Machoman
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One thing amazed me while I was reading this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/world/europe/02plane.html?ref=europe
A completely unexpected situation occurred on board the aircraft,” Mr. Gourgeon of Air France told France’s LCI television.
Brazilian officials said the plane disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean between the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, 186 miles northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal, and Ilha do Sal, one of the Cape Verde islands off the coast of Africa. It is a huge area of ocean, three times the size of Europe, officials said.
The plane went missing in a zone known to sailors and pilots as the “horse latitudes” — an area of intertropical convergence close to the Equator particularly susceptible to storms and violent wind changes, said Julien Gourguechon, who has been an Air France pilot for a decade.
In the area, thunderstorms are possible at altitudes of up to 55,000 feet. Weather reports from the time of the incident indicated high clouds and isolated thunderstorms, CNN reported.
The plane was flying beyond the reach of Brazilian and Senegalese radar when it went missing — a gap that always occurs for aircraft on long trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/world/europe/02plane.html?ref=europe
A completely unexpected situation occurred on board the aircraft,” Mr. Gourgeon of Air France told France’s LCI television.
Brazilian officials said the plane disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean between the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, 186 miles northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal, and Ilha do Sal, one of the Cape Verde islands off the coast of Africa. It is a huge area of ocean, three times the size of Europe, officials said.
The plane went missing in a zone known to sailors and pilots as the “horse latitudes” — an area of intertropical convergence close to the Equator particularly susceptible to storms and violent wind changes, said Julien Gourguechon, who has been an Air France pilot for a decade.
In the area, thunderstorms are possible at altitudes of up to 55,000 feet. Weather reports from the time of the incident indicated high clouds and isolated thunderstorms, CNN reported.
The plane was flying beyond the reach of Brazilian and Senegalese radar when it went missing — a gap that always occurs for aircraft on long trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights.
