[Peetwo]

Update: 21/05/2016 23:40 UTC

Courtesy AvHerald:

Crash: Egypt A320 over Mediterranean on May 19th 2016, aircraft found crashed, ACARS messages indicate fire on board
By Simon Hradecky, created Thursday, May 19th 2016 03:35Z, last updated Friday, May 20th 2016 18:23Z

An Egyptair Airbus A320-200, registration SU-GCC performing flight MS-804 (dep May 18th) from Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) to Cairo (Egypt) with 56 passengers and 10 crew, was enroute at FL370 over the Mediterranan Sea about 130nm north of Alexandria (Egypt) and about 210nm northnorthwest of Cairo when the transponder signals of the aircraft ceased at 02:33L (00:33Z). The aircraft was located crashed in the Mediterranean Sea, there were no survivors.

Search and Recovery

On May 19th 2016 France is joining the search and rescue efforts dispatching ships and aircraft into the search area, which is already being scanned by Greek and Egypt aircraft and ships.

On May 19th 2016 a good number of civilian ships in the area have, according to MarineTraffic, veered off their intended courses and are now steaming towards a common position at approximately N33.4 E29.7 approximately 30nm eastnortheast of the last ADS-B position. A first ship "Oceanus" has already reached that position and is nearly stationary there.

On May 20th morning Egypt's Military announced, Egyptian naval aircraft and vessels found debris from the A320 aircraft as well as personal belongings of passengers about 290km (156nm) north of Alexandria (Egypt).

On May 20th European Space Agency (ESA) reported Sentinel-1A radar satellite images showed a 2km long slick at position N33.5333 E29.2167, about 40km/21.6nm from the last transponder position, coinciding with the suspected area of impact of flight MS-804. The photo was taken on May 19th 2016 at 16:00Z. Image below.

In the afternoon of May 20th 2016 Egyptair reported that more debris has been found during the day including body parts, passengers' belongings, aircraft seats.

Statements

On May 19th 2016 at 05:00L (03:00Z) the airline reported, that flight MS-804, estimated to land in Cairo at 03:10L (01:10Z), is missing and so far has not landed at any airport in reach of the aircraft. Egyptair subsequently tweeted that the aircraft was enroute at FL370 about to enter Egyptian Airspace when radar contact with the aircraft was lost at 02:45L (00:45Z). A search and rescue operation has been launched. The airline further corrected initial statement of 59 passengers to 56 passengers actually on board of the aircraft. The commander had accumulated 6,275 hours with 2,101 hours on type, the first officer has accumulated 2,675 hours. The aircraft had been manufactured in 2003. The airline has opened hotlines for relatives at +202 25989320 (outside Egypt) and 080077770000 (landline in Egypt).

On May 19th 2016 at about 07:40L (05:40Z) Egyptair updated their statement saying, that the contact with the aircraft was lost 280km (151nm) from the Coast of Egypt at 02:30L (00:30Z). The crew comprised the captain, first officer, 5 cabin crew and 3 sky marshals. Amongst the passengers there were 30 Egyptians, 15 French, 2 Iraqis, 1 British, 1 Belgian, 1 Kuwaiti, 1 Saudi, 1 Sudanese, 1 Chadian, 1 Portugese, 1 Algerian and 1 Canadian.

On May 19th 2016 Greece's Civil Aviation Authority reported radar contact with the aircraft was lost about 2 minutes after the aircraft was handed off from Greek to Egyptian Air Traffic Control. The crew did not report any problems up to hand off. The CAA subsequently clarified, that the crew was talking to air traffic control in Greek when the aircraft entered the Greek control zone. When ATC attempted to hand the aircraft off to Egypt the crew did not respond, radar contact was lost 2 minutes after the first attempt to raise the crew for hand off, the aircraft was 7nm past mandatory reporting point KUMBI (N33.7139 E28.7500), boundary between Greek and Egyptian control zone.

On May 19th 2016 at 08:25L (06:25Z) Egypt Air reported that search and rescue have picked up an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) signal. Dawn in the area was at 04:26L.

