Topic: Air France flight447 disaster

[Mike]

Definitely weather related and found this fabulous report by Tim Vasquez online.  Well worth the read as it covers all the meteorological aspects to the downed aircraft.  Certainly worth a discussion on the report's content I think.

http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/

[Steven]

I feel sorry for the people on board that plane, and what they had to endure. I myself know what strong turbulence is like and can only imagine how bad severe turbulence is on the integrity of an aeroplane and the passengers on board; it's quite terrifying. There was certainly no escape from the converging thunderstorms, but as the ongoing analysis has pointed out, 12 similar flights have gone through the same system and didn't suffer the fate AF447 did.

I now doubt the possibility of hail and lightning (because of what has been written) since these are tropical storms but the very strong up drafts must have had dire consequences on any aircraft going through them.

[Mike]

Well commented on and I think every time we that fly feel that loss of stability in an aircraft our hearts jump into our throats...a terrible accident and there's certainly a lot of questions asked no doubt as to why they did not see these weather scenarios on radar or alerted to by other ATC's...the unfortunate thing or fortunate thing is that it takes such events to enhance technology or flight paths or whatever to alleviate further accidents from happening...much like the downed aircraft in the US that encountered severe wind shear and crashed and after this event Doppler radar was installed in all US airports.  Sometimes we just don't know and only by tragic loss of life can change be made.