Germanwings A320 Crash

fits

If it was hypoxia at least it would have been a fairly peaceful end for those on board. Those rescuers have a terrible job, it must be awful up there.

kona

Carnacalla wrote: »

RTE News's had a man on reporting Hypoxia as a likely cause.

He also said you put masks on other people first.

Probably come out with some incoherent rambling about radar beams next.

cml387

fits wrote: »

If it was hypoxia at least it would have been a fairly peaceful end for those on board.

I'm afraid not. For the sake of argument f it was depressurisation, the masks would have dropped in the cabin. The oxygen lasts for about 15 minutes.
All the passengers would have been fully conscious.

Spanish Eyes

Carnacalla wrote: »

RTE News's had a man on reporting Hypoxia as a likely cause.

There is an alarm isn't there, when sudden decompression happens and then oxygen masks drop down? What if that wasn't working properly. Apologies, speculation from me again...

It's another very sad and incomprehensible aviation disaster.

kona

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

There is an alarm isn't there, when sudden decompression happens and then oxygen masks drop down? What if that wasn't working properly. Apologies, speculation from me again...

It's another very sad and incomprehensible aviation disaster.

If the aircraft is configured incorrectley before take off , there wouldn't be a alarm, just like Helios.
Crews are trained to spot the signs of hypoxia.

space2ground1

That RTE expert who said masks go on children first is live in studio next. I hope he clarifies that error.

Spanish Eyes

space2ground1 wrote: »

That RTE expert who said masks go on children first is live in studio next. I hope he clarifies that error.

Yeah, put your own mask on first, and then your kids. As if that will be adhered to in a panic situation though, most want to help their kids first.

Always listen to the safety briefing!

L1011

space2ground1 wrote: »

That RTE expert who said masks go on children first is live in studio next. I hope he clarifies that error.

"expert"

Rather like the one claiming that the 24kts taxiing speed was an actual airspeed a while ago, or the ones quoting -14000fpm as if it was a valid, sustained reading.

martinsvi

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

There is an alarm isn't there, when sudden decompression happens and then oxygen masks drop down? What if that wasn't working properly. Apologies, speculation from me again...

It's another very sad and incomprehensible aviation disaster.

rapid decompression is both visible (sudden mist) and definitely audible (laud bang followed by hissing noise).. hypoxia theory has absolutely no evidence to back it up. All we know is the plane levelled off at 6800ft (according to Avherald) before the impact. If both crew were incapacitated, who levelled out the plane?

they might as well been stuck troubleshooting something, loosing complete situational awareness - at that time cloud base was slightly below them as well as some scattered/broken well above them.. they were in between clouds, possibly not visual with on-coming terrain. Loosing situational awareness is much more frequent than hypoxia, on this note alone I would give hypoxia a rest until at least some evidence can back it up..

Nforce

martinsvi wrote: »

All we know is the plane levelled off at 6800ft (according to Avherald) before the impact. If both crew were incapacitated, who levelled out the plane?

It also dropped in airspeed (around 100kts)

MoeJay

kona wrote: »

If the aircraft is configured incorrectley before take off , there wouldn't be a alarm, just like Helios.
Crews are trained to spot the signs of hypoxia.

Not so, the alarm will sound (on the 737) if configured incorrectly. It's the same horn as the take-off configuration warning and was mis-identified by the Helios crew.

The A320 will generate an EXCESS CAB ALT even if configured incorrectly and the cabin climbs past 9550'.

SpaceTime

Could the fly by wire systems have leveled it off if the pilots were incapacitated ?

OzCam

space2ground1 wrote: »

That RTE expert who said masks go on children first is live in studio next. I hope he clarifies that error.

He did. First thing he said when Bryan Dobson opened a discussion with him this evening.

andy_g

cml387 wrote: »

I'm afraid not. For the sake of argument f it was depressurisation, the masks would have dropped in the cabin. The oxygen lasts for about 15 minutes.
All the passengers would have been fully conscious.