On May 19th 2016 at 10:15L (08:15Z) Airbus posted "Airbus regrets to confirm that an A320 operated by Egyptair was lost at around 02:30 am (Egypt local time) today over the Mediterranean sea. The aircraft was operating a scheduled service, Flight MS 804 from Paris, France to Cairo, Egypt. The aircraft involved, registered under SU-GCC was MSN (Manufacturer Serial Number) 2088 delivered to Egyptair from the production line in November 2003. The aircraft had accumulated approximately 48,000 flight hours. It was powered by IAE engines. At this time no further factual information is available."

On May 19th 2016 at 12:30L (10:30Z) France's President Hollande announced that the aircraft has crashed while flying over the Mediterranean Sea in Egyptian Airspace.

On May 19th 2016 Egypt's Civil Aviation Minister said in a press conference, Egypt continues to call the aircraft "missing". The Government does not rule out any cause as of yet, neither mechanical failure nor terrorism.

On May 19th 2016 at 14:55L (12:55Z) Greek Authorities reported that search aircraft have spotted two objects floating on the sea surface about 50nm south of the last transponder position and about 230nm southsoutheast of Crete (Greece). The objects were white and red and appeared to be made of plastics. Authorities subsequently reported two orange objects also seen appear to be aircraft life vests, position near N33.3 E29.9 (about 40nm east of last transponder position).

On May 19th 2016 at 19:10L (17:10Z) Egyptair confirmed that according to Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (parts of) the wreckage have been located crashed in the Mediterranean Sea. Families of passengers and crew have been informed, the airline expresses their deepest sympathies. The Egyptian Investigation Team continues to search for other remains of the aircraft.

On May 20th 2016 about 00:00L Christiane Amanpour (CNN) tweeted that Egyptair's Vice President retracted the statement, that debris of the aircraft had been found and said they were mistaken. However, Egyptair did not retract such statements on all their official outlets, on their main website the statement was reposted instead with timestamp May 20th 2016.

Investigation

On May 19th 2016 the responsible Paris states attorney has opened an investigation into the disappearance of the aircraft but cautioned, that a mechanical failure or other causes besides terrorism have not been ruled out at this point. No credible claims of downing the aircraft have been made so far.

On May 20th 2016 Egypt's Authorities reported that an accident investigation commission has been formed to investigate the crash.

On May 20th 2016 the French BEA reported 3 investigators have been dispatched to Egypt by the BEA to join the investigation led by Egyptian Authorities.

Data available

On May 20th 2016 The Aviation Herald received information from three independent channels, that ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) messages with following content were received from the aircraft:

00:26Z 3044 ANTI ICE R WINDOW
00:26Z 561200 R SLIDING WINDOW SENSOR
00:26Z 2600 SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE
00:27Z 2600 AVIONICS SMOKE
00:28Z 561100 R FIXED WINDOW SENSOR
00:29Z 2200 AUTO FLT FCU 2 FAULT
00:29Z 2700 F/CTL SEC 3 FAULT
no further ACARS messages were received

Sentinel-1A radar satellite image showing 2km long slick (Photo: ESA):


Debris seen from search ship Maersk Ahram (Photos: Tarek Wahba):






A number of ships left intended course towards a common position (Graphics: MarineTraffic):


Infrared Satellite Image Seviri May 19th 2016 00:00Z (Photo: AVH/Meteosat):


Map and flight trajectory based on Mode-S transponder signals (Graphics: AVH/Google Earth):

---

Reader Comments:

---

Fire on board
By Tibi Gabany on Friday, May 20th 2016 22:29Z

I am thinking of the last set of diagnostic data from the plane. It looks fire ripping through the sensor cables and electronics? On-board fire would explain why the pilots tried to quickly lower altitude.

A thought to consider...I personally don't think 'full glass' cockpits are a good idea as the most important backup equipment become useless in a fire situation that causes cascade short circuits. There should be enough good old fasion mechanical backup equipment on any plane to allow it to safely fly.

