Air France jet vanishes from radar

[GGTharos]

Lightning bringing down the aircraft is not impossible.

 

There is a saying - you can make a telephone pole lase if you put enough energy into it.

 

Similarly there are scenarios where a faraday cage may be penetrated for one reason or another - such things have definitely happened before and things have been tightened up to make aircraft much, much safer, but impossible does not exist.

 

Was it lightning or a contribution from lightning that brought that aircraft down? We don't know. Quit saying it's impossible - there's even calculated possibilities for a tennis ball quantum tunneling whole through a wall. The probability is small, far, far smaller than lightning bringing that aircraft down ;)

 

Electricity can do a lot of things, including 'walking' from one side of the aircraft to the other section by section, discretely, and heating the surface up - it might do nothing, it might cause your fuel tank to detonate. Multiple strikes can increase potential differences to unmanageable levels. Further, you have potential contributors other than the lightning itself.

 

On the other hand, it is also likely that there was enough turbulence to rip the tail right off the aircraft with the help of the autopilot trying to correct and well-timed, powerful gust of wind.

 

Included is an excerpt from:

 

Ball lightning: an unsolved problem in atmospheric physics

By Mark Stenhoff

Edition: illustrated

Published by Springer, 1999

ISBN 0306461501, 9780306461507

349 pages

Edited June 4, 2009 by GGTharos

[Vault]

Lightning bringing down the aircraft is not impossible.

 

Woah, who said it was impossible? If you read my original post I used the word impervious.

 

Similarly there are scenarios where a faraday cage may be penetrated for one reason or another - such things have definitely happened before and things have been tightened up to make aircraft much, much safer, but impossible does not exist.

 

I didn't know a Faraday cage can be penetrated, now that's news to me! btw do you have a link for that information? Because I've never heard of it.

 

Was it lightning or a contribution from lightning that brought that aircraft down? We don't know. Quit saying it's impossible - there's even calculated possibilities for a tennis ball quantum tunneling whole through a wall. The probability is small, far, far smaller than lightning bringing that aircraft down ;)

 

You're putting words into my mouth, I never said it was impossible, infact I only ever said it was impossible for Faraday's cage not to earth. which I still stand by.

 

Electricity can do a lot of things, including 'walking' from one side of the aircraft to the other section by section, discretely, and heating the surface up - it might do nothing, it might cause your fuel tank to detonate. Multiple strikes can increase potential differences to unmanageable levels. Further, you have potential contributors other than the lightning itself.

 

AFAIK no commercial airliner that uses a Faraday cage and static wicks for protection has ever crashed.

 

On the other hand, it is also likely that there was enough turbulence to rip the tail right off the aircraft with the help of the autopilot trying to correct and well-timed, powerful gust of wind.

 

Included is an excerpt from:

 

Ball lightning: an unsolved problem in atmospheric physics

By Mark Stenhoff

Edition: illustrated

Published by Springer, 1999

ISBN 0306461501, 9780306461507

349 pages

 

That article is regarding military aircraft, I'm talking about commercial airliners, commercial airliners use static wicks to remove any excess ESD off the skin.

 

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/design/q0234.shtml

[GGTharos]

You're pretty much saying it's impossible - it's what you're on about in here - that is your implication from the very start.

 

As for a faraday cage being penetrated? Pretty easy - there's plenty of access points into the aircraft itself.

 

The example I provided is an example of an aircraft being taken down by lightning - that it used one thing or another is pretty irrelevant, in fact IIRC this aircraft wasn't even well protected, but its destruction led to a better understanding and implementation of safety features. The point here is, while the possibility of this happening again has been greately reduced, you're playing against statistics one way or another.

Edited June 4, 2009 by GGTharos

[Vault]

You're pretty much saying it's impossible - it's what you're on about in here - that is your implication from the very start.

My implication from the start was that that Airbus is impervious to ESD.

 

As for a faraday cage being penetrated? Pretty easy - there's plenty of access points into the aircraft itself.

