Bear Down Wildcats

Merkin wrote:French officials have dispatched a military unit to the crash site of an Air Algerie jet that crashed in Mali carrying 116 people after vanishing from radar shortly after takeoff late Wednesday night.

Unless they were invited, pretty presumptuous of the French to send a military team to an independent country, especially one which was a former colony. Don't think Mali is all the friendly with France, along with Algeria.

ASUHATER! wrote:But the Egyptians and Russians say there's no evidence of a shoot down and besides at the altitude it was at you need a serious military size surface to air missle launcher, not a shoulder fired weapon.

84Cat wrote:The fact that there was no SOS signal gives the ISIS claim some credibility.

84Cat wrote:No one appears to know what happened at this time and unless ISIS has new weapons, the plane was too high for them to shoot it down.

The wife of the co-pilot of the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt says her husband had complained about the plane's condition, according to a Russian TV channel.

State-controlled NTV ran an interview Saturday with Natalya Trukhacheva, identified as the wife of co-pilot Sergei Trukachev. She said that a daughter "called him up before he flew out. He complained before the flight that the technical condition of the aircraft left much to be desired."

An Egyptian official had previously said that before the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers the pilot had radioed and said the aircraft was experiencing technical problems and that he intended to try and land at the nearest airport.

ASUHATER! wrote:If it happened mid air there has to be some reason. I don't care how bad Russian maintenance is but plane tails don't just sever, especially on a newer well built plane like an Airbus a321.

ASUHATER! wrote:Source on the tail scrape?

CalStateTempe wrote:Isn't that what doomed the Air France flight over Brazil a few years back?

legallykenny wrote:

CalStateTempe wrote:Isn't that what doomed the Air France flight over Brazil a few years back?

Nope, that one was weather causing the air data sensors to freeze over, so the autopilot crapped out. Idiot mid-flight relief pilot then stalled the plane when it reverted to manual flight control.

CalStateTempe wrote:

legallykenny wrote:

CalStateTempe wrote:Isn't that what doomed the Air France flight over Brazil a few years back?

Nope, that one was weather causing the air data sensors to freeze over, so the autopilot crapped out. Idiot mid-flight relief pilot then stalled the plane when it reverted to manual flight control.

That's right. I read an article in the Atlantic on that crash a while back that was completely hair raising.

I need to look up what took down the Alaska airlines flight off San Diego around 2001.

In addition to the probable cause, the NTSB found the following contributing factors:[9]

Alaska Airlines' extension of its lubrication interval for its McDonnell Douglas MD-80 horizontal stabilizer components, and the FAA's approval of that extension, the last of which was based on McDonnell Douglas's extension of the recommended lubrication interval increased the likelihood that a missed or inadequate lubrication would result in excessive wear of jackscrew assembly acme nut threads and, therefore, was a direct cause of the excessive wear and contributed to the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 accident.
Alaska Airlines's extended end play check interval and the FAA's approval of that extension, which allowed the excessive wear of the acme nut threads to progress to failure without the opportunity for detection
The absence on the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 of a fail-safe mechanism to prevent the catastrophic effects of total acme nut loss

During the course of the investigation, and later in its final report, the NTSB issued 24 safety recommendations, covering maintenance, regulatory oversight, and aircraft design issues. More than half of these were directly related to jackscrew lubrication and end play measurement.[9] Also included was a recommendation that pilots were to be instructed that in the event of a flight control system malfunction they should not attempt corrective procedures beyond those specified in the checklist procedures, and in particular in the event of a horizontal stabilizer trim control system malfunction the primary and alternate trim motors should not be activated, and if unable to correct the problem through the checklists they should land at the nearest suitable airport.[9]

In NTSB board member John J. Goglia's statement for the final report, which was concurred with by the other three board members,[9] he wrote:

"This is a maintenance accident. Alaska Airlines' maintenance and inspection of its horizontal stabilizer activation system was poorly conceived and woefully executed. The failure was compounded by poor oversight...Had any of the managers, mechanics, inspectors, supervisors or FAA overseers whose job it was to protect this mechanism done their job conscientiously, this accident cannot happen...NTSB has made several specific maintenance recommendations, some already accomplished, that will, if followed, prevent the recurrence of this particular accident. But maintenance, poorly done, will find a way to bite somewhere else."[9]

(CNN)New information suggests a midair flash -- possibly an explosion -- was detected on Metrojet Flight 9268 before it crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

A midair heat flash from the Russian airliner was detected by a U.S. military satellite before the plane crashed Saturday, the official told CNN.

Intelligence analysis has ruled out that the Russian commercial airplane was struck by a missile, but the new information suggests that there was a catastrophic in-flight event -- including possibly a bomb, though experts are considering other explanations, according to U.S. officials.

There are a wide range of theories on what made the passenger jet plunge to the ground, killing all 224 people on board, but Russian officials say it's too soon to speculate on the cause.

Aviation experts agree, and officials have downplayed an apparent claim by Islamic militants that they brought down the Airbus A321-200, saying technical failure is the most likely reason for the crash.

Cairo (AFP) - Britain said Wednesday it was concerned a Russian airliner that crashed in Egypt may have been downed by a bomb, as the Islamic State group insisted it caused the disaster.

London's announcement came as Egyptian officials said investigators probing the black boxes had extracted the data from one for analysis, but the other had been damaged and required a lot of work.

"While the investigation is still ongoing we cannot say categorically why the Russian jet crashed," British Prime Minister David Cameron's office said in a statement.

"But as more information has come to light, we have become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device."

CAIRO (Reuters) - The cause of a Russian plane crash in Egypt on Saturday is looking more like an explosion but it is not clear whether it was linked to fuel or engine trouble or a bomb, an Egyptian source close to the investigation of the black boxes said on Wednesday.

"It is believed to be an explosion but what kind is not clear. There is an examination of the sand at the crash site to try and determine if it was a bomb," the source told Reuters.

"There are forensic investigations underway at the crash site. That will help determine the cause, to see if traces of explosives are found."