---

On board fire
By ChristineH on Friday, May 20th 2016 22:27Z

I just read the report on Swissair Flight 111 on Wiki, and I recommend it. Not from the point of view of pinpointing similarity of cause, but for understanding the major recovery operation that it was.... and the years of painstaking effort to put it back together and find out what happened. All of which could be even more difficult with MS804 if reports on the depth of the Sea there are correct. It's going to be a long time and a lot of work for a lot of people to really know what happened, always bearing in mind ensuring it can't happen again. Jumping to conclusions is the last thing the people who solve this mystery will be doing.

---

@Mikie
By Fanfwe on Friday, May 20th 2016 22:22Z

ACARS messages are not transmit only, they can be both ways.
ACARS is a cockpit datalink protocol, can be carried over VHF (VDL mode 2), or Satcom (Inmarsat Classic or Iridium SBD).
This is used for many different things which are triggerred by the crew, such as "SMS-like" messaging between aircraft and operations/dispatch/maintenance on ground, ATC clearance requests/replies, flightplan download, ...
But also automatic messages, aircraft systems can be configured to send some maintenance messages automatically while in flight to maintenance services for example, so that they can plan some maintenance tasks upon aircraft arrival should some kind of event occur during a flight, and without having to wait for the aircraft to be at the gate, therefore minimising grounding time.

---

Interesting...
By Mark C on Friday, May 20th 2016 22:15Z

Obviously an incendiary device is still possible, as it could have been left in the electronics bay by a cleaning crew or other ground personnel with sufficient knowledge. However I think we may be finally witnessing the first time lithium-ion batteries in the plane itself has caused an accident. If you guys see the videos from when they were testing the large lithium cobalt batteries for the 787 those things were basically incendiary devices themselves. It was shocking, to be honest, how fierce the flames and gasses were that could come out of those batteries during tests of unusual conditions. True, the A320 does not have nearly as large or as dangerous batteries as a 787 but it does still have some. Loss of control of flight surfaces, loss of radio and transponder, and loss of the aircraft would follow rather quickly from a fire within the electronics.

This also goes to show how pointless all this conjecture is, however. We're just going to have to wait to get any satisfying answers.  

---

Decompression
By Rob on Friday, May 20th 2016 22:07Z

Mostly armchair speculation from me. As I work for a being airline, but could it be possible these acars messages be interpreted as the following possibility.

With the window faults could indicate a failure of the window leading to a decompression (appears right side) if the fo was not belted in he could have been ejected also damaging another window. Which could also explain the lav smoke detector because some aircraft have either a photosensitive detector which the fogging from a rapid decompression could trigger or if it is the 02 sensor type the lack of oxygen at 37000 can trigger. Problem is it doesn't explain the auto flight or flight control faults. It could explain the initial left turn and dive as you turn of course and get to ten, but from there I'm out of explinations.

---

Aeroplanes Status
By Batreeq on Friday, May 20th 2016 22:04Z

Once the coop occupied Egypt, Egypt Air is kidnapped by military persons who are never been qualified. As a consequence:
1-Lots of technical & operational professionals either migrated overseas or having low arousal.
2-Lots of non-announced incidents are there from day to day including rejected take-offs & abnormal landings.
3-Lots of accidents already started and is continuing due to accumulation of technical issues over time.
4-Where is the Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder of the aircraft?
Thank you.

---

Pax Malevolence?
By Chris R on Friday, May 20th 2016 22:02Z

We bully passengers because they are the most abundant. Hordes of them a pilot I won't name called them.
But are the pax the only malevolent people? How about a bomb in the avionics bay? Who will we blame then? A security breach?
Well yes, blame the airliner! Let's speculate, it kills time and we may have our 15 minutes of fame and glory!!!

Or why not wait and see?

---

ignorant ?
By NoNe on Friday, May 20th 2016 21:56Z

if this is correct, from NYT linking this piece:

How do the two severe shifts in direct previously reported jive with the computer failure.

