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A mystery with only one clue: a catastrophic electrical failure
Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor2 Jun 2009
Investigators were today struggling to explain the disappearance of the Air France flight as mystery over the causes of the crash continued.
Although the notoriously turbulent weather and suggestions of a lightning strike appear to have been factors, aviation experts insisted that such problems alone should not have brought the plane down.
The only definite clues are the automated message sent by the plane moments before its disappearance, reporting a failure of electrical power, pressurisation and other systems.
Today, however, Pierre Sparaco, of the French Air and Space Academy, said that back-up systems in the plane should have been sufficient to allow it to cope with an electrical failure and said that further unknown factors must have triggered the tragedy.
“For a plane to get hit by lightning is totally routine,” he said. “That is not enough to explain it. There must be a missing link.”
With terrorism ruled out by officials, one theory is that the electrical failures combined with fearsomely high winds that can occur in a turbulent area known as the “Pot au Noir” — black cauldron — to completely destabilise the plane.
Jane's Aviation analyst Chris Yates added: “Potentially it went down very quickly and the pilot didn't have a chance to make that emergency call.”
Reader views (1)
A bomb, or a massive explosion on board. These planes are too strong to disintegrate just like that. Remember the Air India plane that was destroyed by a bomb over the
Atlantic very near the west coast of Ireland? Or the 747 that blew up after just taking off from the USA. Was that not caused by fuel vapour in the empty fuel tanks in the fuselage being ignited by electrical wiring running through the tanks shorting out ? Was the last message from the plane about an electrical problem after turbulence? Were some of the tanks of this plane empty?
- Albert Hall, hove england, 03/06/2009 11:06
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