Air France plane down/missing

[onetwo07]

Only in terms of passenger miles.

 

Slightly different when looking at survival rates from incidents.

 

On the top '25 safest airlines' (I would guess that's a pretty arbitrary statement, and in effect means an airline run to FAA standards) you probabilty of being killed on a given flight is marginally less than one in fourteen million ( 1:14 000 000).

 

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

Also, passenger miles are a perectly legitimate way of measuring the probability. It makes this statement correct: 'if I want to go to the south of France, flying is the safest way for me to do it by quite some distance.'

[Agent Orange]

Further reports have come in claiming that the crew reported a short circuit moments before the flight vanished.

[Paul2412]

On the top '25 safest airlines' (I would guess that's a pretty arbitrary statement, and in effect means an airline run to FAA standards) you probabilty of being killed on a given flight is marginally less than one in fourteen million ( 1:14 000 000).

 

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

Also, passenger miles are a perectly legitimate way of measuring the probability. It makes this statement correct: 'if I want to go to the south of France, flying is the safest way for me to do it by quite some distance.'

 

All very true, but it won't help the families at Paris CDG right now...

[olorin]

According to Le Monde, it was actually an automatic alert some considerable time after the last voice comms. I presume that the auto alert was a satellite uplink on VHF.

[onetwo07]

All very true, but it won't help the families at Paris CDG right now...

 

Absolutely, I wasn't intending it to be a slight. Just pointing out that linking individual air accidents to sweeping generalisations about airline safety (as one poster seemed all too quick to do) is not fair.

[HeadingNorth]

At the moment, the most plausible explanation is that the plane was struck by lightning, causing a catastrophic systems failure.

 

Now I know enough about aeroplanes to know that they can be brought down safely on the sea, but I don't know enough to know if that would be possible after total electronics failure. I'm half-hoping that there is still the chance of finding the plane bobbing on the ocean, communications and all electrics down but otherwise intact. However ... it's considerably less than half a hope, at this point.

[Frank Sidney]

Security expert on Sky just stated he couldn't rule out terrorism. The french are denying this, they would wouldn't they.

[HeadingNorth]

Security expert on Sky just stated he couldn't rule out terrorism. The french are denying this, they would wouldn't they.

 

I'd be inclined to discount the notion myself, since nobody is claiming any credit/responsibility for it. It's rather hard to terrify people if you don't let them know what you've done.

 

Certainly "plane vanishing from radar" could be explained by a bomb going off, but in this case, there are much more plausible explanations. However, the security expert is quite right; you cannot absolutely, definitively exclude terrorist activity as the cause, until the plane is found. Then again, you cannot definitively exclude a meteorite strike at this point, but the odds are trillions-of-trillions to one against.

[Minimo]

A terrible event, but I would have thought if it was a terrorist attack one group or another would have quickly claimed responsibility.

It is made worse by the fact that wreckage may never be found, leaving the relatives forever wondering.

[Frank Sidney]

I'd be inclined to discount the notion myself, since nobody is claiming any credit/responsibility for it. It's rather hard to terrify people if you don't let them know what you've done.

 

Certainly "plane vanishing from radar" could be explained by a bomb going off, but in this case, there are much more plausible explanations. However, the security expert is quite right; you cannot absolutely, definitively exclude terrorist activity as the cause, until the plane is found. Then again, you cannot definitively exclude a meteorite strike at this point, but the odds are trillions-of-trillions to one against.

 

My gut feeling is that its terrorism, but what do I know? Nowt about planes if I'm honest:thumbsup: