Vol AF 447

Le Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses (BEA), chargé de l'enquête technique sur le crash du vol de Rio AF447, communiquera son deuxième rapport d'étape le 14 décembre aux familles des victimes, a indiqué mercredi à l'AFP la Fédération nationale des victimes d'accidents collectifs

The Director of the BEA will be in Rio de Janeiro on 12 December, accompanied by the Investigator-in-Charge, M. Bouillard. He will be meeting the families of the Brazilian victims, to whom he will give an update on the progress achieved in the AF 447 accident investigation.
The second interim report will be published on Thursday 17 December. On this occasion, the BEA will hold a press briefing at its HQ at Le Bourget from 15 h to 17 h. Journalists who wish to attend are asked to confirm their presence as soon as possible with Martine Del Bono, preferably by e-mail.
Previous to this, the BEA will present an update on the progress of the investigation and the sea searches to the representatives of the associations « Entraide et solidarité AF447 », « Association pour la vérité, l'aide et la défense des victimes du vol AF 447 » and « HIOP AF 447 ».

The BEA has launched an investigation into the event that occurred during flight AF 445 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, during the night of 29 November 2009, to the A330-203 operated by Air France. An analysis of this event is likely to throw some additional light on the accident on 1st June 2009 between Rio de Janeiro and Paris to the A330-203, flight AF 447.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 12, 2009The search for the black boxes from an Air France airliner crash off Brazil six months ago will resume in early February, the head of the French office investigating the accident said here Saturday.

PARIS, 17 décembre (Reuters) - Les causes de l'accident du vol AF447, qui a fait 228 morts entre Rio et Paris le 1er juin dernier, restent à ce jour inconnues, selon le nouveau rapport du Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses publié jeudi. Selon le BEA, les "incohérences" repérées dans la mesure de la vitesse de l'Airbus d'Air France ne peuvent expliquer à elles-seules l'accident.
"A ce stade de l'enquête, et malgré les analyses approfondies menées par le BEA à partir des éléments disponibles, il n'est toujours pas possible de comprendre les causes et les circonstances de l'accident", peut-on lire dans le rapport publié sur le site internet du BEA.
"Le BEA confirme que le phénomène d'incohérence de mesure de vitesse a été l'un des éléments d'une chaîne d'événements ayant conduit à l'accident, mais ne peut l'expliquer à lui seul", ajoute le texte.
Le BEA émet deux recommandations: il souhaite renforcer les procédures de recherche des appareils et de recueil des données en cas d'accident en mer et veut améliorer l'analyse des masses nuageuses à haute altitude pour les vols long courrier.
A terme, cela pourrait conduire à modifier les procédures de certification des avions, selon le BEA.

French investigators are planning a 60-day renewed search for flight recorders from the crashed [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], with preparatory work set to be completed next month.
In an update to the inquiry into the loss of flight AF447 on 1 June the Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses says it is working to define the search zone and select the means to carry out the search.
The search zone work involves enhancing the data available regarding the aircraft's last known position and refining the modelling of currents in the area on the date of the crash.
BEA says the search team will estimate the drift of debris and put forward a probability distribution in a bid to find the most likely location of the wreckage.
"As regards the selection of the means to be employed, a review of equipment that allows work to be carried out down to a depth of 6,000m is under way," it adds.
The international group planning the search - the third co-ordinated attempt to locate the A330 - includes representatives from air accident investigation agencies in Germany, the UK, the USA, Russia and Brazil.
It also features the US Navy and the French Government's maritime agency Secretariat General a la Mer, plus specialised oceanographic, meteorological and mathematical institutes.
BEA says it wants to complete preparatory work in January and deploy resources in the search zone from February 2010.
"If the wreckage is localised, a campaign of undersea observation, cartography, raising some part of the equipment from the wreckage and - if need be - the recovery of any human remains will follow the searches," it says.

