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So you don't ever leave your house? In the US we kill over 30,000 per year in auto accidents. About half are related to drinking. Nobody bats an eye, but have one plane crash killing 66 people on the other side of the planet, and they all wet their nappies in fear. No wonder the terrorists are winning.That is exactly why I quit flying many years ago. I won't take any risk, no matter how small, to die that way.
I have never had any fear of getting into a car crash, although of course, I have considered it many times. It is being around a lot of people in a panic, ready to die in a disaster that has scared me for a long time. I determined in the mid-to-late 90's not to fly anymore and have had at least a couple of dreams I remembered very well of being in a plane that was going to crash and did crash. It has been so long now thankfully that I hardly think about it anymore.
It could also be a common maneuver to lose altitude without pulling negative G's; pull power, simultaneously nose over and bank hard then pulling backstick a little to avoid "floating" everyone in the airplane.The swerving of the aircraft suggests some kind of struggle inside the cockpit, said Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International.
I've just spoken to a man who has been a pilot for 46 years, flew the Airbus A320 for six years and has spent the past 11 years investigating fires on planes. Capt John Cox, a Fellow at the London-based Royal Aeronautical Society, told me the known facts about what happened on the missing EgyptAir flight MS804 were confusing. If the timings we have are right (they are still not officially confirmed), there were three minutes of smoke and heat warnings, followed by four minutes of powered flight without warnings, followed by a two minute fall. "For a fire, that's a very short period of time. For an explosive event, like a bomb, that's a very long period of time," he says. "It's got me and many other experts scratching their heads. There is an answer, but it's not clear yet."
Capt Cox has some sobering statistics. Every year, there are about 900-1,200 smoke-related incidents on aircraft in the US. If you double that number, you'll get a rough, global figure. The vast majority end perfectly safely, but fires have brought down planes. "It's shockingly regular, and along with drones, it's the only part of aviation that's getting more dangerous," Capt Cox says. He puts the rise down to two things: an increase in the number of flights, and a huge rise in people taking lithium batteries on board. One estimate says that an airliner carrying 100 people could have 500 lithium batteries in the cabin, in cameras, laptops, tablet computers, phones, e-readers, etc.
He says crushed batteries are increasingly problematic. "Maybe someone falls asleep. Their tablet computer or phone slips down the side of the chair. They move the seat and accidentally crush the battery." Potentially, that could start a fire. To be clear, if you buy lithium batteries from a respectable company, they are thoroughly tested and safe, with a one in 10m failure rate. But Capt Cox says there could be 3.5bn batteries taken on aircraft throughout a year. It only takes one to go wrong, and they pack a hell of a punch, as I reported in 2014. And then there are the "grey market" batteries and chargers some people buy on the cheap. They may well not have been safety tested at all.
Modern aircraft have smoke detectors, but the only automatic extinguishers are in the cargo bay. Otherwise, it's down to crew members using a hand-held fire extinguisher. There's one in the bin of each toilet, for example. A recent paper co-written by Capt Cox says experience shows that many fires start in "inaccessible locations" - places that crew may not be able to reach. He also made the point that the US regulator, the FAA, recently said you can never eradicate all sources of ignition on an aircraft. Capt Cox used to fly the A320 and says it's a wonderful aircraft. He's never heard of a major fire in the front right part of the plane. And it has been flying in various forms since the late 1980s. Many airlines also now train their staff in how to cope with a lithium battery fire. I want to stress this again, we do not know what caused the Egyptair airliner to come down. It could be an accident. It could be more sinister. But fires on aircraft are an issue and Capt Cox is calling on the industry to do more to tackle it.
EgyptAir MS804: Fires are a growing problem for airlines - BBC News
They include life vests, parts of seats and objects clearly marked EgyptAir. The Airbus A320 was en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people aboard when it vanished from radar early on Thursday. Investigators have confirmed smoke was detected in various parts of the cabin three minutes before it disappeared, but say the cause is still not known. Speaking on Saturday after meeting relatives of victims, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said "all theories are being examined and none is favoured".
Images posted on the Facebook page of the spokesman for the Egyptian Armed Forces showed life vests and other items with the EgyptAir logo. The search has also reportedly found body parts and luggage. The main body of the plane and the two "black boxes" which show flight data and cockpit transmissions have not yet been located. While no bodies have been recovered, memorials have been taking place for the victims. A service was held in a Cairo church on Saturday for air hostess Yara Hani, who was aboard the doomed plane.
