A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps.

[masterwig]

Re: A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps. BBC

Sky news app said it hadn't had a full service since 2013 which really shocked me. I'd have thought they'd have them done annually as a minimum. Given the potential consequences of malfunction I find it remarkable they don't have to be thoroughly checked more often.

 

[The Northern Baptist]

Re: A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps. BBC

Sky news app said it hadn't had a full service since 2013 which really shocked me. I'd have thought they'd have them done annually as a minimum. Given the potential consequences of malfunction I find it remarkable they don't have to be thoroughly checked more often.

Im no expert, but I think what they mean by a full service is it is completely stripped and put back together again, with anything deemed faulty or worn being changed. They won't do this annually nor would there be a need to.

 

[The Northern Baptist]

Re: A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps. BBC

Reports suggest it was under military escort, although it is the Daily Mail..

If it had been in UK airspace, and descending for 10 minutes without communication, then we would most likely have scrambled an escort to go look what the problem was, we have planes on 24/7 standby for just this scenario. The thing is, if the french did this, why have they not said anything ?

I still think everything points to the pilots being out of action for some reason, they'll know that fairly quickly now they have the data recorder, although nothing yet said about voice recorders as far as I have seen.

Question from amateur and very nervous flyer, would autopilot not have been on so far into the flight? Therefore why crash there if the pilots were incapacitated?

At a guess , there has been some sort of decompression of the cabin, they have disengaged the autopilot to descend to a level where people can breath but they have passed out and the plane has carried on dropping and eventually hit the mountains. Would also explain the pretty much straight route it took into its final crash site

 

[cleavers]

Re: A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps. BBC

Question from amateur and very nervous flyer, would autopilot not have been on so far into the flight? Therefore why crash there if the pilots were incapacitated?

Purely a guess, that it had suffered some sort of decompression, if so the pilots would have had to put it into a rapid (ish) descent to get to breathable air around 10000 feet (the masks you get only give enough oxygen to allow this), it might even have been programmed into the autopilot to do that at a button press (don't know if that's how it would be done), if the pilots were subsequently incapacitated, it would have carried on descending until it hit the ground.

 

[stonerblue]

Re: A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps. BBC

Having been involved in MRO environments as an inspector for many years I can honestly say that European aviation maintenance is unrivalled. I have worked with Lufthansa Technik and Airbus Engineers who's attention to detail goes without question... These tragic events do happen rarely and usually as a result of a chain of catastrophic events, not because of ageing airframes or terrorism. I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't down to pitot static issues.. Icing or blockage of the pitot static ports/vanes which give the fwd airspeed, attitude information to the aircraft systems and crew, more importantly the autopilot which would have been in control during this phase of flight...

My thoughts and condolences go out to all affected by this tragic event....

I remember one plane went down because someone had left the cover of one of these little nozzles and a bug crawled in.
They kept putting more power down and going higher thinking they were going down, it stalled and down it went.

Such a tiny mistake, that day it was not checked either if it was on or off or something, i forget exactly.

Pitot tube issue

 

[west didsblue]

Re: A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps. BBC

.

 

[Ducado]

Re: A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps. BBC

Sky news app said it hadn't had a full service since 2013 which really shocked me. I'd have thought they'd have them done annually as a minimum. Given the potential consequences of malfunction I find it remarkable they don't have to be thoroughly checked more often.

That does not mean it has not been serviced it has been explained by those involved in the industry

 

[Gelsons Dad]

Re: A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps. BBC

The profile of this flight does not match the pitot static icing problems. It's probably a red herring. There is no problem with the age or servicing of the aircraft. The key to this accident is the lack of communication during the descent. As they were being called by ATC throughout.

edit: no problem with the servicing but the age may be a factor causing structural failure.
If I was a betting man I would go for a structural failure causing rapid decompression and the crew lost consciousness as they were initiating the descent. Autopilot flew the aircraft into the ground. The aircraft has a ground proximity warning system but I'm not sure of it's relationship to autopilot modes. It may have caused an Autopilot trip at the end.

 

[west didsblue]

Re: A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps. BBC

Reports suggest it was under military escort, although it is the Daily Mail..

If it had been in UK airspace, and descending for 10 minutes without communication, then we would most likely have scrambled an escort to go look what the problem was, we have planes on 24/7 standby for just this scenario. The thing is, if the french did this, why have they not said anything ?

I still think everything points to the pilots being out of action for some reason, they'll know that fairly quickly now they have the data recorder, although nothing yet said about voice recorders as far as I have seen.

Question from amateur and very nervous flyer, would autopilot not have been on so far into the flight? Therefore why crash there if the pilots were incapacitated?

The autopilot would have been on. It's likely that following the incident (whatever it was), the pilot initiated a descent using the autopilot. According to sources I've read, the descent rate varied indicating it was probably an idle thrust descent with the autopilot maintaining the Indicated Air Speed (forward speed). In fact it appeared to be an unremarkable descent; had the autopilot not been connected the descent would have been much more erratic. Presumably the pilot failed to set a new altitude for the autopilot to capture before he was incapacitated, so the aircraft continued down until it hit the ground. The descent rate, although fast, was much lower than an emergency descent rate.

 

[Gelsons Dad]

Re: A320 Airbus Crashes In The Alps. BBC

If it had been in UK airspace, and descending for 10 minutes without communication, then we would most likely have scrambled an escort to go look what the problem was, we have planes on 24/7 standby for just this scenario. The thing is, if the french did this, why have they not said anything ?

I still think everything points to the pilots being out of action for some reason, they'll know that fairly quickly now they have the data recorder, although nothing yet said about voice recorders as far as I have seen.

Question from amateur and very nervous flyer, would autopilot not have been on so far into the flight? Therefore why crash there if the pilots were incapacitated?

The autopilot would have been on. It's likely that following the incident (whatever it was), the pilot initiated a descent using the autopilot. According to sources I've read, the descent rate varied indicating it was probably an idle thrust descent with the autopilot maintaining the Indicated Air Speed (forward speed). In fact it appeared to be an unremarkable descent; had the autopilot not been connected the descent would have been much more erratic. Presumably the pilot failed to set a new altitude for the autopilot to capture before he was incapacitated, so the aircraft continued down until it hit the ground. The descent rate, although fast, was much lower than an emergency descent rate.

I concur.