 

If there's access points then it's not a Faraday cage is it, I'd like to see a link for that information.

 

The example I provided is an example of an aircraft being taken down by lightning - that it used one thing or another is pretty irrelevant, in fact IIRC this aircraft wasn't even well protected, but its destruction led to a better understanding and implementation of safety features. The point here is, while the possibility of this happening again has been greately reduced, you're playing against statistics one way or another.

 

If I'm playing with statistics then there in favour of my opinion because AFAIK no commercial airline has crashed from ESD that utilized the protection of both Faraday's cage and static wicks.

[nscode]

___________________________________________________

I take no responsibility if you injure or kill your self reading this. DO NOT play with electricity.

___________________________________________________

First, you are throwing around the lethal current values like it's a football. The exact value depends on many factors, but generaly 100mA will be lethal.

 

But what will make that current flow? A car battery will happily put out 50A if you put a wire accross its poles (until it catches fire), but if you touch it you will not go up in flames. How come a source capable of producing 50A currents is not killing you? It's our old friend voltage.

A wire has low resistance, so it will let high currents pass even at low voltage (usually 12V with a car battery). Human body has high resistance (1000-100.000 Ohms, again depending on conditions) so you need more force (ie. higher voltage) if you want to push current thru it. Generally, a value of 50V is taken as enough. If your skin is really dry that day, even 100V may leave you standing. In extreme cases, with people who have an illness that prevents their sweat glands from working can handle even higher voltages. Example

.

 

Now let's take a cigarette ligher, the one that makes a little ark to light the flame. This ark will be 10000V+ but will not kill you. Why? The little magnet inside can't produce high currents. The maximum current it can produce is so low that even if the voltage has no problems going thru your skin, it will do you no harm.

 

Note the maximum current thing. Even if a source is capable of producing high current, the actual current passing thru you is limited by your body's resistance and the source voltage.

 

 

Low voltage, low max amps = Ok

Low voltage, high max amps = Ok

High voltage, low max amps = Ok

High voltage, high max amps = not ok

[topol-m]

NASA Storm Hazards

 

In the late 1970s, NASA launched a project to study lightning strikes on airplanes.

 

Bruce Fisher signed on as lead researcher and learned there is really only one way to conduct such a study: Fly directly into a thunderstorm and try to get struck by lightning.

 

"Better than sitting at a desk and doing computations," said Fisher. "The lightning was the fun part of the mission. ... You know, we would go up and go down, plus or minus 3,000 or 4,000 feet with the updrafts and the downdrafts and allow the aircraft to do that."

The NASA Storm Hazards project flew into nearly 1,500 thunderstorms and experienced more than 700 lightning strikes. Fisher's test plane was hit more than 200 times … but it never crashed, thanks largely to its metal frame. When lightning struck, the metal conducted the electricity along the outside.

The point of the project, of course, was not merely to seek cheap thrills.

"We tried to quantify the electromagnetic properties of lightning strikes to aircraft," said Fisher.

To protect commercial aircraft from lightning strikes -- particularly as the technology changed -- they needed to know where lightning would strike airplanes, how often, and how much electric current it carried. In the process, Fisher discovered something shocking.

"Almost all lightning strikes to aircraft are triggered by the aircraft's presence."

When airplanes fly into charged pockets of air, the sharp points on the plane -- the nose, the wing, the tail -- concentrate the electric fields and create a channel for the lightning strike.

Fisher's research made it possible for engineers like Andy Plumer to capture lightning in a bottle, so to speak. Thanks to the data NASA gathered, Plumer created simulated lightning strikes that carry the same properties as those actually experienced in flight.

This is especially important because the next generation of aircraft will be made of carbon reinforced plastics, which, while lighter and stronger, do not conduct electricity as well as metal. To keep planes safe from lightning, engineers have to develop new methods to diffuse that destructive force. In one case, adding a layer of copper mesh to the hull of an aircraft can protect it from lightning.

The copper mesh is "very thin, very lightweight," said Plumer, "but it provides an amazing amount of lightning protection."

