Sunday, May 1, 2011

Rogue Storms Sneaking Up On Us? - 2

About two years ago we wondered about the Air France jet that had crashed into the Atlantic during a thunderstorm on June 1, 2009, with the loss of all lives on board.

Searches found only scant floating debris, so the official conclusion then was that we would not know for sure what happened unless the flight data recorders were found.

Since we just finished with April, the month that established the greatest number of violent tornado outbreaks in one month in our history, I thought perhaps we could review some language from that two-year-old post regarding violent weather:
One fact of that crash, that two groups of bodies were found over 50 miles apart, indicates that a mid-air breakup of the airliner occurred.

Some experts also think the events happened very quickly as well:
It is believed that the erratic speed readings may have been caused by malfunctioning speed sensors – or pitot tubes – but it still remains unclear how this problem alone could have destroyed, or brought down, a modern aircraft so rapidly. No Mayday call or emergency radio message was sent by the pilot and co-pilot, suggesting that the aircraft fell apart or crashed while they were still going through their first, emergency response procedures.
(The Independent, emphasis added). Their experience in the storm was over so fast they did not have time to send a mayday call.

The bodies recovered so far were intact, so it is possible that the plane broke up into at least two passenger-containing sections before the pilots could respond.

If storms are becoming so violent that they can rip an aircraft apart, flight strategy needs to change to avoid those types of storms which were not avoided in the past.

Airline company policy has been to save fuel by going in a straight line through many storms, and more so as the price of fuel sky-rocketed in recent times.
(Rogue Storms Sneaking Up On Us?, emphasis added). Something that may give us sorely needed inside clues has now happened, yes, one of the flight data recorders has been recovered:
Investigators have located and recovered the missing memory unit of the flight data recorder of a 2009 Air France flight – a remarkable deep-sea discovery they hope will explain why the aircraft went down in a remote area of the mid-Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board.
(Huffington Post). Many folk can look around and see that things have changed with the climate, that it is getting more dangerous.

Lets hope that officials begin to factor in these changes into rules and regulations that provide more safety to the public.

Propaganda just doesn't cut it.

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