Smoke alarms
The Aviation Herald said that smoke detectors had gone off in the toilet and the aircraft's electronics before the signal was lost. It said it had received flight data filed through the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) from three independent channels. It said the system showed that at 02:26 local time on Thursday (00:26 GMT) smoke was detected in the jet's toilet. A minute later - at 00:27 GMT - there was an avionics alert indicating smoke in the bay below the cockpit that contains aircraft electronics and computers. The last ACARS message was at 00:29 GMT, the air industry website said, and the contact with the plane was lost four minutes later at 02:33 local time. ACARS is used to routinely download flight data to the airline operating the aircraft.
Confirming the data, France's Bureau of Investigations and Analysis told AFP it was "far too soon to interpret and understand the cause of the accident as long as we have not found the wreckage or the flight data recorders". Agency spokesman Sebastien Barthe told Associated Press the messages "generally mean the start of a fire" but added: "We are drawing no conclusions from this. Everything else is pure conjecture." Philip Baum, the editor of Aviation Security International Magazine, told the BBC that technical failure could not be ruled out. "There was smoke reported in the aircraft lavatory, then smoke in the avionics bay, and over a period of three minutes the aircraft's systems shut down, so you know, that's starting to indicate that it probably wasn't a hijack, it probably wasn't a struggle in the cockpit, it's more likely a fire on board."
Analysis: Richard Westcott, BBC transport correspondent
That's right you lying prick! Anyone can go into the lav. nd light up a cigarette?The smoke, yes, but that would be a helluva coincidence to have someone smoking in the lav just before the plane when down.It also might have been caused by someone smoking a cigarette in the lavatory, who didn't dispose of the butt properly.Uncontrollable fire in the cargo bay. That's what brought down Valuejet 562 20 years ago this month. It could be accidental, like Valuejet, or it could be sabotage such as thermite in the lavatory.Smoke detected in cabin ........ in the minutes before EgyptAir Flight 804 plunged into the Mediterranean Sea, according to data transmissions revealed Friday....... I wonder what was that...
Smoke detected in cabin of crashed EgyptAir jet; debris found
Three smoke detectors in each lav? LOL Well, Danny, when you ever get a clue, let me know.That's right you lying prick! Anyone can go into the lav. nd light up a cigarette?
Bullshit!
There are three smoke detectors in modern commercial airplanes located in the lav.
Within a second a hypersensitive smoke detector alarm goes off in the cockpit AND at the flight attendant's work station.
Also there is literally no combustible materials in any commercial airplane's lav.
Also the lav. is 'shielded' from the rest of the aircraft in the event of an explosive device.
That can start a fire. It's what brought down TWA 800 and Swissair 111. A coworker lost his wife in Swissair 111.What about arcing?
Daesh woul be my first guess, but it's also possible it was a simple accident like Valujet 592, TWA 800 or Swissair 111.ISIS planned and did the bombing of Egyptair 804
Believe it if you want
If you don't want ....leave in ignorance until the truth comes to light.....and talk talk talk of the endless possibilities of the crash.....
Like I care ...
These are the facts:
ISIS + BOMB = DOWNING OF EGYPTAIR
Daesh woul be my first guess, but it's also possible it was a simple accident like Valujet 592, TWA 800 or Swissair 111.ISIS planned and did the bombing of Egyptair 804
Believe it if you want
If you don't want ....leave in ignorance until the truth comes to light.....and talk talk talk of the endless possibilities of the crash.....
Like I care ...
These are the facts:
ISIS + BOMB = DOWNING OF EGYPTAIR
Why not? Even in a world of radical Muslims, accidents happen as shown by those accidents I listed.Daesh woul be my first guess, but it's also possible it was a simple accident like Valujet 592, TWA 800 or Swissair 111.ISIS planned and did the bombing of Egyptair 804
Believe it if you want
If you don't want ....leave in ignorance until the truth comes to light.....and talk talk talk of the endless possibilities of the crash.....
Like I care ...
These are the facts:
ISIS + BOMB = DOWNING OF EGYPTAIR
Daesh, ISIS, Al Qaeda......sure
A simple accident? Nah.