 

Thanks in large part to these efforts, no commercial airline has crashed in the United States because of a lightning strike since 1963.

 

However, it was concluded based on the data collected that on board instrumentation could be affected by small electrical charges caused by the lightning.

Even though the electric current remained on the outer skin of the aircraft, small electrical transients could be induced on wiring inside the aircraft. As a result, regulations were put in place such that all electronic equipment, fuel tanks and fuel lines have their own built-in surge protection, shielding and special grounding systems. Even if the system experiences flickering, it will return to normal in less than a second.

As a last line of defense, jet fuel now has additives that reduce the amount of vapor produced. Although the vapors are still explosive, the fuel tanks are insulated and grounded which makes it very difficult for an electrical ignition source to enter the tanks and ignite the fuel.

 

quote

 

^^^ This applies to cloud-to-ground and to cloud-to-cloud lightnings. X-man gave us a link though to some info about the positive lightning: "...As a result of their greater power, positive lightning strikes are considerably more dangerous. At the present time, aircraft are not designed to withstand such strikes, since their existence was unknown at the time standards were set, and the dangers unappreciated until the destruction of a glider in 1999..."

Edited June 4, 2009 by topol-m

[rogue_blade]

:| I can't believe you guys are still arguing over the possibility of lightning bringing the plane down. That's the last thing I think it was....

I'm putting all my money in that it was not lightning :D

[sniffer]

Might not be the sole cause, but it could have contributed to the situation...

 

This is what I tried to say earlier...

 

And other side is the discussion heads in wrong direction. Now we should wait looong time to bring some new evidence or FDR,CVR (if they can cause it wouldn't be easy :noexpression:)

[Pilotasso]

Might not be the sole cause, but it could have contributed to the situation...

 

There is a large oil spill close to the wreckage which makes me think if there was an explosion at all. Wouldn't most of the fuel have been ignited or at least burnt on the surface?

 

I thought bout that too, but remember all planes have got more than 1 tank, usualy on the wings so its possible that one wing sperated from the aircraft due to the explosion but the fuselage might have shielded the other one from igniting as well.

[pauldy]

This is the first time we had a major incident involving an A330 (excluding the flight test crash)

 

No matter what caused it.. R.I.P. to the passengers and crew of Air France 447. Condolences to the relatives too..

[MoGas]

I've lightning or not, the crew should not fly trough that kind of weather! Every pilots learn's too avoid such a huge cell of thunderstorm (ok small cell's are not that huge problem). The have weather radar onboard, the did a preflight briefing, the had the weather briefing what is going on on the route so the know what to expect there.....!! So what is the reason that the are there?? Is Air France sayeing too pilots to avoid fly arounds too save fuel and money in those hard time of economy?

 

The blackbox is in 4700m, in a underwater rockymountains area, that this blackbox would be never found probably I guess.

[Vekkinho]

There's the study in local newspapers I have on a way to "rescue" the blackbox. It said it probably survived the pressure of the water at -4700m but the signal it transmits would dim within a week. There's also a report from another airliner of a visual on an explosion like flash when plane disappeared. So it implies there was some airborne explosion that day!

[Force_Feedback]

Even if the DFDR and CVR could float, the tons of metal aeroplane and structures to which they are mounted generally don't.... And who says the boxes needed to be stronger? Chances are, they have survived the event, and just need to be found - That's the hard part, despite their underwater location equipment. Given the origin of the aircraft (Airbus), and the carrier (AF), I've no doubt that the money will be spent to locate and investigate.

 

Easy, place it outside the rear pressure bulkhead, add a composite hatch with a gelcoat on the edges. A water detector (some sort of solvable chemical) and pretensioned springs that actuate on water contact, then add a little co2 cylinder, some inflatable skirt, and voila.

 

The Russkie black boxes even look like little buoys, with an iflatable pointy top. The same principe is used with the emergency beacon when a pilot ejects over water. The transmitter inflates and floats. Not hard to do, buy yes, it will add weight, and cost more money. Saving future lifes isn't worth it.

