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French officials out of SAINT-DENIS, Reunion now say the black boxes of the Yemeni Airbus 310 that crashed off the Comoros Islands have not been found.

The French army says a signal detected from the debris of the downed plane was from a distress beacon and not one of the plane’s black boxes.

Commander Bertrand Mortemard de Boisse has told The Associated Press that the frequency of the signal detected corresponded to one of the plane’s distress beacons.

Earlier Wednesday, two top French ministers had said one of the black boxes from Yemenia Flight IY626 that crashed early Tuesday had been found.
From AAP

So much for experts. Consensus about the tragedy had been that the A 330 lost airspeed indications and then suffered an in-flight upset from which it did not recover.
Available evidence contained in a report issued on 2nd of July by the BEA the French investigation agency, is that the aircraft was intact at the time of impact, traveling essentially in a straight line at high speed and with a high vertical velocity.
The fact that initial evidence conflicts with expert expectations makes the retrieval of the data recorders even more important.
On this front the French have announced that they will continue the search for the pingers until July 10 after which other strategies including Sonar will be utilized.

Report: Airbus may be asked to ground all long-range jets
French investigators are expected to release Thursday their first report on what happened to Air France Flight 447.
The Airbus A330 crashed into the Atlantic on June 1 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
The Times UK is reporting a possibility that would be a doozy if it were to happen: Airbus could be asked to ground its worldwide fleet of long-range airliners.
Charles Bremner, reporting from Paris, says:
Airbus is expected to face calls to ground its worldwide fleet of long-range airliners tomorrow when French accident investigators issue their first account of what caused Air France Flight 447 to crash off Brazil on June 1.
It is believed that the accident bureau will report that stormy weather was a factor but faulty speed data and electronics were the main problem in the disaster that killed 228 people.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is likely to be asked why it had never taken action to remedy trouble that was well known with the Airbus 330 and 340 series. Nearly 1,000 of the aircraft are flying and until AF447, no passenger had been killed in one.
Airbus on June 10 denied a report that it was considering grounding its long range A330 and A340s.
AFP reported that an Airbus spokesman denied another newspaper report saying so.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) “has issued a press release that all A330s and other aircraft are safe to operate,” he told AFP. “We will take legal action against such irresponsible reporting.”

Such a highly charged issue often generates much smoke. There is considerable Shadenfreude here but it is very important that rumours not be spread. We report this to emphasise that there is no official statement yet. We await clarification with baited breath.
From http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/172777.asp

It isn’t quite CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue), but it is a start!
U.S. Marines onboard the USS Bataan, an amphibious ship, got a chance to use the tiltrotor for the medical
evacuation of a sailor on June 25.

The ship ordered two Ospreys enroute back to the ship after a mission to fly at max speed. Once onboard, the sailor, who sustained hip injuries and chest pains after falling, was loaded up. Some medical support equipment was also flown, as shown in the pics. The sailor was then flown 147 naut. mi. in 37 min to a regional airport and then transferred via ambulance to a hospital for more medical attention, the Marines say.

The V-22 has been an on-again/off-again candidate for the USAF Combat Search and Rescue-X (CSAR-X) competition.

Nothing like the endorsement of a customer to try and prove a point. Of course on this mission there was no shooting or searching, but it shows that the speed and versatility of the aircraft are an asset for medical evacuation missions.

The news release of the mission came in the midst of a re-emergence of criticism from lawmakers of the aircraft’s cost and reliability.
From http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense

Probably the most important outcome of the ATSB investigation into the Lockhart River Metro crash is the recommendation for a redesign of the RW 12 GNSS NPA. This is a result of recognising that GPWS terrain warnings could still arise even if the approach was flown within correct tolerances. Repeated spurious warnings can lead to crew becoming complacent in the face of such warnings. If they then decide to ignore the warnings the purpose of the system is obviated. The situation could even be aggravated because the crew might well believe they are still protected. This is a good example of the traps of designing your own approach and that is what a crew would be doing if they were to decide to ignore the GPWS alerts.

Aviation investigators, running out of time to find the “black boxes” with key information on the crash of Air France Flight 447, suspect a rapid chain of computer and equipment malfunctions stripped the crew of automation today’s pilots typically rely on to control a big jetliner.

An international team of experts is building a scenario in which it believes a cascade of system failures, seemingly beginning with malfunctioning airspeed sensors, rapidly progressed to what appeared to be sweeping computer outages, according to people familiar with the probe. The Airbus A330, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a storm 26 days ago, killing all 228 aboard.
Read more…

PARIS, June 23 (Reuters) – Signals from the flight data recorders of the Air France airliner that crashed into the Atlantic killing all 228 people on board have been located, Le Monde newspaper said on its website on Tuesday.

An Air France spokeswoman said she could not confirm the report while another official stated the sounds wer not from the AF447 Pinger. The Transport Ministry and the air accident investigation office could not be reached immediately for comment.

Le Monde said French naval vessels had picked up a weak signal from the flight recorders and that a mini submarine had been dispatched on Monday to try and find the “black boxes” on the bottom of the rugged ocean floor.
Read more…

The two people killed when their training aircraft crashed with a glider in mid-air were an air cadet and RAF reservist, the Ministry of Defence has said.

The two-seater RAF Tutor single-engined plane is believed to have taken off from RAF Benson in Oxfordshire on an air experience flight for the Combined Cadet Force cadet.

The pilot of the glider managed to parachute from his stricken aircraft and he landed safely in fields at Sutton Courtenay, near Abingdon. Read more…

The Captain and crew of a Jetstar A330 sucessfully managed an in flight cockpit fire and emergency descent during a flight across the Pacific bound from Japan to the Queensland Gold coast.
Ray Banfield has described the 20 terrifying minutes when a cockpit fire threatened the lives of 199 passengers and crew on a Jetstar flight from Japan.
At 39,000 feet there was a loud bang and a brilliant white flash of flame from the base of his co-pilot’s windscreen.
“Never in all my years of flying commercial aircraft had I seen anything like it,” he told passengers upon landing safely at Guam.
Read more…

French officials investigating the loss of Air France Flight 447 are still processing reams of data yet to be publicly released that was transmitted by the A330-200’s aircraft communications addressing and reporting system.

The revelation, from a source with knowledge of the investigation into the loss of the aircraft carrying 228 passengers and crew, comes after bodies and wreckage from the A330 were recovered about 500 mi. northeast of the Fernando de Noronha archipelago (ATWOnline, June 5).
Read more…