What happened to France Air Flight 447? No one can say for sure, but today some debris has been found that could possibly be that of the doomed plane. More on that in a moment.
There are three distinct possibilities when it comes to Flight 447.
1) Turbulence / Storm
Weather Graphics (www.weathergraphics.com) has an article up on its site today explaining how a sudden, powerful storm cell may have caused severe turbulence. The article says that “young updrafts” caused by such a storm are hard to detect ahead of time and can be extremely powerful.
Experts also point out that jet planes are designed to withstand lightning strikes but are careful to add that a direct hit could have disrupted the plane’s radar and radio, which could explain the communications blackout.
2) Technical Failure
With no black box, it’s difficult to tell if technical problems caused the accident. Malfunctions were signalled by the plane, but it’s impossible to know whether or not these caused the crash or were caused BY other problems.
3) Terrorism
Air France and government officials have indicated that they cannot rule anything out at this point, but they’ve emphasized that there are no indications that terrorism was a factor. An explosion could certainly explain the sudden loss of the plane, but at this point there certainly would have been a public statement claiming responsibility.
On a related note, Brazilian pilots spotted an airplane seat, a life jacket, and traces of fuel in the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday, indicating that the wreckage of Flight 447 may have been found. Brazil reports that three commercial vessels in the area are joining the search.
“The locations where the objects were found are toward the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted,” Amaral said. “That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis.”
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