Current testing appears inadequate to evaluate how aircraft equipment, particularly pilot airspeed probes, will perform at high altitudes, the French board investigating June's Air France Airbus A330 crash [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] Thursday.
The flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed on June 1 after flying into stormy weather, killing all 228 people aboard. The board said it still has not determined the precise cause of the accident, although its findings show the jet probably hit the water intact.
"(C)ertification criteria are not representative of the conditions that are really encountered at high altitude, for example with regard to temperatures," France's air accident investigation board (BEA) said in its second report on the disaster. "In addition, it appears that some elements, such as the size of the ice crystals within cloud masses, are little known and that it is consequently difficult to evaluate the effect that they may have on some equipment, in particular the pitot probes. In this context, the tests aimed at the validation of this equipment do not appear to be well-adapted to flights at high altitude."
The board recommended "studies to determine with appropriate precision the composition of cloud masses at high altitude" and modification of certification criteria.
"We've always said that the pitot probes were one of the factors in the chain of events that led to the accident, but they can't be the sole cause," BEA director Jean-Paul Troadec told reporters at Paris Le Bourget airport, according to an Agence France Presse [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].
Blocked probes send false readings, which can set off error messages and disrupt computerized fly-by-wire systems. French and U.S. authorities already have ordered airlines to replace certain pitot probes on A330 and A340 jets.
The board said it still has not determined the precise circumstances of the accident, and therefore its causes, because the jet's flight recorders have not been found. French, American, Russian, German, Brazilian and British investigators are preparing a third phase of searches for the flight recorders, to start in February, the board noted.
The investigation "confirms the importance of data from the flight recorders" and "brings to light the difficulties that can be encountered in localizing, recovering and reading out the recorders after an accident in the sea," the board wrote.
The board noted that it formed an international working group to look into better ways to safeguard flight data and/or help find wreckage and recover recorders. Based on that, it recommended:

• Extending underwater locator beacon transmission time to 90 days for flight recorders on commercial passenger aircraft flying over maritime areas;
  
• Requiring such aircraft to have an additional beacon capable of transmitting on a frequency and for a duration adapted to the finding wreckage;
  
• Studying a possible requirement for commercial passenger aircraft to regularly transmit basic flight parameters such as position, altitude, speed, heading.
  

The latest report also adds some noteworthy findings, including that:

• 21 messages in the current flight report are or can be caused by anemometric (wind speed) problems while none indicate loss of displays or inertial information (attitudes);
  
• The oxygen masks had not been released, meaning there had been no in-flight depressurisation;
  
• All of the life jackets that were found were still in their containers;
  
• The airplane's flaps were retracted at the time of the impact with the water;
  
• The three cabin crew seats found (of the jet's 11 total) were not in use at the time of the impact;
  
• Examination of debris confirmed that the airplane struck water pitch-up, with a slight bank and at a high vertical speed.
  

Investigators have traced additional ACARS messages from the ill-fated Air France Airbus A330 back to the aircraft's anemometric systems, but have yet to understand the final few minutes of the flight.
Ten of the 24 automated messages transmitted in the final five minutes of communication have been attributed to an inconsistency of speed measurements, while another 11 can also be linked to anemometric problems.
France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses has been able to understand several messages which it had been unexplained in its preliminary report into the loss of flight AF447 over the South Atlantic on 1 June.
These include messages centred on invalid or inconsistent air data references, as well as the inoperability of the collision-avoidance system - a situation which could be triggered by electrical problems or a failed altitude credibility check.
While several of the messages refer to the loss of individual functions, such as the flight director and characteristic speed markers, the BEA says that none of the messages indicates a loss of displays or attitude information.
Investigators have discovered that at least one additional message - a follow-up to a maintenance status transmission - should have been sent by the aircraft, but was never received. The BEA has yet to determine the reason.
"At this stage, in the absence of any data from the flight recorders, the main parts of the aircraft, and any witness testimony on the flight, the precise circumstances of the accident, and therefore its causes, have still not been determined," it states.
One of the messages indicates that the aircraft's cabin altitude underwent changes in excess of 1,800ft/min for five seconds, although the BEA has not confirmed the direction of this change.
But investigators state that there was no in-flight depressurisation, adding that oxygen masks had not been deployed in the cabin.
Evidence gathered from the crash site has also revealed other aspects of the accident which have yet to be fully understood.
All of the life-jackets retrieved were still packed in their containers. Examination of the cabin crew seats - three of the 11 fitted have been found - shows that none of them had been occupied on impact, but the location of the cabin crew at the time remains unclear. The inquiry has also still to determine the location of the captain.
No distress message from the flight was received by any aircraft or air traffic control centre.
From the damage sustained by the aircraft investigators have concluded that its nose was pitched up when it struck the water heavily, but that its wings were only slightly banked and its flaps were retracted. Damage to the vertical fin, adds the BEA, is "not consistent" with an in-flight failure from lateral forces.

French investigators have detailed initial plans for a third attempt to find the wreckage and flight recorders from the Air France Airbus A330 lost over the South Atlantic in June 2009.
An international team has been trying to narrow the search zone, through oceanographic and meteorological considerations, and has selected the equipment that will be used in the search.
The search team has had to rely on additional data and obtain better estimates of currents and drift effects to refine its results.
France's BEA investigation agency says that the modelling work to determine the search zone has "reached the limits of current knowledge".
BEA adds that the zone will be optimised and revised once the operation starts in mid-March.