Edited June 4, 2009 by Force_Feedback
typo

[Vault]

___________________________________________________

I take no responsibility if you injure or kill your self reading this. DO NOT play with electricity.

___________________________________________________

 

First, you are throwing around the lethal current values like it's a football. The exact value depends on many factors, but generaly 100mA will be lethal.

Death is possible at 50mA from respiratory arrest, especially from a DC supply. 60mA has been known to give people Ventricular fibrillation. http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/construction/electrical_incidents/eleccurrent.html

But what will make that current flow? A car battery will happily put out 50A if you put a wire accross its poles (until it catches fire), but if you touch it you will not go up in flames. How come a source capable of producing 50A currents is not killing you? It's our old friend voltage.

45 amps is the the amp hour rating, the battery will supply 45 amps for one hour, all car batteries also have a cold crank amp rating as well, 300+ CCA is about the average for any where between 10 - 30 seconds, in minus -0 temperatures some car batteries are able to supply over 1000 CCA's!. You're very confident you can't get a nasty shock of a 12v battery PM me I'll show you how to get a really nasty shock off a 12v car battery. Believe it or not one man has died from a 9v battery, he never meant to kill himself, but accidents do happen, but it does prove low voltage and low amps can kill too. http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html

[bumfire]

Vault, I will answer your questions.

 

I looked but couldn't find a thing, have you got a link for that information?

 

Its called positive lightning as mentioned earlier and linked to earlier in the thread, go back and you will find a direct link that explians what it is and also explains that all aircraft flying are not designed to withstand these strikes.

 

Again, ESD will ALWAYS ground from an aircraft that uses a Faraday's cage for protection. It is IMPOSSIBLE for it not too.

 

NOBODY here is saying that it wont ground, ground is the ONLY place it can goto eventually, we are saying that WITHOUT a DIRECT connection to ground it increases the potential for damage.

 

Yes they probably did save it that's why those insulation liners are there. When ESD conducts with the aluminium shell of a modern commercial aircraft I'd expect to see arcing, pitting and burning and small holes. According to me? naaa according to Faraday.

 

Yes, so would I expect to see burning and pitting etc, but what you are saying through this whole thread or what you are implying is that because a plane is a faraday cage nothing can penetrate it, which is clearly wrong, maybe you dont mean it to sound like that, but you clearly come across to me as saying, "because a plane is protected by a faraday cage that it is impossible for elecrticity to get inside it, which has been proved to be false, although modern airliners and planes are much more safer than older generation of planes, but not all planes that fly are brand new, some are still flying from the 1950s and before.

 

Is there any chance of a link to those pictures of aircraft with missing control surfaces from ESD strikes.

 

Sure, here is one which has its elevator destroyed, not only external damage but the control rods were melted inside making what is left of the stabilizer on a lufthansa 737 jet useless, also on pprune you will find similar pictures if you look for them, I have also seen other planes with similar damage on external control surfaces where the internal rods have been melted and fused or melted and broke apart making said surface useless..

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ABhPWqEL0vY/R_ztH3n2u9I/AAAAAAAAAN8/O-U9C7i0zdM/s400/.9_LH737_lightiningstrike.bmp

 

Cars made of metal cant be destroyed by lightning you say ????

 

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/29/article-1039609-021B087300000578-485_468x303.jpg

 

and in this one, do you think the occupants were safe inside ?

 

http://www.esdjournal.com/articles/Lightning/utah%20car.jpg

 

lets sit in them during a strike, they look really safe to me.

 

ESD will always go the shortest route with the less resistance. If the bolt entered the interiour of the aircraft he'd be dead, Are you sure that by entered he didn't mean struck?, Now I'd beleive turbulence could take the wing off an aircraft but a lightning bolt??? wtf!.

 

These are the pilots own words, I did edit these onto my message last night, but you obviously copied my original post which doesnt have the quoted text, I eventually decided it was pointless to argue the case in a thread which is dedicated tothe memory of 200 odd passengers and crew, but what is posted below is what I originally added onto my post last night, which thankfully I saved when I decided to delete my post.

