tuesday March 24 2015, @04:47PM (#162013) Journal

  I've just updated the main story, but as it is pertinent to your comment, I can say that the BBC state that the black box has been recovered.

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