Two search vessels - one from Norway's Seabed Group and the other from US underwater engineering specialist Phoenix International - have been recruited for the attempt.
These will be complemented by three autonomous underwater vehicles, two remotely operated vehicles and a deep-towed sonar.
A French naval patrol vessel will be stationed at Cayenne and used to transport the flight recorders if they are recovered.

Neither recorder has been found despite a month-long search, from 10 June to 10 July last year, to detect their acoustic locator beacons, and a follow-up search for the wreckage, from 27 July to 17 August, using towed array sonar.
Air France flight AF447 crashed while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on 1 June 2009.

French-led efforts to recover more parts of Air France Flight 447 that crashed into the Atlantic have encountered delays.

The third search phase was to start now, but the U.S. originating vessel, the Anne Candies is being delayed by "administrative and technical difficulties," the French air accident investigation office, the BEA, reports.

The third search phase has been narrowed following extensive analysis to a smaller area in the Atlantic ocean in the hope of increasing the chances of recovering more debris and, potentially, the cockpit voice and flight data recorder. That is seen as critical to unearth why the A330 crashed last June.

BEA says it hopes to update the search plans on Monday.

Resumption of the search for the flight recorders from crashed Air France flight AF447 has been delayed, but French investigators expect a US detection vessel to arrive in Brazil next week.
The Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses states that the vessel, the Anne Candies, is predicted to reach Recife around 24 March.
Its departure for the scene had been held up by "administrative and technical difficulties", says the BEA, as well as poor weather conditions.
Recovery teams are planning to use deep-water search equipment in a bid to find the wreckage of the Airbus A330 which came down in the South Atlantic on 1 June last year.
Anne Candies is equipped with a dual-frequency towed side-scan sonar, capable of deep-water searches to a depth of 20,000ft (6,100m).
Its operator, Phoenix International, says the equipment can be used to trace a swath with a typical width of 1.8km when hunting for aircraft debris fields.
The vessel also carries a 2.9t cable-controlled underwater recovery vehicle, known as CURV-21.
Anne Candies is set to rendezvous with a second ship, the Seabed Worker, to which it will transfer equipment. The BEA has yet to set a formal date to resume the search. The latest effort will be the third attempt to locate the A330's flight recorders.

Le coup d'envoi a été donné jeudi dans le port de Recife (nord-est du Brésil) à la troisième phase des recherches en mer des enregistreurs de vol de l'Airbus A330 d'Air France.
L'avion s'était abîmé dans l'Atlantique entre Rio de Janeiro et Paris dans la nuit du 31 mai au 1er juin 2009 avec 228 personnes à bord.
Le directeur du Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses (BEA), Jean-Paul Troadec, a déclaré dans une conférence de presse que la reprise des recherches avait pour but de tenter d'élucider les causes de l'accident.
"J'avais fait part en décembre dernier aux familles brésiliennes de notre intention de reprendre les recherches. Je suis revenu au Brésil pour annoncer leur lancement", a affirmé.
"Sans la découverte de l'épave et des enregistreurs de vol ("boites noires") on ne pourra connaître les causes de l'accident", a-t-il souligné.
Selon lui, le BEA s'est donné les moyens de chercher dans d'excellentes conditions. La préparation avec des scienfifiques internationaux a duré six mois et la "zone de recherches a été mieux délimitée, dix fois plus petite que la zone initiale"
Il s'agit d'une véritable expédition avec une centaine de personnes dont des enquêteurs et équipes d'opérations maritimes et sous-marines embarquées sur deux bateaux chargés de matériel hautement sophistiqué, a précisé M. Troadec.
Le "Anne Candies", en provenance des Etats-Unis et le norvégien "Seabed Worker", sont déjà arrivés dans le port de Recife (au nord-est du Brésil à 3.000 km de Rio de Janeiro) et sont équipés de quatre sonars et trois robots.
"Les deux bateaux partiront dimanche vers la zone de recherches", a dit M. Troadec à l'AFP.
Les enquêteurs ont besoin des enregistreurs de vol (les "boîtes noires") pour comprendre les causes de l'accident. Ils ont à maintes reprises assuré que les sondes Pitot de mesure de vitesse étaient certes défaillantes sur l'appareil accidenté, mais qu'elles ne permettaient pas à elles seules d'expliquer l'accident.
Les personnes à bord de l'avion appartenaient à 32 nationalités, dont 72 Français, 58 Brésiliens et 26 Allemands, selon le ministère français des Transports.

Relatives of passengers killed in an Air France crash off Brazil have filed nearly two dozen wrongful death lawsuits in Miami against Airbus, alleging that aircraft maker's A330 crashed because of flaws in the plane and its US-made components.

Airbus called the lawsuits baseless.
"We don't believe that they are well stated or well founded," said Airbus Americas spokesman Clay McConnell. "We will be moving to have them dismissed."