 

EDIT:

 

Quoted from a pilot who flies airliners:

 

I know from personal experience, that a 'bolt' can enter an aircraft. The light intensity, once the sheath has been irradiated away, would saturate then destroy the fiber data-lines.

 

A discharge goes much where it wants. My biggest went in what became a 4" hole in the top of the wing, round the rubber fuel bags, and out a similar hole - in line with the top hole. I'm under no illusion that if the 'bolt' had been more vigorous, we'd have lost the wing in moments.

 

 

End quote

 

Now he is on about his biggest lightning strike damage/hole, so it happens more than you would think.

 

But to get back on topic, I personally dont think it was lightning that made this aircraft go misssing, more likely the storm or bomb, I would be more worried about flying into bad weather than I would about a lightning strike.

 

the coup de grace

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=3994564&page=1

 

I am not going to debate this any further in this thread, because this thread isnt solely about lightning and its effects and too much time has already been giving to the topic.

[sniffer]

There's also a report from another airliner of a visual on an explosion like flash when plane disappeared. So it implies there was some airborne explosion that day!

 

Vex: Unfortunately this revelations are false cause look at picture below:

 

It shows mentioned by You AirComet flight and AF447 positions. At FL350 You've got horizon about 160nm so AirComet pilot was able to see another plane ~300nm. On the picture it shows about 1250nm. So it isn't true... Hell knows what pilot saw (I hear theory bout meteors but... eeh).

 

BTW. First pieces of plane was bring 'above water' by helicopters and first bodies too... :noexpression:

[X-man]

Lightning strikes that caused some damage:

 

http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=58955

 

http://www.ntsb.gov/recs/letters/2001/A01_83_87.pdf

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_am_214

[Vault]

Vault, I will answer your questions.

Its called positive lightning as mentioned earlier and linked to earlier in the thread, go back and you will find a direct link that explians what it is and also explains that all aircraft flying are not designed to withstand these strikes.

Yeah I did read about positive lightning on the Nasa database http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/nasafact/lightningmech.htm according to NASA they're very common in all thunderstorms and they state "It makes up less than 10 percent of a storm’s lightning strikes and typically takes place at the end of a storm" so considering on average every commercial passenger airline is hit by lightning at least once a year it must mean that 10% of the US fleet of commercial passenger airliners encounter positive lightning every year, according to this 2003 US Statistical Abstract of the United States 2003 cencus http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/001573.html there are 7,900 airliners in the US? so 10% of 7,900 = 790, so statistically 790 aircraft have encountered positive lightning with zero losses, so if airliners are unable to withstand positive lightning where are the 790 crashed airliners?, there are none.

NASA states "It generates current levels up to twice as high and of longer duration than those produced by a negative bolt". Even NASA say it only has "the potential to cause more damage". If 10% of aircraft were at risk of crashing from positive lightning no one would fly. Would you take a 10% risk on your life?. Somethings wrong here, the numbers just don't add up. Even the FAA have nothing about positive lightning being terminal to all airliners. I searched there database using Google. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=positive+lightning&oi=navquery_searchbox&sa=X&as_sitesearch=faa.gov&hl=en&tbo=1

NOBODY here is saying that it wont ground, ground is the ONLY place it can goto eventually, we are saying that WITHOUT a DIRECT connection to ground it increases the potential for damage.

A plane is only a faraday cage to a certain point

a plane in flight is not earthed thus is much more suceptible to powerful lightning strikes which depending on size can totally obliterate it

Yes, so would I expect to see burning and pitting etc, but what you are saying through this whole thread or what you are implying is that because a plane is a faraday cage nothing can penetrate it, which is clearly wrong, maybe you dont mean it to sound like that, but you clearly come across to me as saying, "because a plane is protected by a faraday cage that it is impossible for elecrticity to get inside it, which has been proved to be false, although modern airliners and planes are much more safer than older generation of planes, but not all planes that fly are brand new, some are still flying from the 1950s and before.

