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Air France Flight 447:
"...The investigation is increasingly focused on whether external instruments on the Airbus A330 may have iced over, confusing speed sensors and leading computers to set the plane's speed too fast or slow â€" a potentially deadly mistake.
The French agency investigating the disaster said airspeed instruments on the plane had not been replaced as the maker had recommended, but cautioned that it was too early to draw conclusions about what role that may have played in the crash."
Do you have a reference for that?
News reports over here said that, even if the engines had completely died, the plane should have had a significant amount of "glide time" - which should have allowed the crew to at least send a distress message.
After all, if the Iron Man can de-ice himself,...
See here: news.yahoo.com/.../brazil_plane
this is probably not the right place for this analysis which might be totally wrong, but if your engines die and a passenger jet stalls because of very strong head on wings, it might lose stability (hence spin) especially if only one of the engines thrust was reduced (so thurst was asymetric). this could even lead to a structual failure in midair.
News reports over here said that, even if the engines had completely died, the plane should have had a significant amount of "glide time" - which should have allowed the crew to at least send a distress message.<p>
Unfortunately, if the plane stalled because it was flying too slow (due to incorrect sensor data), there's no glide time, there's just rock time.
Even worse if some automatic system decided to reverse thrust (didn't something like that happen this year in the Netherlands?).
However, there are some things this wouldn't explain (like the automatic message about losing cabin pressure).
But what would a head be doing on the wings anyhow?!
Andy - I meant "winds" not "wings"...
"thurst was asymetric"
Ah, I missed that bit - maybe it just popped out for a drink, then...?
Or the Opposite. Give too much trust and damage the Airframe due to over speed.
Still guesses until the black boxes are found.
Never good to trust too much. Not so good to give too much thrust either.