Differences from the A340 aside from the number of engines are slight changes to the wing and internal systems, including fuel tankage. The A330 (like the A340) takes advantage of a number of technologies first pioneered on the A320, including the common advanced EFIS flightdeck with side stick controllers and flybywire computerised flight control system.
Airbus A330-300 | Airliners.net
Airplane susceptibility to common mode and common area damage is addressed by
designing the systems to both component and functional separation requirements.
This includes criteria for providing installations resistant to maintenance crew error or
mishandling, such as:
! impact of objects
! electrical faults
! electrical power failure
! electromagnetic environment
! lightning strike
! hydraulic failure
! structural damage
! radiation environment in the atmosphere
! ash cloud environment in the atmosphere
! fire
! rough or unsafe installation
http://www.laas.fr/IFIPWG/Top3/08-Yeh.pdf
Thanks to well-developed protection systems on traditional commercial jets, no airliner crash in the United States has been caused by lightning in more than 40 years. It's a remarkable record, since Boeing estimates that every commercial airplane is hit by lightning on average about twice a year.
But Boeing engineers designing the 787 face new challenges, since they are building the first commercial airframe made entirely from carbon fiber-based plastic.
The composite airframe will not readily conduct lightning away, as traditional metal ones do.
The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Building the 787 | When lightning strikes
While these are just theories one will ultimatly never know the reason of the crash and can only speculate and mourn the deaths of the passengers and crew. TWA 800 remains some would say unresolved completely to this day even though the fuel tank was the primary reason given for its demise. I have shown above a few things that could have caused AF to go down and among those could have been a FBW failure caused by an electrical fault as a result of a lightning strike. The aricraft was flying into heavy weather, we will never know without the recovery of the FDR's that are in very deep waters. Furhter to speculate on if it were an act of terrorism i.e. a bomb remains just as much a mystery and cannot be verified without long term analysis of aircraft parts that contain residue like PETN and things of this nature. To my knowledge no organization as claimed reponsiblity for this act but I could be wrong on that. Generally something of this magnitude would be quickly clamied by any number of people on the terrorist hit parade. So until such time as the FDR's can be recovered if ever, I fear this crash will remain a a mystery.