Sorry folks.
Why not? Even in a world of radical Muslims, accidents happen as shown by those accidents I listed.Daesh woul be my first guess, but it's also possible it was a simple accident like Valujet 592, TWA 800 or Swissair 111.ISIS planned and did the bombing of Egyptair 804
Believe it if you want
If you don't want ....leave in ignorance until the truth comes to light.....and talk talk talk of the endless possibilities of the crash.....
Like I care ...
These are the facts:
ISIS + BOMB = DOWNING OF EGYPTAIR
Daesh, ISIS, Al Qaeda......sure
A simple accident? Nah.
Sorry folks.
Sorry, but that doesn't make sense not to mention this quote from your link:
The official, who is part of the Egyptian team investigating the crash that killed all 66 people on board the flight from Paris to Cairo early last Thursday, has personally examined the remains at a Cairo morgue. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. However, the head of the government's forensic agency later Tuesday dismissed as speculation all media reports about human remains from the crash indicating an explosion. "Whatever has been published is baseless and mere assumptions," Hisham Abdel-Hamid told Egypt's state MENA news agency.
A statement from the government's investigative committee also warned media outlets to be cautious about what is published "to avoid chaos and spreading false rumors and damaging the state's high interests and national security." The Egyptian expert told the AP that all 80 pieces that have been brought to Cairo so far are very small. "There isn't even a whole body part, like an arm or a head," said the official, adding that one piece was the left part of a head. He said the body parts are "so tiny" and that at least one piece of a human arm has signs of burns - an indication it might have "belonged to a passenger sitting next to the explosion." "But I cannot say what caused the blast," he said. He did not say whether traces of explosives were found on the human remains retrieved so far.
The expert's comments mark a new dramatic twist surrounding last week's crash, which still remains a mystery. The plane's black boxes have yet to be found and photographs of retrieved debris published by the Egyptian military over the weekend were not charred and appear to show no signs of fire. Egyptian officials have said they believe terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure, or some other catastrophic event, and some aviation experts have said the erratic flight reported by the Greek defense minister suggests a bomb blast or a struggle in the cockpit. But so far no hard evidence has emerged on the cause of the disaster.
MORE
2 a.m.
The first audio available from EgyptAir Flight 804 indicates that all was routine as the plane checked in with air traffic controllers in Zurich, Switzerland, late Wednesday night, before being handed over to Italian air traffic controllers in Padua (Padova).
Control: EgyptAir804 contact Padova 1-2-0, decimal 7-2-5, good night.
Pilot: This is 0-7-2-5 Padova control. (Unintelligible) 8-0-4. Thank you so much. Good day er good night.
The audio recording was taken from www.liveatc.net, a website that provides live air traffic control broadcasts from around the world. The communication occurred around midnight local time, about 2 ½ hours before Greek air traffic controllers in Athens lost contact with EgyptAir Flight 804.
---- 10 p.m.
As French authorities question airport staff who had access to EgyptAir Flight 804, cleaning crews are among those drawing attention. One theory is that a bomb could have been placed in the plane while it was on the tarmac in Paris, or at its previous stops in Cairo or Tunis, although there is no evidence so far of a bomb being aboard the flight that crashed Thursday into the Mediterranean while flying from Paris to Cairo. Sylvain Prevost, who trains Paris airport personnel, says cleaning staff are trained to alert authorities to suspicious items but specialized security personnel are not routinely required to sweep a plane after the cleaning crew leaves. In an email to The Associated Press, he noted that rules vary from airport to airport and said he was not aware of the procedures used when the EgyptAir plane was parked in Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport. Prevost noted that despite extensive efforts to ensure security, workers can sometimes be threatened into cooperating with criminals.
---
5:35 p.m.
A senior official at the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry has denied media reports that EgyptAir Flight 804's cockpit voice and flight data recorders, commonly known as the black boxes, have been located. The official spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. Military spokesman Brig-Gen. Mohammed Samir also says Saturday he had no information to share on the location or the retrieval of the black boxes. The boxes are believed to be in Mediterranean waters around 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Alexandria. The waters are 8,000 to 10,000 feet deep (2,440 to 3,050 meters), and the pings from the black boxes can be detected up to a depth of 20,000 feet (6 kilometers).
4:35 p.m.