I think this topic went from "I wonder what caused it to crash" to "who can we blame and for what?" pretty quick. "It seems they want us to believe it was a safe Aircraft A330-200?" What is that supposed to mean? It's not like those aircraft drop out of the sky weekly? Actually, it's the first major Airbus A330 crash I can recall. And it is a safe aircraft. The fact that it crashed in the middle and one of the deepest parts of the Atlantic makes it pretty difficult to find an airplane. Yeah it's a big plane but the ocean is much bigger and finding a FDR/CVR on the ocean floor over 3 miles down is probably harder than finding a needle in a haystack. There is a submersible on the way to the crash site. Unfortunately boats don't travel fast so it takes time.
I've kept up with the news on this accident and read many articles since it has occurred and watched posts on here. And finally, we're getting into the time period where all the crazy ideas start blossoming. Of all of them posted here, I think the Accuweather.com article makes the most sense. Which is rare, I usually don't agree with Accuweather, however, the article makes sense given the thunderstorms that typically occur along the Equator. Those storms are rather intense, and are unlike "normal" storms that we experience here in the U.S. That is why pilots are supposed to avoid severe and extreme turbulence. It can and will cause structural damage to an aircraft. It doesn't matter if it hit a storm once or three times with strong turbulence. Yeah, maybe the aircraft hit two prior storms with strong turbulence however, once it hit the next round of turbulence, it was either stronger than the turbulence prior or just as strong and with a weakened airframe, was enough to cause structural failure. Also, given the take from another post from a dropsonde scientist with a similar experience, it actually gives the Accuweather article a better argument. We could even be looking at a severe turbulence and icing event (we'll never know if the aircraft received any icing, however, unless the FDR/CVR gets recovered and the pilots discuss icing). With such intense updrafts, massive amounts of moisture and very cold temperatures, icing could form very quickly.
While they don't know what speed the aircraft was traveling at (again, we won't know until the FDR is recovered), I think Air France's panic reaction to replacing pitot tubes on its fleet is rather premature. It costs lots of money to replace such a system and it's not just replacing a probe either. You're also replacing several aircraft instruments that depend on ram air from the pitot tubes to operate. And there's nothing new to pitot tube icing. That's why pitot tubes are heated. Yes, it's possible that the heaters failed and iced over, in which case, yes, the aircraft computers would give false readings. Even the old analog gauges would give false readings, so the computers in this case didn't cause the error.
Again, as most are saying, I think we're going to find that a series of small events occurred before the one catastrophic event occurred. I also think that, given the news we've had more recently, those small events happened rather quickly.
