AF447 news – the search for black boxes continues

As most usual news sources seems to have dropped their talk about the AF447 which disappeared on June 1st 2009 (for my birthday, a few weeks before I took a plane for 11 hours), I’ll post a bit of update from the BEA in France.

Yesterday the BEA announced in a press release that the searches are continuing with the Pourquoi pas ? ship owned by Ifremer and the French Navy, by looking for bigger parts of the plane and hoping to find the black boxes in the same area. The sonar signal the blackboxes have started emitting starting june 1st could only keep emitting for 30 days, and can only be detected within 2km (which may vary with pressure, amount of salt in water at this place, etc).

Victor 6000 (french link) and Nautile (two manned submersible aboard the Pourquoi pas ?) are currently looking at the oceanian floor for parts of the A330-203 F-GZCP, in the areas most likely to contains parts of the plane when considering where and when parts were found, drift speed, etc… in a second episode of the search for black boxes.

If nothing is found, a third search episode on a wider area might happen, with financial support from Airbus.

For now, while the fact the Pitot probes did return wrong speed, the reason why the plane crashed is still not established. I personally wonder about the radio silence from the airplane started near 01.36am while the plane was still able to send ACARS messages more than 30 minutes later.

Debrits found from the plane (red circles are corpes, white circles are debrits, while box is the last known position)

For reference, here are the 24 ACARS messages (details from the July 2nd BEA report). The plane will collect those errors and for one minute of errors, will priotirize which error will be sent first (most important errors first) because of the limited bandwidth between the plane and the ACARS system. There is also a “hole” during the transmission because of transmission issues. Transmission time is in the message. Received time is displayed at the beginning of the line.

1. 02:10:10 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 221002006AUTO FLT AP OFF

   • Audio alert: Cavalry Charge
   • Visual alert: Master warning
   • Meaning: Autopilot has been disabled without action from the crew (instinctive disconnect)

2. 02:10:16 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 226201006AUTO FLT REAC W/S DET FAULT

   • Audio alert: Single chime
   • Visual alert: Master caution

3. 02:10:23 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 279100506F/CTL ALTN LAW

   • Audio alert: Single chime
   • Visual alert: Master caution
   • Meaning: Alternate law has been enabled on the plane, disabling limits usually meant to avoid crashing the plane. In some cases (automatic system receiving wrong informations) the normal mode can become dangerous.

4. 02:10:29 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 228300206FLAG ON CAPT PFD SPD LIMIT

   • Speed unavailable from the capitain-side system on PFD (FMGEC).

5. 02:10:41 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 228301206FLAG ON F/O PFD SPD LIMIT

   • Speed unavailable on the copilot-side system on PFD (FMGEC).

6. 02:10:47 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 223002506AUTO FLT A/THR OFF

   • Audio alert: Single chime
   • Visual alert: Master caution
   • Meaning: Auto-thurst disabled automatically (instinctive disconnect)

7. 02:10:54 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 344300506NAV TCAS FAULT

   • TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) fault. The reason why this happened isn’t known yet.

8. 02:11:00 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 228300106FLAG ON CAPT PFD FD

   • PFD “flight director” lost on capitain side

9. 02:11:15 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 228301106FLAG ON F/O PFD FD

   • PFD “flight director” lost on copilot side

10. 02:11:21 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 272302006F/CTL RUD TRV LIM FAULT

    • Sound alarm: Single chime
    • Visual alarm: Master caution

11. 02:11:27 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 279045506MAINTENANCE STATUS EFCS 2

    • Maintenance message not visible to the crew.

12. 02:11:42 - .1/WRN/WN0906010210 279045006MAINTENANCE STATUS EFCS 1

    • Maintenance message not visible to the crew.