Just to clear this up and my post wont have speculation.

The Pax o2 masks will automatically drop on Cab Alt of 10000ft. However on some airline configs these may only be dropped from the flight deck.

Now if there was a fire onboard it would explain why no o2 mask deployment. At the moment we have no factual information regarding the flight in question.

Chemical Byrne

What about engine failure? Perhaps the fuel lines got clogged with ice, I remember that being the cause of a failure a while back.

I wonder are they taking seriously the possibility of rogue crew member(s)? I wonder what the background of the flight crew is? Remember for MH370 the authorities probed the crews background after the disappearance to see if they had connections to any terror groups. I think in this case though it's unlikely as if it were the case the plane would have been directed to populated areas and not entered a slow descent to slap into a mountain. They are probably checking behind the scenes anyway I suppose.

Also given the extreme dispersal of the debris, a mid air explosion might be a possibility. Catalonia has a history of violent separatist terrorist movements - possibly a resurgence of Terra Lliure?

The extreme dispersal of the remains will maker recovery and identification a slow and grisly job. Dealing with wildlife and crows will be a nightmare to control,

martinsvi

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

What about engine failure? Perhaps the fuel lines got clogged with ice, I remember that being the cause of a failure a while back.

then you glide it... 400kts ground speed and 3.3k fpm vertical is not how you glide the plane

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

I wonder are they taking seriously the possibility of rogue crew member(s)?

Pilot factor is always examined, just because they don't talk about that publicly doesn't mean they're not looking into it.

wretcheddomain

There's been about 30 different theories at this stage - some more probable than others. The problem is that even an improbable event could have caused this crash - or even something that hasn't yet caused a crash in aviation history.

In this sense, throwing up theories is a complete and utter waste of time. The only people who have the ability to form a 'theory' at this stage are the investigators who will be on the ground and in possession of the black box and flight data recorders.

Aside from them - and only them - I won't be listening to any more hypothetical garbage, whether it comes from the 'experts' on Sky News or individuals on this forum.

Spanish Eyes

wretcheddomain wrote: »

There's been about 30 different theories at this stage - some more probable than others. The problem is that even an improbable event could have caused this crash - or even something that hasn't yet caused a crash in aviation history.

In this sense, throwing up theories is a complete and utter waste of time. The only people who have the ability to form a 'theory' at this stage are the investigators who will be on the ground and in possession of the black box and flight data recorders.

Aside from them - and only them - I won't be listening to any more hypothetical garbage, whether it comes from the 'experts' on Sky News or individuals on this forum.

Off you go then, and leave the speculation and interest in this to others on the forum. The thread has not been locked YET.

Free choice, and you are taking it. All the best now.

smurfjed

Perhaps the fuel lines got clogged with ice, I remember that being the cause of a failure a while back

Yep but that flight operated across Russia for many hours with extremely cold temperatures. This flight was over a nice warm part of Europe!
I also assume that you know how aircraft fuel is heated?

mickdw

wretcheddomain wrote: »

There's been about 30 different theories at this stage - some more probable than others. The problem is that even an improbable event could have caused this crash - or even something that hasn't yet caused a crash in aviation history.

In this sense, throwing up theories is a complete and utter waste of time. The only people who have the ability to form a 'theory' at this stage are the investigators who will be on the ground and in possession of the black box and flight data recorders.

Aside from them - and only them - I won't be listening to any more hypothetical garbage, whether it comes from the 'experts' on Sky News or individuals on this forum.

Well we do know some facts and I don't see the issue with discussing the crash in relation to these facts.
We know that it remained on course.
We know that there was no radio contact from crew.
We have access to altitude and airspeed which show a relatively controlled decent.

Plenty room for sensible discussion there imo.

eatmyshorts

mickdw wrote: »

We have access to altitude and airspeed which show a relatively controlled decent.
.

