For the orange temperature plots I used the NCL/3aw curve the sharp gradient of the enhancement from dark to light occurs at 243K (-30 deg C), indicating a cloud top of F元10 assuming the satellite pixel is completely overcast with that layer (which is not always true). In the image below, the stationary southerly point in blue is INTOL and the aircraft’s estimated location from the above table is marked with a cross. Since the source satellite images are georeferenced NOAA/GINI datasets, the points shown here are very accurate and are NOT placed by hand but by lat/long coordinates to the nearest 0.001 deg (0.06 mile). I then plotted the waypoints using McIDAS’s built-in coordinate entry panel. Using McIDAS I acquired satellite GOES-10 satellite data from UCAR and centered it over the region between INTOL and TASIL. The linear convergence along the ITCZ and the unstable atmospheric conditions combined to produce scattered clusters of thunderstorms.
A region of strong trade winds covered most of the tropical North Atlantic and this kept the ITCZ in a somewhat southerly position. Surface analysis showed the suspected crash region to be within the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), which at this time of year is usually found at about the 5-10N parallel. This yields the following aircraft coordinates: Compensating for a 10 kt headwind as given by the SBFN sounding this yields an airspeed of M.80, which correlates well with the A330’s typical early cruise profile. Presumably this is ground speed according to the ACARS specification. An altitude of F元50 and speed of 520 mph was given. I decided to project the flight forward from INTOL. Though the actual flight plan data was not accessible to me, this corresponds well with an actual flight plan found on the Internet for a Varig B767 from Rio de Janeiro to Frankfurt: Reports indicate AF447 reported INTOL (S01 21.7′,W32 49.9′ or -1.362,-32.832) at 0133Z and was to proceed to TASIL (N4 00.3′,W29 59.4′, or +4.005,-29.990) in 50 minutes (a true track of 28.1 deg) (source) indicating that it flew high altitude route UN873 (see below).Įnroute High Altitude Caribbean and South America H-4, (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) Using what’s available to me I decided to do a little analysis and see if I could determine anything about the fate of AF447 and maybe through some circuitous, indirect means help give authorities some clues on where to look. The Sudan region had tropical MCS activity similar to this with little in the way of sensor data, so this incident holds some special interest for me as one of our C-5s could easily have followed a very similar fate. One of my assignments in summer 1994 was forecasting was the sector between Mombasa, Kenya and Cairo, Egypt for C-5 and C-141 aircraft. Breakup of a plane at higher altitudes in a thunderstorm is not unprecedented Northwest Flight 705 in 1963 and more recently Pulkovo Aviation Flight 612 in 2006 are clear examples.īack in the 1990s I did flight route forecasting for the Air Force. The objective of this study was to isolate the aircraft’s location against high-resolution satellite images from GOES-10 to identify any association with thunderstorm activity.
Speculation suggested that the plane may have flown into a thunderstorm.
The plane was enroute from Rio de Janeiro (SBGL) to Paris (LFPG). h/t to Mike Moran – AnthonyĪir France flight 447 (AF447), an Airbus A330 widebody jet, was reported missing in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean in the early morning hours of June 1, 2009.
TIM VASQUEZ DIGITAL ATMOSPHERE SOFTWARE
He used that software (and others) to analyze the Air France 447 crash from the meteorological perspective. NOTE: This writeup is from an acquaintance of mine who wrote some powerful meteorological software, Digital Atmosphere, that I use in my office. Air France Flight 447: A detailed meteorological analysis
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