Posted on 03/24/2015 3:55:35 AM PDT by Drago
"An Airbus A320 has crashed in the southern French Alps, a security source has said." & "A Germanwings A320 has crashed in the southern French Alps, according to security sources."
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.fr ...
Sorry. Yesterday
Germanwings/Lufthansa may already have some idea of what happened as many modern commercial aircraft have the ACARS system which reports to dispatch and maintenance offices what is going on with the engines and other systems aboard.
Reuters:
Germanwings says believes 67 Germans were among crash victims, that number could change.
Independent:
Eye-witnesses of today’s plane crash in the French Alps spoke of seeing the aircraft skim the mountain tops before it crashed far from any human habitation.
-
Initial numbers suggest 67 German passengers were on board, although that has not been verified. There were also believed to be more than 40 Spaniards.
Mirror:
The CEO of Germanwings, Thomas Winkelman, is speaking at the press conference.
He is speaking slowly and his voice is trembling - he’s clearly very emotional.
He says the Germanwings plane was checked by Lufthansa engineers yesterday.
Mr Winkelman says he hopes to find out “as soon as possible” what caused the crash.
Guardian:
Germanwings is giving a press conference. Two babies were on board, the company spokesman says says.
The aeroplane left Barcelona at 10.01am and the destination was Dusseldorf. There were 144 passengers, on board, two babies and six crew members.
At 10.47am it left its travel and cruising altitude ... and entered into a descent stage. This stage lasted for a total of eight minutes. The contact between the aeroplane and the French radar (air traffic control) broke off at 10.53 ... The plane then crashed.
Oops, 10 mins was my speculation, Germanwings is saying 8 mins. decent.
So if they know and they aren’t telling the demanding media, maybe they can’t quite make sense of it.
Thomas Winkelmann, chief executive Germanwings speaking at a press conference said:
Contact between the plane and French air traffic controllers broke off at 10:53 (9:53 GMT) at an altitude of approx 6,000ft. The plane then crashed.
The last routine check and inspection of the aircraft took place on 23 March in Duesseldorf -the technicians were from Lufthansa.
Last regular inspection was carried out in summer 2013.
The captain has more than 10 years of experience with Lufthansa and Germanwings, and more than 6,000 hours of flying Airbus models.
To protect family members and cabin crew the list of passengers will not be released immediately.
It’s very sad.
Two babies, but a whole class of high schoolers on a special exchange with a Spanish school were returning home. That grips my heart like a vise. All those families proud of their teens, awaiting their return... I have a teen.
How do you find that info in advance of departure?
There was about 147 people killed last week by terrorists and hundreds injured.
That did not get as much coverage as this on all major networks.
Terrorists probably feel this is a better way to wake up the world and get the coverage they want.
Hello Hussein Obama, please pick up the red phone.
Yes... let’s not get on our “high horse” or anything.
It’s really Christianity’s fault.. because of the Crusades. Or something.
It’s up to the media to ask the right questions and they probably don’t know that ACARS exists. They’re always focused on the ‘black box’ recovery as if that’s the holy grail of every airline mishp.
The airline isn’t going to willingly divulge information when they are facing a slew of lawsuits. When the French version of the NTSB gets around to it they’ll gather the ACARS info if it’s available.
Airbus has a fly by wire problem..see this
“This sounds eerily like the alert our A320 crews recently received with regard to contaminated AOA probes. A red OEB is due to be released shortly.
While airspeed is fine, the aircraft “thinks” AOA is too high, and a forced nose down attitude occurs while in Normal Law.
The solution is to remove two ADRS, leaving one, placing the aircraft in Alternate Law and control can be regained. The crew can then stop the nose down command. (Which occurs with the autopilot on or off). “
“He says the Germanwings plane was checked by Lufthansa engineers yesterday.”
Did they not catch a terrorist last week who was trying to join Isis’s who worked as a mechanic for American and other airlines?
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she will travel to Germanwings crash site Wednesday, has agreed to work with France and Spain to investigate cause - @Reuters
Obama would continue on to the 5th hole.
Confusion now about distress signal or lack of one.
If there was no distress signal this opens up another can of worms.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.