Access to an intermittent snapshot of altitude and GROUNDSPEED (not IAS).

sjb25

mickdw wrote: »

Well we do know some facts and I don't see the issue with discussing the crash in relation to these facts.
We know that it remained on course.
We know that there was no radio contact from crew.
We have access to altitude and airspeed which show a relatively controlled decent.

Plenty room for sensible discussion there imo.

Key word being sensible some of the stuff being thrown around Is unreal

wretcheddomain

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Off you go then, and leave the speculation and interest in this to others on the forum. The thread has not been locked YET.

Free choice, and you are taking it. All the best now.

This thread was not opened with the specific intention of discussing conspiracy theories, or theories without any evidence - it was opened to discuss the event and if any new knowledge comes to light.

It's for this latter reason I enter the thread, not the former. I'll gleefully overlook the hypothetical components while, at the same time, navigating for the rare nuggets of gold this thread does have to offer.

mickdw wrote: »

Well we do know some facts and I don't see the issue with discussing the crash in relation to these facts.
We know that it remained on course.
We know that there was no radio contact from crew.
We have access to altitude and airspeed which show a relatively controlled decent.
Plenty room for sensible discussion there imo.

True - there have been many useful updates on the thread that are worth discussing, and hypothetical - bordering insane - theories are not a welcome part of that. A moderator mentioned this earlier in the thread - it's a pity his advice has not since been heeded.

Chemical Byrne

I can't get over how dispersed the debris is from that video. I suppose a mid air collision with another craft is possible in theory at least. Maybe something with the transponder switched off. Possible secret military aircraft?

Things seem to be pointing towards decompression though, what would cause such an event? Structural failure of some element? Striking something or something striking the plane?

tigershould

I have 2 questions which I hope someone with knowledge could care to help me with:

The flight descended to 6800' in 10 minutes at a fairly constant speed of ~400knots (does this indicate it was controlled?)

Flight levelled off at 6800' for x mins (does this indicate it was controlled?)

martinsvi

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

I can't get over how dispersed the debris is from that video. I suppose a mid air collision with another craft is possible in theory at least. Maybe something with the transponder switched off. Possible secret military aircraft?

are you just generating these for a laugh now? How does an aircraft collide with something yet maintaining perfectly straight path all the way down?

Nforce

tigershould wrote: »

I have 2 questions which I hope someone with knowledge could care to help me with:

The flight descended to 6800' in 10 minutes at a fairly constant speed of ~400knots (does this indicate it was controlled?)

Flight levelled off at 6800' for x mins (does this indicate it was controlled?)

In my opinion..yes to both questions. It actually slowed down during the decent indicating that the throttles were pulled back

Chemical Byrne

tigershould wrote: »

I have 2 questions which I hope someone with knowledge could care to help me with:

The flight descended to 6800' in 10 minutes at a fairly constant speed of ~400knots (does this indicate it was controlled?)

Flight levelled off at 6800' for x mins (does this indicate it was controlled?)

Perhaps the flight descended to restore an acceptable pressure in the cabin but leveled out at an altitude which brought them too close to terrain. Would the plane automatically perform this maneuver if the crew were unconscious?

sjb25

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

I can't get over how dispersed the debris is from that video. I suppose a mid air collision with another craft is possible in theory at least. Maybe something with the transponder switched off. Possible secret military aircraft?

Things seem to be pointing towards decompression though, what would cause such an event? Structural failure of some element? Striking something or something striking the plane?

Good god..........

fr336

What reasons would they be descending for? And without ATC comms? Would depressurisation be one of the only scenarios here?

Chemical Byrne

martinsvi wrote: »

are you just generating these for a laugh now? How does an aircraft collide with something yet maintaining perfectly straight path all the way down?

I don't know, I'm not one of these supposed "experts" tha seem to be all over the place when these things happen. It's just a theory.

martinsvi

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

It's just a theory.

could you stop generating them for a second?

andy_g

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

I can't get over how dispersed the debris is from that video. I suppose a mid air collision with another craft is possible in theory at least. Maybe something with the transponder switched off. Possible secret military aircraft?

