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| air france jet drops off radar | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 1 2009, 04:37 AM (1,388 Views) | |
| Piano*Dad | Jun 2 2009, 05:42 AM Post #26 |
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Bull-Carp
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I think the black boxes emit signals that can be picked up. |
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| JBryan | Jun 2 2009, 05:52 AM Post #27 |
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I am the grey one
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Not if they are underwater. |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| RosemaryTwo | Jun 2 2009, 05:58 AM Post #28 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I wasn't suggesting that Navy seals hover above the ocean with metal detectors looking for the submerged plane. I was using the analogy that a needle in a haystack could likely be found with the right technology -- in that case, a metal detector. I would think (and news reports are proving me incorrect) that plane, likewise, could be found with the right technology. I would have thought that we are at the point where a plane lost at sea could emit a signal capable of being detected by the technology. Sonar. Radar. Or like PD said, a signal being emitted by the black box. I know my father takes a boat out into the Gulf. He has a flare that he can shoot off in distress. The flare sends out an emergency signal that gives off a simultaneous MayDay plus a GPS exact location signal. Something like that. Older planes or ships, I would guess, would be a different ballgame. |
| "Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua | |
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| LadyElton | Jun 2 2009, 06:00 AM Post #29 |
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Fulla-Carp
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I think the blackbox does emit a signal, but I think flgiht 440 was out of the range when it went down. |
| Hilary aka LadyElton | |
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| RosemaryTwo | Jun 2 2009, 06:06 AM Post #30 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Something like an EPIRB Like I said, my dad, a retired guy with a boat, owns one of these. I would think trans-continential airplanes would have something similar, making it possible to find them if they go down over the ocean. |
| "Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua | |
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| JBryan | Jun 2 2009, 06:09 AM Post #31 |
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I am the grey one
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Again, that thing will not work underwater. Submerging a radio only a few feet will completely block its signal. |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| RosemaryTwo | Jun 2 2009, 06:14 AM Post #32 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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No one sees my point? I understand we cannot find planes underwater. With all of the emergency/location technology developed in recent history, I am surprised by this. The EPIRB is shot off before it goes a full fathom five. Something similar for a big plane is what I was imagining. |
| "Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua | |
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| Free Rider | Jun 2 2009, 06:14 AM Post #33 |
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Fulla-Carp
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planes have EPIRBS and a lot of other stuff in case of accident. I think JB is exactly correct that the vastness of the ocean swallowed the plane up...probably in peices that sank 20000 feet and are inoperational at that pressure and depth. The device your dad has is a good thing to have offshore but it his boat exploded into pieces and sank 200 miles off the coast of South America it wouldn't help him. What a sad event. |
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| RosemaryTwo | Jun 2 2009, 06:22 AM Post #34 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I don't know, I imagined the plane being in one piece until it hit the ocean. If it exploded, that's more complicated. I would imagine technology would still have us at the point where we could determine where a plane was when it exploded. As I said, I know I'm incorrect in my assumptions. I'm saying I'm surprised by this. When I use Google Earth, I can see a picture of my husband changing the lightbulb in our lamp post in our front yard. Nothing on the earth is so vast that a satellite can't see it, if it knows where to look. |
| "Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua | |
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| LadyElton | Jun 2 2009, 06:26 AM Post #35 |
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Fulla-Carp
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The water where the plane went down is about 12,000 feet deep - over 2 miles. They'd use unmanned equipment to recover any of the wreckage or the black boxes. The pressure is too much for a human to withstand. |
| Hilary aka LadyElton | |
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| RosemaryTwo | Jun 2 2009, 06:31 AM Post #36 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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News reports seemed to indicate officials didn't know for sure where the plane was when it went down. This surprises me. Not that it is now broken up and difficult to find underwater. |
| "Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua | |
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| George K | Jun 2 2009, 06:32 AM Post #37 |
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Finally
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Morbid question here: Assume the thing was at 20,000 feet or so. How long will it take to hit the ground from that altitude, if it was mostly intact? |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| Free Rider | Jun 2 2009, 06:36 AM Post #38 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Rosemary I understand your point. In this day and age when we can use satelites to read license plates and we have sonar, radar, GPS, metal detectors and a giant naval fleet...what could be so difficult about finding a jumbo-jet? I think it is in the nature of the sea. The ocean is huge. The way deep ocean water swallows up planes and ships is to crush and bury the peices under thousands of pounds of saltwater and seafloor sediment. Sometimes there is no practical way to locate wreckage in circumstances like this. Sad. |
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| Frank_W | Jun 2 2009, 06:45 AM Post #39 |
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Resident Misanthrope
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Two miles down... That's about the depth of the Titanic. Titanic is in 12,460FSW. They may locate the wreckage someday, but they will never be able to investigate it. Very sad. |
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Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin." Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!" | |