The Pan Am 707 that crashed in 1963 was a lesson well heeded by Boeing, it had virtually none of the saftey systems that modern airliners have now, when Boeing retrofitted the 707 with the new saftey features no more 707's were lost to ESD. AFAIK it's the only airliner to of gone down because of ESD. Every circuit and piece of equipment that is critical or essential to the safe flight and landing of an aircraft must be verified by the manufacturers to be protected against lightning in accordance with regulations of the FAA. The reason why pilots report radar and flight instrument loss is because there located under a GRP radome that is outside of the protection of the Faraday cage. It's not me who's saying that it's impossible to get electricity inside a Faraday cage, Faraday, Gauss and many other respected people say that not me, you're disagreeing with them. I'm only reiterating their words. "all electricity goes up to the free surface of the bodies without diffusing in their interior substance".

Sure, here is one which has its elevator destroyed, not only external damage but the control rods were melted inside making what is left of the stabilizer on a lufthansa 737 jet useless, also on pprune you will find similar pictures if you look for them, I have also seen other planes with similar damage on external control surfaces where the internal rods have been melted and fused or melted and broke apart making said surface useless..

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ABhPWqEL0vY/R_ztH3n2u9I/AAAAAAAAAN8/O-U9C7i0zdM/s400/.9_LH737_lightiningstrike.bmp

It's GRP like I said before GRP is a poor conductor. Please can you post the link to this thread.

Cars made of metal cant be destroyed by lightning you say ????

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/29/article-1039609-021B087300000578-485_468x303.jpg

and in this one, do you think the occupants were safe inside ?

http://www.esdjournal.com/articles/Lightning/utah%20car.jpg

Please post the links to the webpages these pictures come from.

These are the pilots own words, I did edit these onto my message last night, but you obviously copied my original post which doesnt have the quoted text, I eventually decided it was pointless to argue the case in a thread which is dedicated tothe memory of 200 odd passengers and crew, but what is posted below is what I originally added onto my post last night, which thankfully I saved when I decided to delete my post

 

EDIT: Quoted from a pilot who flies airliners, I know from personal experience, that a 'bolt' can enter an aircraft. The light intensity, once the sheath has been irradiated away, would saturate then destroy the fiber data-lines. A discharge goes much where it wants. My biggest went in what became a 4" hole in the top of the wing, round the rubber fuel bags, and out a similar hole - in line with the top hole. I'm under no illusion that if the 'bolt' had been more vigorous, we'd have lost the wing in moments. End quote. Now he is on about his biggest lightning strike damage/hole, so it happens more than you would think.

I believe you and I'd like to see the pilot's account of what happened, is there any chance you can send me the link to his webpage, and if possible can you show me the webpage where you stated that "I have pics of lighting strikes that have made a hole in one part of the aircraft and then came out the opposite side, burnt straight through exterior/interior walls".

the coup de grace

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=3994564&page=1

He's talking about planes from the 40's - 60's. He doesn't mention any modern day airliners, AFAIK the only airliner lost to ESD was in 1963 when the saftey systems were primative compared to todays airliner as I already stated earlier in this post. The real Coup de Grace is actually in the paragraph below his statement.

Edited June 4, 2009 by Vault

[Vault]

Lightning strikes that caused some damage:

 

http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=58955

 

http://www.ntsb.gov/recs/letters/2001/A01_83_87.pdf

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_am_214

 

1 is normal. The airplane didn't crash the pilot was able to land.

2 I don't have Adobe installed so I cant read it.

3 Is the only airliner to of crashed from ESD. See my previous post above.

[bumfire]

You just dont stop do ya,

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1039609/Storms-sweep-Britain-leaving-trail-destruction--theres-come.html

 

The other is from America and is on one of the american news websites and was even on TV, I am sure you can find it if you look and the picture where the lightning entered via the top of the wing and then came out of the bottom of the wing which is INSIDE ( not necessarily the inside you think it is, but inside nonetheless, since lightning isnt meant to penetrate the outer skin which not only did it do but it also penetrated the lower outer skin aswell ) an aircraft is on pprune, it shows you the damage that was caused also, melted control rods that had been through such force that they were rendered useless, if you search pprune and other places that deal with passenger airplanes I am sure you will also come across the same pictures.