The lawsuits were filed in US district court by the families of passengers aboard Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, some 3-1/2 hours after taking off from Rio de Janeiro.
The Paris-bound plane plunged into the sea 680 miles (1,088 km) off Brazil during a storm, killing all 228 people aboard.

France's aviation investigation agency, the BEA, is leading a probe of the crash but has not determined the cause.
Last week it resumed a search for the plane's data recorders, which are believed to lie at a depth of 13,000 feet (4,000 metres) in the Atlantic off Brazil's northeast coast.

A Miami law firm, Podhurst Orseck, has filed the 23 wrongful death lawsuits in Florida on behalf of passengers' families and expects to file at least 10 more in the next few weeks, firm attorney Steve Marks said.
The identical lawsuits assert that the plane crashed because design and manufacturing defects left the pilots without accurate data to maintain altitude and air speed.

Speculation about the cause of the crash during a storm has focused on the possible icing of the aircraft's speed sensors, which appeared to give inconsistent readings and may have disrupted other systems.
The suits say that the weather radar, ice detector and airspeed indicator provided flawed information while other equipment malfunctioned and engines lacked sufficient power to enable the aircraft to recover from a stall.
Defendants include Airbus and France's Thales and their US subsidiaries. Also named are US companies Honeywell, Motorola, Intel, Rockwell Collins, Hamilton Sundstrand, General Electric, Goodrich, Rosemount Aerospace, Dupont, Judd Wire and Raychem.Marks, the plaintiffs' attorney in Miami, said US courts have jurisdiction because the companies are either US-based or operate in the United States.
"So many US firms are component parts manufacturers, the US legal system has a unique interest in making sure the skies are safe," Marks said.

The crash was the first in-service fatal accident involving the A330, which first flew in 1992, Airbus spokesman McConnell said, adding that 667 of the aircraft are now in service.

Seven people were killed during a 1994 test flight in Toulouse, France, in a crash blamed on pilot error.
Air France is not named in the lawsuits because separate laws and treaties govern airline liability, Marks said.
The Brazilian government has set up a compensation committee with Air France's insurers and victims' families to determine what the families should be paid.

Earlier this month, Air France's insurance company, Axa, said it would appeal a Brazilian court's ruling for the airline company to pay USD$1.16 million in compensation to one crash victim's family. The insurer said then it did not accept the ruling as a precedent because compensation should be decided by the committee.

(Reuters)

Point sur les recherches en mer au 7 avril 2010

Depuis le début des recherches le 2 avril

• L'Orion, sonar remorqué à bord de l' « Anne Candies », a couvert 600 km² ;
  
• les trois Remus, véhicules sous-marins autonomes à bord du « Seabed Worker » ont effectué neuf plongées et couvert une zone de près de 800 km².
  

La situation météorologique sur zone a permis aux équipes de travailler dans de bonnes conditions.

AF 447 : ce que vaut la vie d'un passager

Air France a été condamné par le tribunal de Rio à verser 1 million d'euros à la famille d'une femme procureur.

Un rapport préliminaire d'experts sur le crash de l'A330 du vol AF447 Rio-Paris, qui avait fait 228 morts, "pointe de possibles problèmes de maintenance sur les sondes de vitesse" sans en faire la cause de l'accident, écrit samedi le journal Libération qui a pu consulté le document.

2010 AFP

A financial helping hand from Airbus and Air France, will extend the third search phase for wreckage of AF447 until May 25.
The French transport state secretary Dominique Bussereau asked for an extension, and there it is.
But the research team also is being reduced, not because of money, but because some of the equipment was already slated to do other things. The U.S. Navy, for instance, is withdrawing some of its equipment, and some of the commercial systems also have got other customers waiting.
A month of searching an area researchers identified as the most probably location of the wreckage of the Airbus A330-200 failed to find anything, so prospects for success aren't great for the extended search period. But the BEA, which has been putting an optimistic spin on the entire search, says it “believes that it is in fact still possible to localize the airplane wreckage in or near the zone that has just been explored.”
The BEA says the team will first look at areas located northwest and adjacent to the zone just searched, areas already searched where the difficult ocean terrain makes further analysis potentially useful, and the northern part of the search area previously identified.
Airbus and Air France are each contributing 1.5 million euros to keep the search going.

Selon [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], la Marine française pense avoir localisé à trois kilomètres près les boîtes noires [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], disparu en mer en juin dernier au large du Brésil. Une information confirmée à France-Inter par le ministère de la Défense.

Les enquêteurs ont travaillé sur des enregistrements sonores réalisés par des robots au fond de l’océan, quelques semaines après le crash.

«Plus de doute possible», assure RTL, précisant qu’un robot muni de caméras va désormais plonger dans la zone afin de repérer visuellement les boîtes.