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| phykell | Jun 2 2009, 07:00 AM Post #40 |
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Senior Carp
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Hopefully, they may have found something: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8079122.stm |
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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it's animals are treated. - Ghandhi Evil cannot be conquered in the world. It can only be resisted within oneself. Remember, bones heal and chicks dig scars | |
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| lb1 | Jun 2 2009, 07:13 AM Post #41 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Looks like the plane is spread out over a big, and deep, area. I logged close to a half million miles in an Airbus 330, they are big planes, but spread out over an area that big they aren't going to find much. lb |
| My position is simple: you jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and slung mud on an issue where none was deserved. Quirt 03/08/09 | |
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| RosemaryTwo | Jun 2 2009, 07:59 AM Post #42 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I know I'm being petulant here, but if they had a signal from the plane when it was last in one piece and in the air, couldn't they determine within reasonable accuracy where to look for it in the water? If I were a family member of someone aboard that flight, I would want that question answered, even if I knew with all certainty that there were no survivors, that the plane was in pieces and they might not even be able to retrieve much of the debris. My guess is that it "floated" in the air w/out any electronics long enough that the vector is too large to make any predictions. Maybe at some point I'll hear an explanation from an expert on this situation that satisfies me. Still, the story still seems to me like a bad babysitter was in charge. "Well, the baby was right here at 6pm eating his Cheerios, but he fell form his high chair and now, at 9pm, we have no idea what happened to him or where he might be." |
| "Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua | |
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| phykell | Jun 2 2009, 08:11 AM Post #43 |
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Senior Carp
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I think what you're saying is that they need some sort of real-time feed providing diagnostics information, etc. As far as I know, the technology is certainly there to support such a technical requirement so perhaps it's just an issue of cost. Ironically, while we all want cheap air-travel I think we'd all stump up a bit more cash for the sake of greater safety. Let's hope the industry learns from this tragedy. |
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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it's animals are treated. - Ghandhi Evil cannot be conquered in the world. It can only be resisted within oneself. Remember, bones heal and chicks dig scars | |
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| RosemaryTwo | Jun 2 2009, 08:18 AM Post #44 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Phykell, I think you're right. I hope to hear a good interview from an expert about what technology is on inter-continental planes, why it helped or didn't help in this case, and what would be possible, ranging from the cheap and simple to the expensive and high-tech. The black box is probably becoming an out-of-date concept (or at least radically different concept) with all the recent advancements. |
| "Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua | |
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| 1hp | Jun 2 2009, 08:31 AM Post #45 |
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Fulla-Carp
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I believe all aircraft are fitted with acoustic transponders that activate if an aircraft is submerged (will have to search for confirmation). These would be a low frequency pinger - low frequencies travel a long distance underwater [edit - low frequency acoustic signals, not rf signals], and it is simply a matter of triangulating to pin point the location. For some reason I though this was part of one of the black boxes. EPIRB is different. It is usually carried by vessels travelling offshore and is located such that it can float free should the vessel sink. Again sea water activates it and it transmits on a satellite band that is monitored by the Coast Guard [this is rf, not acoustic]. EPIRBs contain a GPS and send location data so the Coast Guard knows where to come find you. Here's an example of the underwater location devices (from Dukane). Underwater location device [edit - this transmits on 37.5kHz, which is not that low a frequency for underwater use] |
| There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................ | |
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| lb1 | Jun 2 2009, 09:44 AM Post #46 |
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Fulla-Carp
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They will. That is if they can learn what happened to the plane. If it came apart in the air which is a likely probability, the parts could be strewn over hundreds of miles and retrieval could be next to impossible. lb |
| My position is simple: you jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and slung mud on an issue where none was deserved. Quirt 03/08/09 | |
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| RosemaryTwo | Jun 2 2009, 09:46 AM Post #47 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Interesting, 1hp. Didn't know about acoustic transponders. Just heard on NPR that it will take weeks or months before any explanation can be offered. |
| "Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua | |
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| Frank_W | Jun 2 2009, 09:47 AM Post #48 |
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Resident Misanthrope
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Or if the majority of the aircraft is sitting a couple miles down.... |
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Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin." Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!" | |
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| QuirtEvans | Jun 2 2009, 09:55 AM Post #49 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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It's more like, "Well, at 6PM the baby was headed in that direction at a few hundred miles an hour, and I didn't have the ability to track him after that, so I don't know how far he made it." |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Frank_W | Jun 2 2009, 09:59 AM Post #50 |
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Resident Misanthrope
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This thread is now officially about theoretical ways to launch babies at a few hundred miles per hour.
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Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin." Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!" | |
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