Could a Meteor Have Brought Down Air France 447? 884
niktemadur writes "In light of an Air Comet pilot's report to Air France, Airbus, and the Spanish civil aviation authority that, during a Monday flight from Lima to Lisbon, 'Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds,' the Cosmic Variance blog team on the Discover Magazine website muses on the question 'What is the probability that, for all flights in history, one or more could have been downed by a meteor?' Taking into account total flight hours and the rate of meteoric activity with the requisite mass to impact on Earth (approximately 3,000 a day), some quick math suggests there may be one in twenty odds of a plane being brought down in the period from 1989 to 2009. Intriguingly, in the aftermath of TWA flight 800's crash in 1996, the New York Times published a letter by Columbia professors Charles Hailey (physics) and David Helfand (astronomy), in which they stated the odds of a meteor-airplane collision for aviation history up to that point: one in ten."
The suck! (Score:5, Funny)
How much does God hate you to put you in a meteor strike, a plane crash, and a lost-at-sea drowning all in the same day?
Pot. Kettle. Black (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, right, Air Comet has no intrest whatsoever to accuse a meteor...
Deceit (Score:5, Funny)
A company called Air Comet is saying they saw a meteor do it?
Does anyone else smell some blame-shifting?
Re:The suck! (Score:5, Funny)
No (Score:5, Funny)
Gravity Brought Down Air France 447.
We still don't fully understand it yet, but gravity is probably THE number one reason for aircraft crashes.
Re:Could a Meteor Have Brought Down Air France 447 (Score:5, Funny)
I speculate that Windows downloaded some critical patches and then rebooted.
I hope they find the blackbox, with the event logs so we can be sure.
I'll leave the blue screen joke for someone else.
Re:Deceit (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds more like some sort of sick, subtle branding exercise. Is nothing sacred?
Yeah, Think of the (dead) children!
Oh, damn... I think that's the most tasteless joke I ever conceived.
Re:The suck! (Score:3, Funny)
They aren't lightning rods! They're aerials to God!
Laser weapon can fix this problem. (Score:2, Funny)
Unlike a missile, a meteor has a predictable path of flight. Given the speed at which a meteor enters the earth's atmosphere, the typical meteor is white hot and should be easily detected by the infrared detector in these laser systems. An AMLS, with some slight modification for tracking a meteor, could easily blast it out of the sky.
Re:Could a Meteor Have Brought Down Air France 447 (Score:1, Funny)
Something tells me you came to this conclusion without doing any math at all.
Re:calculations wrong I think (Score:5, Funny)
Re:EMP Testing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Deceit (Score:5, Funny)
Except for that one. Nicely done.
Thank you for participating in "Race to the Bottom" Friday.
Re:Could a Meteor Have Brought Down Air France 447 (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe a passenger went mental, ran to the door, somehow opened it and jumped out, creating the decompression. He, and several other unbelted people nearby, all got sucked out straight into one of the engines, blowing it up and causing the aircraft to spiral into an uncontrollable dive very soon after.
C'mon, let's get some ideas!
Move over bacon! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:calculations wrong I think (Score:3, Funny)
Re:EMP Testing (Score:5, Funny)
...Statistically, 1 in X number of men will have a heart attack- but eating healthy and excersizing changes your odds.
But suddenly revealing automobiles and airplanes to someone from the 1700's significantly increases their odds of having one.
Re:EMP Testing (Score:2, Funny)
I live in Boston too. Are you talking about the on-dash metronome? I really don't think that other drivers can hear that ticking sound...
Re:EMP Testing (Score:5, Funny)
Fedex Flight 80, McDD MD-11 crashed TWICE??!?!
Now THOSE are some long odds!
Re:That Depends... (Score:3, Funny)
Aeris dies. Just saying.
NOOOOOOO!
Re:EMP Testing (Score:5, Funny)
What if you get blindsided by a Mac truck when you are going through a green stop light?
It's probably because Apple made a truck with only one pedal. Such a senseless decision :(
Re:EMP Testing (Score:5, Funny)
What?!? Man, that's just like telegraphing your punches! Rule #2 of driving in Boston: don't give the other drivers advance warning of what you are going to do; that only gives them the opportunity to cut you off! (Rule #1 is "Never make eye contact.")
Re:EMP Testing (Score:5, Funny)
Really... a whole thread about a plane crashing up after a bright white light over the ocean, and not a single LOST joke? I just think Desmond forgot to enter the numbers...
Re:EMP Testing (Score:1, Funny)
Now imagine a cheetah driving a car.
Re:EMP Testing (Score:5, Funny)
Oh trust me, the moron drivers down here in Florida are much, much worse than anything Boston can throw at us.
You have, in this corner, a 90% blind, 4'9" old woman who has glasses thicker than the tires on her gargantuan Grand Marquis, who drives two inches from her steering wheel, in the left lane, 20 mph below the speed limit in the left lane, only getting over to the right while crossing intersections, only to get back over very slowly 100 feet later.
In the other corner, you have Billy Bob, red neck extraordinaire, with two gun racks in his pickup truck that has monster truck sized wheels, is jacked about five feet higher than the legal limit, a sticker of calvin peeing on !BrandOfHisTruck, has a small plastic set of antlers for a hood ornament, and changes lanes every ten seconds while driving 25-30 mph over the speed limit, all while never using his blinker and utilizing the turn lane as a merge lane and the shoulder of the road as the outside lane.
Oh yeah, in this other corner over here, we have tool Doctor who drives a BWM, has his cell phone permanently attached between his left hand and his ear, while driving 10 inches from the car in front of him no matter what speed they are moving at. He drives 20 mph over the speed limit when coming up behind you, passes you on either side as fast as he has to to pass you, and then drives 10 mph below the speed limit once he has cut you off. He slams on the brakes coming up to green lights and only floors it once the light begins to turn yellow.
There are probably at least a few more examples I can throw out there of your typical Florida drivers, but let's also not forget that once bad drivers from other states perfect their suckage at driving, they retire to, you guessed it, Florida.
It's the decepticons!! (Score:3, Funny)
Proof is in the video [youtube.com], ~36s mark
Re:EMP Testing (Score:4, Funny)
Re:EMP Testing (Score:1, Funny)
It bounced the first time at 23:59 on New Year's Eve.
Re:Deceit (Score:3, Funny)
Re:EMP Testing (Score:1, Funny)
[...]though I did it once pre-911.
I've never owned any kind of Porche. :-(
Re:The suck! (Score:3, Funny)
I really must remember to click "Post Anonymously"