 

So I have already told you where they are, go and find them for yourself.

 

And the part where you say and I quote, "I believe you" the thing is, YOU DONT BELIEVE ME AND YOU DONT BELIEVE ANYONE HERE who's opinion differs from yours, if you truly did then you wouldnt be making such a drama about it like you have.

 

Now Please, make a new thread if you wish to continue with "Vaults Theories On Plane Safety" as this thread is about a missing plane and its been destroyed by a lightning, well I was going to say debate, but its been more of a forced opinion by yourself.

 

http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lls/avaition_losses.html

Edited June 4, 2009 by bumfire

[Vault]

You just dont stop do ya,

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1039609/Storms-sweep-Britain-leaving-trail-destruction--theres-come.html

 

The other is from America and is on one of the american news websites and was even on TV, I am sure you can find it if you look and the picture where the lightning entered via the top of the wing and then came out of the bottom of the wing which is INSIDE ( not necessarily the inside you think it is, but inside nonetheless, since lightning isnt meant to penetrate the outer skin which not only did it do but it also penetrated the lower outer skin aswell ) an aircraft is on pprune, it shows you the damage that was caused also, melted control rods that had been through such force that they were rendered useless, if you search pprune and other places that deal with passenger airplanes I am sure you will also come across the same pictures.

 

So I have already told you where they are, go and find them for yourself.

 

And the part where you say and I quote, "I believe you" the thing is, YOU DONT BELIEVE ME AND YOU DONT BELIEVE ANYONE HERE who's opinion differs from yours, if you truly did then you wouldnt be making such a drama about it like you have.

 

Now Please, make a new thread if you wish to continue with "Vaults Theories On Plane Safety" as this thread is about a missing plane and its been destroyed by a lightning, well I was going to say debate, but its been more of a forced opinion by yourself.

 

Woah, you're taking this as some type of personal insult, I'm not being rude to you and I'm here for the discussion, it's on topic. I'm not a yes man, and no one has shown me any reason to think differently. It's not Vault's theory on plane saftey. As i said before, I'm only reiterating the words of Faraday, I'm not calling you a liar I know that cars can catch alight afterall lightning can reach tempratures of 50K degrees Fahrenheit.

[GGTharos]

You're restating the results of a laboratory test. An aircraft is nothing close to a closed system.

[Vault]

You're restating the results of a laboratory test. An aircraft is nothing close to a closed system.

 

I didn't know that, why is an aircraft nothing close to a closed system.

[GGTharos]

... seriously, are you just parroting what you read, or do you actually think about this stuff?

 

Do you think that lightning does not have a chance, however small, to strike and potentially enter through a window, or a fuel intake?

Do you think that the radar system and instruments, connected to the inside of the aircraft, cannot under the right, if rare, circumstances, transmit enough electricity into the aircraft to cause a catastrophic failure?

 

It's all still less likely than severe turbulence taking the aircraft apart, but the possibility does exist.

 

And NOTHING outside of a laboratory (and really, even inside a laboratory) is a closed system. NOTHING. Ever. ;)

[Vault]

... seriously, are you just parroting what you read, or do you actually think about this stuff?

 

Do you think that lightning does not have a chance, however small, to strike and potentially enter through a window, or a fuel intake?

Do you think that the radar system and instruments, connected to the inside of the aircraft, cannot under the right, if rare, circumstances, transmit enough electricity into the aircraft to cause a catastrophic failure?

 

It's all still less likely than severe turbulence taking the aircraft apart, but the possibility does exist.

 

And NOTHING outside of a laboratory (and really, even inside a laboratory) is a closed system. NOTHING. Ever. ;)

 

Seriously do you think about what you say? Do you really think glass offers less resistance than aluminium?.

 

A Faraday cage is a completley closed system.;)