Can flight controls and communication be taken over from outside an aircraft?

---

Validated ACARS information?
By Louise on Friday, May 20th 2016 21:43Z

How do we know this information is legitimate? How easy is it to get this information?

I am a little sceptical with regards to theories because these investigations usually take many turns and have two or three contributing factors to any one accident. Point being we wont know until we get to see the actual investigation report. On the same token I am not completely debunking this ACARS report as it looks very realistic and could be true.

In my opinion (which is not of an aviation expert - just an aviation fan) if this ACARS report is real it could signal an explosion as the messages are all close together, the smoke originated from the toilets (suggesting passenger malevolence), spread quickly and then other system faults were recorded quickly. I am quick to point out that I do not want to be another random person saying this is terror related without knowing any real facts yet.

---

Failure?
By suszykuba on Friday, May 20th 2016 21:35Z

Look. Last radar contact was on 2:33 last contact with pilot was on 2:27. First ACARS message arrived on 2:26 last on 2:29. And during that 3 minutes between last ACARS message and last radar contact everything happened... It doesn't seems to be failure...

---

Not pre, but during
By Tom on Friday, May 20th 2016 21:33Z

Probably these alerts are not warnings of something developing, but signaling a full collapse during freefall of the fuselage in extremely increasing speed just before the crash with the sea. If so, it will not explain much.

---

ACARS
By AILERON on Friday, May 20th 2016 21:28Z

We have to be careful to interpret the ACARS Information which is present here.

ACARS is sending a block of information of past and not just in time each individual of each sensor.

The block which is presenting here is about 3 Minutes before, but not the last information in the last second of the disaster.

---

90 degrees turn
By Jose Silva on Friday, May 20th 2016 21:14Z

On Portuguse television a airbus pilot being interviewed,stated that in case of a emergency descent,the crew is required to make a 90 degree turn left or right in order not to disturb traffic. So that explains the first turn and that effectively the pilots had some degree of control over the aircraft in the beginning of the event.

---

cycles
By Sho on Friday, May 20th 2016 21:09Z

I've seen the age of the aircraft, etc. Is there a figure on cycles?

---

Aircraft
By chudlychudson on Friday, May 20th 2016 21:05Z

Anyone else ask why MS-804 every other day runs on a B737-800, but the day of the crash was run on this A320?

---

Trouble shooting manual
By Jack "the Engineer" Flyboy on Friday, May 20th 2016 20:31Z

Found an example manual for troubleshooting. Does not really lead to any conclusions.

---

@Uninformed reader
By Marcel on Friday, May 20th 2016 20:30Z

Correct - there is no wood used in the A320 . Using "fire proof" materials is part of the certification specifications in aircraft design. This is against the theory of a fire especially a quick development.

On the other hand a fire starting in this area below the cockpit is much more dangerous than a fire in the cabin. In the cabin a fire is usually easier to detect (also earlier noted) and easier to fight (by portable fire extinguishers and automatic extinguisher in the lavatory waste bin).

---

By Susanna on Friday, May 20th 2016 20:16Z

Dr K, the oil slick means there is some sort of fuel spillage on the surface of the water.

It's not smoke or similar, it's oil or fuel, which would remain after an aircraft impacted and broke up.

---

ECAM
By Peter on Friday, May 20th 2016 20:16Z

Had their cabin altitude passed above 9550ft, there would've been an ECAM alert in red letters saying CAB PR EXCESS CAB ALT. That would also be sent over on ACARS.

---

Wouldn't a fire leave at least some time to give off an emergency signal?
By Uninformed reader on Friday, May 20th 2016 20:15Z

I mean, the avionics bay etc. are built somewhat fire-resistant, so I would think that if a fire developed, this could be noticed and there would be enough time to at least give off an emergency message, don't you think?
I would be very surprised if a serious fire could develop so quickly onboard, that there is no time to change squawk, no time to send off a mayday, no time to start a controlled emergency descent, no time for anything.
But then again, I am just an uninformed reader, and will await official results. Just my two cents on the fire theory... P2 comment - some excellent questions asked by the Uninformed reader, I guess all will be revealed if/when the CVR/FDRs are recovered, however this does have the hallmarks of a sudden, spontaneous catastrophic failure.   

