MetaFilter posts tagged with airfrance

A complete meteorological analysis of the loss of AF447

spock — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:01:17 -0800

Tim Vasquez , former U.S. Air Force meteorologist, author, software engineer, and head honcho of the storm chaser hangout Stormtrack Forums has done a complete meteorological analysis of the weather conditions which may have resulted in the loss of Air France Flight 447.

French plane lost over Atlantic

ArkhanJG — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:03:45 -0800

Air France flight AF 447 has gone missing over the atlantic. The flight left Rio at 2200 GMT on Sunday, and was due to land at 0910 GMT in Paris, but contact was lost at 0130 GMT, some 186 miles northeast of the Brazilian city of Natal. It had 216 passengers and 12 crew on board, including three pilots. The passengers included one infant, seven children, 82 women and 126 men. The flight has not been heard of since, and by now would have exhausted all fuel reserves and is assumed lost. Air France said the plane sent an automatic message at 0214 GMT reporting a short circuit after turbulence, and may have been struck by lightning. Searches are ongoing in the area. The Airbus A330-200 is a large-capacity, wide-body, twin-engine, medium-to-long-range commercial passenger airliner that was introduced in 1998. On 24th August 2001 another A330, Flight 236 from Toronto to Lisbon suffered a serious mid-air fuel leak over the atlantic, but performed the world's longest recorded glide with a jet airliner to land safely in Azores. Modern airliners are designed to cope with lightning strikes. On average, lightning strikes a commercial jet once for every 10,000 hours it spends in the air. However, they can result in loss of instrumentation despite shielding, and loss of the positioning instruments can result in the pilots becoming severely disorientated and flying into the ground. But, according to David Learmount safety editor of Flight International magazine, there is no case of a modern airliner being lost because of a lightning strike alone.

Keeping America's Skies Safe From Journalism

ornate insect — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:29:36 -0800

Nine days ago, an Air France flight en route from Paris to Mexico City, and not due to stop in the US, was refused entry into American air space, and had to be temporarily re-routed to Martinique. The reason? A Colombian journalist (exiled in Paris) named Hernando Calvo Ospina was on board. His crime? As a left-wing book author and contributor to Le Monde Diplomatique, Ospina has written critically of US policies, and of the CIA's covert role in Latin America.

When air travel was glam

marvin — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 14:46:11 -0800

Air France: Apparently abandoning any pretence that traveling economy in the back of an A330 is an enticing experience, they've launched this site which looks back at the days when women wore fur, men smoked pipes and air travel was glamorous. Quite a few nice little movie vignettes of life chez Air France from the ‘50’s and ‘60’s.