Air France

Terrorism makes no sense to me either.

If a serious cell had achieved a breach at Rio, why target Air France and not an American airline? And why target the single flight. Most previous plots (9/11) and those others that have subsequently been uncovered have nearly always multiple attacks, (Richard Reid being the only one I can think of that didn't). It makes no sense you wouldn't compromise your position for the sake of a plane full of Brazilians and French

I can see that terrorism might suit the manufacturers and the French government.

Am I alone in thinking that the Americans might be going after the black box too? I'm increasingly confident that the French won't recover it
 
They need to do something to put the public's mind at ease. Until we have more facts, I'd be shitting myself if I was on an A330 in a storm.
 
well of course the "Air France"!!! CONCORDE was brought down by a piece of metal.
Never known in any crash Ive ever heard of Commercial or military by the way!!!!!!!
 
harry said:
well of course the "Air France"!!! CONCORDE was brought down by a piece of metal.
Never known in any crash Ive ever heard of Commercial or military by the way!!!!!!!
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Was pretty conclusive, plane takes off, bit of metal falls off.

Concorde takes off, piece of metal still there, goes over metal, metal flicks up, pierces fuel tanks, fire, crash, bang.

Would only happen to Concorde due it's position of fuel tanks and high take off speeds.
 
Gamla Stan said:
They need to do something to put the public's mind at ease. Until we have more facts, I'd be shitting myself if I was on an A330 in a storm.
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Not quite so sure.

The long term interests of France would concern the defence of Airbus as a manufacturer and Air France as a carrier. Any fault with either, would be more damaging than a temporary drop in passenger numbers, associated with an enhanced terrorist threat. That being so, terrorism (with the usual assurances that it won't happen again - possibly backed up with some commitment to the war against terror or even ID cards etc) would be the preferred option compared to ....

ooh la la, our planes are Le shite, and our airline does no maintain, pouquoi
 
Maybe slightly mad but a Spanish pilot flying from Lisbon to Lima reports seeing a vertical flash of light. Could the plane have been hit by something like a meteor contributing to severe structural damage and it breaking up in the air or am I going mental?!
 
Gamla Stan said:
Maybe slightly mad but a Spanish pilot flying from Lisbon to Lima reports seeing a vertical flash of light. Could the plane have been hit by something like a meteor contributing to severe structural damage and it breaking up in the air or am I going mental?!
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Yes, it could happen. Unlikely but it could happen. And I suppose one day it will
 
Latest theory to emerge it seems, is that the plane may have been flying too slowly and stalled. Would that be down to human error or auto pilot/computer, and at the point it was disengaged it was too late?
 
Just a couple of peripheral points:

One thing I did note when flying into CDG last year from Spain was the relative lack of border controls when compared to the UK.
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Nothing surprising there, it's because Spain and France are part of the Schengen area, along with most of the EU and even some non-EU countries. There are no border controls when travelling between these countries.

"In 2008 the airline was the eighth-largest airline in the world in terms of international passengers carried
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I reckon the word "international" is a key term in that sentence. Every Emirates passenger is going to be an international passenger, which would be far from the case for many other airlines.
 
Nothing surprising there, it's because Spain and France are part of the Schengen area, along with most of the EU and even some non-EU countries. There are no border controls when travelling between these countries.
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But notably not the UK or Ireland, despite what some of the more hysterical might tell you...
 
Sometimes you fly with the only machines available. It's all well and good deciding who'll have your business when you're in Europe or the US, with dozens of options. Not quite that easy when you're on schedules where those multi-options don't exist. I've been on the jump seat of the wonderful little Fokker Friendship from Dhahran to Bahrain, gone Syrian Arab (the worst meal in aviation history), travelled from Pakistan to Dacca via Bangladesh's airline (whose name I've forgotten), where the right engine caught fire shortly after we'd decanted, and gone Saudia innumerable times. Very clean, very polite, but unfortunately prone to self-combust when passengers light up Primus stoves in the back rows to brew their own cha. Gulf Air's one of the nicest I've flown, and Austrian Airlines - small, very attentive, with the added buzz of quaffing champers before take-off on Saudi soil! Been on an EgyptAir Airbus which frightened the bejaysus out of me - I didn't realise how strangely quiet their engines are and, minutes out of Cairo, I thought we'd stalled. It was apparently a rather quirky second or two that we seemed to hang there, then 'lifted' up several hundred feet very rapidly. I think my claw marks are still on the arm rests.

I've also flown prop-job and by Caravelle in the 1970s - lots of strange old planes, including Esso Libya's Convair from Marsa-el-Brega to Tripoli. So far, so safe...
 
I reckon I could give you a run for your money on the worst in flight meal, and would nominate Air India. I opened the foil thing only to release a very relieved beetle that duly crawled out.

The most frightening airline I've ever had the pleasure of suffering was Aerocontinente (who I noticed aren't listed - I assume they've been grounded). They were some Peruvian outfit who seem to be flown by former stuka pilots and after a month of dive bombing airports in the Andes and bouncing down numerous runways I nearly lost the nerve to fly. On returning to the UK I spent the next 3 or 4 weeks flicking the 'other international news' section in the paper every day, convinced that I'd be reading about an Aerocontinente 737 that had crashed into a mountain or burst into flame on a runway somewhere.

Had a bad experience on Britannia too, when the under carriage didn't deploy. Well to be more honest, what subsequently emerged is that the light on the flight deck indicated it hadn't so we had to perform so fly past to get visual. Even then there was no guarantee that it had locked.

One gets suspicious when the flight attendants don't look quite composed all of a sudden and are rushing around without those fixed smiles on their faces. The Captain told us they we might have to divert to Lisbon due to a sea fog rolling into Faro, and also told us that the flight 15 minutes ahead of us had. Well I looked out the window and I could clearly see the lights on the ground. But since my first move was going to be straight out of the Algarve and heading north a free ride to Lisbon suited me. As we came into land it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't heard the under carriage go down, but assumed it must have. We were probably at about 500 ft and still no fog, when all of a sudden we powered up and gained altitude. The pilot announced that he'd have another go as he thought there was clear patch in the fog that he could get in on the back off.

Suffice to say, when he announced the usual welcome to Portugal spiel but opened up with the words "now that the crisis is over" and a quick glance out of the window revealed a reception committee of emergency vehicles, no fog, and a taxi-ing flight from the same airline that didn't appear to have diverted to Lisbon afterall, the penny kind of dropped.
 
The worst flight I been on was leaving Waterford in tretcherous weather, the whole airport had planes stationary and this was the last flight of the night and the pilot could of easily held off but he went for it and we actually come into contact with a tornado mid-flight and I was 8'ish, the alarms were going off and women were saying their prayers the plane would all of a sudden drop/dip it felt like you had been winded, oh and this was one of the planes that had propellers on the outside and carried about 100 people I thought we was a goner but he managed to pull us through and everyone cheered at the end, we had plenty of staff at Luton making sure we was alright when coming off the plane.
 
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Oh, Warbs, how lucky - a cute live beetle to play with in-flight! No, didn't have an unauthorised passenger on board - well, let's say, not one that I noticed - but another bit of a giveaway on the Syrian Arab and the Bangla planes were all the mismatched seats! Not just the covers, either - some seats had clearly collapsed over the many years of service, and had been hoiked out and replaced with equally elderly ones, but from other planes or even airlines!
 
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