Friday 5 June 2009

The loss of Air France 447

What a horrible tragedy. I can't even start to think what the families of those lost are going through. Even if all they need is some closure from the search teams finding wreckage and therefore confirming the flight crashed into the ocean, recent news suggests that the wreckage found so far is probably not from that flight. What a horrible ordeal to go through.

The flight recorders may never be found. If they are recovered then hopefully the real reason for the tragedy will become clear and the airlines will become even safer than they are now. In the meantime, speculation seems to be the order of the day and unless the real reason for the aircraft's loss is found, we'll be hearing a lot from the crackpot conspiracy theorists. Everything from UFO abductions to government cover-ups will become widespread in the news media and internet and we'll have another generation of people who think critical thinking is something that someone else needs to do for them.

In the meantime, there's a fascinating albeit sobering analysis of the weather AF447 experienced on its final flight. The author is very clear about his opinion, he doesn't know what brought down the aircraft, but thinks that weather might have had something to do with it. It's a fascinating read for anyone interested in meteorology and the ITCZ.

Air France Flight 447: A detailed meteorological analysis.

3 comments:

Zuzana said...

Terrible tragedy and the mystery surrounding this accident makes it even more awful.
I am a very nervous flier and I have flow on the same route on a jumbo with Lufhansa. One of the worst flights of my life, the turbulence was terrible, 4h of severe shaking and at least 8h f constant turbulence.
This was in 2004 and I have not flown since, I even wrote a post about this.
I am now off to follow your interesting link.

Beep said...

I have been following this story and it breaks my heart. I have been praying for the bereaved families.

There are people who will not fly with me because I have a history of dramatic happenings on what should be routine flights, but I feel very lucky actually. So far they've all landed intact, albeit not always comfortably. Well, I've learned all kinds of interesting things, like you can get by without a PERFECTLY functioning hydraulic system, and one engine, even if damaged with the others all dead, IS enough for survival ;)

And I don't know why I was born without much fear and sometimes take stupid risks for that reason. Supposedly that's a psychopathic trait but they also are kind of emotionless and I have extra emotions so I'm not worried I am of their number, heh.

Anna Webb said...

Interesting article and professional perspective on this tragedy.
Great info and thanks for posting it!