Things seem to be pointing towards decompression though, what would cause such an event? Structural failure of some element? Striking something or something striking the plane?

Keep posting on "secret things" or conspiracies and you will magically vanish from the forum.

A simple yes or no will suffice.

smurfjed

I'm not one of these supposed "experts"

We had noticed that! Do you actually know anything about aviation?

Ole Rodrigo

It seems to have stopped at descending at 6000ft. The peaks along that range of the Alps range from 2200 to over 3000m ( 10000 ft ). From the debris, its likely it hit a mountain at high speed.

Its also seems to have been a controlled descent, which makes it hard to understand why it would have been intentionally maneuvered into such a treacherous area.

A Dub in Glasgo

The aviation industry does itself no favours with the 'we are too busy to let anyone know what is happening, let us fly the plane' line

Chemical Byrne

smurfjed wrote: »

We had noticed that! Do you actually know anything about aviation?

What do you think? :rolleyes:

eatmyshorts

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

The aviation industry does itself no favours with the 'we are too busy to let anyone know what is happening, let us fly the plane' line

Not sure what you're getting at with that one.

sjb25

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

The aviation industry does itself no favours with the 'we are too busy to let anyone know what is happening, let us fly the plane' line

I'd rather if I was on a plane in an emergency the flight crew fly the plane rather than be having a conversation with ATC but that's just me

smurfjed

What do you think?

that the closest you have ever gotten to an aircraft is when you are going on holidays !

irishgeo

Terrible tradegy. RIP to all on board.


3 questions, I have.

If flying on autopilot , how would the autopilot handle a terrain pull up warning?

If the autopilot was incorrectly set is it possible for it to start its controlled descent early.

Is it possible the flightradar data to wrong due to the low altitude and it being in among mountain peaks?

MillField

It looked way off-course looking at Flight Radars data on the flight.

cnocbui

I imagine the controlled descent with throttle reduction then leveling off might be the result of the autopilot altitude being changed.

L1011

colmulhall wrote: »

It looked way off-course looking at Flight Radars data on the flight.

It wasn't. The line linking destinations is not a route, and the earth is round so a shortest route is not a straight line.

sjb25

colmulhall wrote: »

It looked way off-course looking at Flight Radars data on the flight.

Flight radar themselves say it was bang on

eatmyshorts

irishgeo wrote: »

Terrible tradegy. RIP to all on board.


3 questions, I have.

If flying on autopilot , how would the autopilot handle a terrain pull up warning?

If the autopilot was incorrectly set is it possible for it to start its controlled descent early.

Is it possible the flightradar data to wrong due to the low altitude and it being in among mountain peaks?

1) The autopilot would not react to a terrain warning.

2) In an Airbus, the descent requires manual input to the FCU to begin. (On Boeing, it doesn't, and will automatically start a descent if in the correct vertical mode. )

3) FlightRadar data only shows a snapshot every X minutes or seconds. It doesn't show continuous info. The speed shown is groundspeed, not IAS, which also needs to be interpreted in relation to altityude/TAS/windspeed to be understood.

andy_g

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

What do you think? :rolleyes:

Banned for a week for trolling and ignoring mod instructions.

keith16

colmulhall wrote: »

It looked way off-course looking at Flight Radars data on the flight.

The Earth is not flat.

eatmyshorts

keith16 wrote: »

The Earth is not flat.

On a predominantly south-north track, the great circle track will be almost a straight line.
The curved route here is just due to the airspace structure, airway routings and the filed flight plan.

cml387

irishgeo wrote: »

Terrible tradegy. RIP to all on board.




Is it possible the flightradar data to wrong due to the low altitude and it being in among mountain peaks?

The Flightradar information is coming from the aircraft's altimeter via the ADS transmitter.
The altimeter is a different instrument to the radar altimeter used when close to the ground (which will set off ground proximity alerts) and this is not transmitted via ADS