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mgb_phys
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Flight587 was an airbus A300. The pilot used full rudder in flight which you aren't supposed to do, the vertical stabilizer failed at about twice it's design load. After this Airbus fitted software to all it's fly by wire systems which stop the pilot breaking the aircraft. This is a little controversial as some traditionalist pilots claim it could stop them recovering in a very extreme situation.What about the wind shear and breakup idea? Would the tail ripping off (like that one in 2001) cause such flight control failures? Are these flight control failures certain computer failures or could they be the computer's necessary reaction to a change in aircraft controllability or loss of sensors (whether electrical or physical)?
4 minutes is the time between error messages, ie between the autopilot disengaging and the assumed failure of the cabin. The time to impact is unkownFrom what I understand, there are two debris fields, several miles apart. And 4 minutes to crash from 35,000 feet is pretty quick, about 100 mph.
Not necessarily, if something ripped a hole in the body destroying major bits of the avionics+control system the system could have sent the error messages before the cabin lost pressure and the ACARS failed.I thought the fact that the flight avionics had the opportunity to radio home about several electrical problems made that somewhat unlikely.
Microbursts don't rely stress the airframe like that. If a bunch of air the plane is sitting in suddenly accelrates downwards the airframe goes with it there is no net stress on the wings. Microbursts are only a danger when you are near the ground - where suddenly being thrown down 1000ft might be bad news if you are only 900ft up!I'm also wondering if a microburst hitting a plane at cruising speed could cause enough of a vertical (negative) g-force to rip off the wings.
Wings can also take a lot of stress, 787 wing being loaded to 150% of it's maximum design load
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