13. 02:11:49 - .1/FLR/FR0906010210 34111506EFCS2 1,EFCS1,AFS,,,,,PROBE-PITOT 1X2 / 2X3 / 1X3 (9DA),HARD

    • ATA: 341115
    • Source: EFCS2
    • Id: EFCS1, AFS
    • Class 1, HARD
    • At this point the 3 ADR are enabled, and the speed has slowed down by more than 30kt within 1 second. When this happens, the FCPC will switch to Alternate law 2. If after a 10 seconds the speed has changed by less than 50kt the FCPC goes back to normal mode.
      If it’s not the case, the plane stays in Alternate Law 2, and the F/CTL RUD TRV LIM FAULT alert that was blocked is triggered. Auto-pilot is disabled, auto-trust is disabled, flight director is diabled, speed computing is disabled, etc…

14. 02:11:55 - .1/FLR/FR0906010210 27933406EFCS1 X2,EFCS2X,,,,,,FCPC2 (2CE2) / WRG:ADIRU1 BUS ADR1-2 TO FCPC2,HARD

    • ATA: 279334
    • Source: *EFCS1
    • Id: *EFCS2
    • Class 2, HARD
    • FCPC 2 stop considering data from ADR 1 as valid. If any other FCPC had detected the same problem within 3 seconds, the ata code would have started with 34.
    • At this point this message is not explained yet.

15. 02:12:10 - .1/WRN/WN0906010211 341200106FLAG ON CAPT PFD FPV

    • Bird-view on the capitain side disabled

16. 02:12:16 - .1/WRN/WN0906010211 341201106FLAG ON F/O PFD FPV

    • Bird-view on the copilot side disabled

17. 02:12:51 - .1/WRN/WN0906010212 341040006NAV ADR DISAGREE

    • EFCS have rejected an ADR, then found a problem on the two remaining ADR

18. 02:13:08 - .1/FLR/FR0906010211 34220006ISIS 1,,,,,,,ISIS(22FN-10FC) SPEED OR MACH FUNCTION,HARD

    • ATA: 342200
    • Source: ISIS
    • Id: -
    • Class 1, HARD
    • This message can be sent if either:
      A problem happens in the computation of CAS or Mach
      CAS or Mach are not within correct limits
      The system on this plane does not allows to remotely know which problem has happened.

19. 02:13:14 - .1/FLR/FR0906010211 34123406IR2 1,EFCS1X,IR1,IR3,,,,ADIRU2 (1FP2),HARD

    • ATA: 341234
    • Source: IR2
    • Id: *EFCS1, IR1, IR3
    • Class 1, HARD
    • At this point the reason why this message appeared isn’t known yet. It was generated by IR2 but could be due to EFCS1 sending a class 2 message.

20. 02:13:45 - .1/WRN/WN0906010213 279002506F/CTL PRIM 1 FAULT

    • Sound alarm: Single chime
    • Visual alarm: Master caution
    • Meaning: FCPC1 (primary) fault

21. 02:13:51 - .1/WRN/WN0906010213 279004006F/CTL SEC 1 FAULT

    • Sound alarm: Single chime
    • Visual alarm: Master caution
    • Meaning: FCPC1 (secondary) fault

22. 02:14:14 - .1/WRN/WN0906010214 341036006MAINTENANCE STATUS ADR 2

    • Maintenance message not visible to the crew.

23. 02:14:20 - .1/FLR/FR0906010213 22833406AFS 1,,,,,,,FMGEC1(1CA1),INTERMITTENT

    • ATA: 228334
    • Source: AFS
    • Id: -
    • Class 1, INTERMITTENT
    • Explanation of this message is not available from BEA’s documentations. The INTERMITTENT flag means the error has been detected during less than 2.5 secs.

24. 02:14:26 - .1/WRN/WN0906010214 213100206ADVISORY CABIN VERTICAL SPEED

    • Probably the most famous message for AF447, it means the cabin has gone up or down at a speed faster than 1800ft/min for at least 5 seconds (30ft/sec)

If you have any idea, you can share it here.