On Monday, June 1, 2009, we were all shocked to hear information about an aircraft disappearance after only 4 hours of flight (Rio de Janeiro - Paris/No 447). The radar lost all signs of the plane and no one has heard anything since. Family members were informed hours later and at this time no one had concrete information of what had happened to the flight. Fourteen minutes after the captain reported 'some' turbulence, 10 automatic signal about airplane malfunction were sent, and people feared the worse. This tragedy is considered one of the worse tragedy since 2001, bodies and pieces of the aircraft have been recovered and the search for an answer continues. We all want to know what happened and several scenarios are being studied on how the aircraft was lost from the radar and disappear.
According to a short report on ABC news about the different possibilities for an airplane crash, they mentioned that lightning cannot cause a dramatic damage to take the airplane down. One expert explains that airplanes are designed in a such a way that when lightning hits the plane, it flows around the skin of the plane. Lightning can hit a commercial flight (in general) only once a year leaving little to no damage. In the case of flight 447 (Air France), this cause has not been consider as a major reason for the plane disappearance.
This video also talks about other possible causes for a plane to disappear from the map, such as problems inside the plane, plane malfunction and problems in the cabin (fire, electrical problems, metal fatigue and corrosion can be also considered). Turbulence can also create problems, but according to experts it cannot break up a plane. Only 6% of crashes occur in mid flight, but 94% occur during take-off and landing because more complicated procedures are performed.
It is possible that the combination of storms and electrical problems played a major role, but lightning along does not seem to be 'the cause' of the aircraft's disappearance. The experts involved are studying the sophisticated flight control system and hope find the black boxes and digital flight-data to piece together the last minutes of the aircraft. We can only hope that all the work doing by searchers from three continents involve will give the victims' families some answers. Several memorial have already taken place and one more memorial service has been schedule on Sunday, June 21. Tragedies like this one really touch our hearts.
Why did the flight 447 disappear?