&..from PT :

EgyptAir flight MS804 found, now the real work begins

Unlike MH370, the causes of the crash of EgyptAir flight MS804 seem certain to be determined faster than any conspiracy theories as to what happened can take hold


Ben Sandilands
 



This is an old photo of the EgyptAir Airbus A320 that crashed on Wednesday as it neared the end of a Paris-Cairo flight

Update: There are unconfirmed but plausible reports that automated ACARS data sent from MS804 indicate smoke alerts shortly before the jet crashed

After more than a day of false leads wreckage from missing EgyptAir flight MS804 has been found.

The debris and passenger belongings located 295 kms off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast today match the point at which the EgyptAir jet disappeared early on the morning of Thursday, May 19 local time.

The A320 with a light load of 56 passengers, three security personnel and seven crew including two pilots and cabin attendants, was nearing the end of its flight from Paris to Cairo when something went terribly wrong at 37,000 feet and just inside Egypt’s air space.

It took well into the second day of daylight searching in fine weather to find the first signs of debris, which might have escaped from the sunk wreckage, or been on the surface since the jet struck the water in darkness.



There are many, many questions which can now begin to yield answers in what looks like an air crash which will have plenty of hard evidence to work on, including if they are found, the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.

There are in the many news reports from Egypt and Europe several interesting consistently mentioned elements that may prove to be very important as the crash investigation proceeds.

One element is that Greek ATC tried unsuccessfully to make radio contact with MS804 some two minutes 40 seconds before losing radar contact, and that this call was being made as a normal procedure when a flight was about to cross from their airspace to that of another country, in this case, Egypt.

As mentioned in considerable and useful detail in this BBC report, Greek ATC had initially spoken to the pilots of MS804 at 23:48 GMT when all seemed routine, and then not attempted to speak to them again until 00:27 GMT when they were minutes away from crossing over to air traffic control in Egypt.

Why didn’t the pilots respond, and for how long prior to that call, in the 39 minutes since Greek ATC had spoken to them, might they have been unable or unwilling to respond? That could be an important question, or totally irrelevant, depending on what else the crash investigation discovers.

The other much reported element quotes Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos as saying that before it had disappeared from ‘radar’, the plane made two abrupt turns and suddenly lost altitude.

The reports do not (yet) make it completely clear that this loss of altitude and changes in heading would have been registered on military not civil ATC radar, since the latter sees airliners as transponder identified objects until for whatever reason, the transponder ceases to work.

Those who follow the MH370 saga might reflect that Greek military radar therefore appears to have been far more competently managed or better equipped than Malaysian military radar.

But caution needs to be used in considering these matters. It is very early in the procedures that could be expected to be followed by the MS804 crash investigation.
It has already been argued that the abrupt change of course seen on Greek radar and the puzzling radio silence just before the flight disappeared would be consistent with some sort of struggle for control in the cockpit of the A320.

However tempting it might be to jump to conclusions about an attempted hijacking of MS804 the truth of the matter would be solved by the successful reading out of the cockpit sounds recorder and the multi channel flight data recorder. These so called ‘black boxes’ lie somewhere on the floor of a sea that is shallower and less challenging to deal with than the mid Atlantic or the south Indian Ocean.

If there is any logic to a hijacking attempt, given the range available to MS804, it might have been to force it to fly to a terrorist organisation controlled airstrip in Libya.  That might also be too fanciful a scenario, although downright ordinary as such fantasies go considering some of the theories advanced to explain the disappearance of MH370.

Assuming Egypt pursues a thorough air crash investigation that complies with the internationally agreed rules of an ICAO Annex 13 inquiry, the truth about the causes of the the loss of MS804 will be determined, and it won’t become a perhaps never solved riddle like that posed by the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.

MTF...P2