This morning newspaper reports are circulating suggesting that the Air France Airbus crash may have been caused by flying too slowly for the storm conditions.Does that seem feasible and, if so, why?Cliff

The big warning light flashing on that one is 'newspapers'. Newspapers like stories with legs, and they will often throw such things into the hat to keep a story running, because they know people want new insights into things and new info. It is what generates sales. But newspapers are notorious for poor and uninformed statements on technical matters. We all know they insist on calling the Flight Data Recorder the 'Black Box Crash Recorder', and they often misinterpret the term 'stalling' with engines stalling, it's all part of the 'journalese' concept and poor levels of understanding.The theory of flying too slowly potentially causing a problem is not completely without any foundation. In theory at least, if an aircraft is flying slowly and the wind it is flying into rapidly drops or veers, then it could result in a stall and rapid loss of height, and that is indeed more likely with a big heavy aircraft that cannot rapidly accelerate. But such a theory does not really take account of where in the flight envelope an aircraft sits when in the cruise at 35,000 feet. A stall of that kind is far more likely in wind sheer on final approach than it would be in the cruise, where there is much less leeway for additional speed.There is quite a narrow speed band between stalling or not being able to maintain height, and overspeeding when in that regime - the so called 'coffin corner' of the flight envelope. So it seems hard to imagine that a P1 with 1,700 hours on type and a co-pilot with around 6,000 hours or so would be inclined to make such an error.It sounds to me more like some journo has got half a grasp on the theoretical aspect and decided to write something based on it, in order to stretch the story and appear to be offering a new insight to uninformed readers.Al

On the other tentacle, there have been reports that there were wind gusts reported at flight levels in the area in excess of 100 knots...

On the other tentacle, there have been reports that there were wind gusts reported at flight levels in the area in excess of 100 knots...

If the aircraft was at design maneuvering speed, by itself a wind gust with a strong vertical component would simply cause the wings to stall rather than fail structurally. See my post in the other thread for further discussion of the possible consequences.

Yup. Personally I think that it is weather-related, at least that may be what started a cascade of events leading to disaster.But it's hard to imagine what a crew could do speed-wise in the cruise if they had to contend with rapidly changing wind speeds and vectors, measuring 100 miles per hour or more, so the 'they were flying too slowly' angle in a newspaper story is bordering on journalistic stupidity - not an uncommon thing as we know, and probably maligning the crew, who it seems were by no means inexperienced, as you would expect with guys flying a heavy on international routes.100 miles per hour winds are not at all out of the ordinary in storms, which is why aircraft try and avoid such things. Up at that height you get wind speeds of far greater ferocity on a regular basis. I knew an old WW2 Spitfire pilot who once let down through the clouds whilst flying a Gloster Meteor thinking he would appear over southern England; he found himself over the South of France and had to make an emergency landing at a disused airfield with three gallons of fuel left in the tanks, they had to dismantle the jet and truck it out of there as the strip wasn't long enough for take off. He told me he was really scared at the time, because the Meteor did not yet have an ejector seat, and most people who had tried to bail out of them had hit the tail and been killed when trying to do so. It was a 200 mph crosswind of which he was unaware which had caused that situation.Al

Hello,

So it seems hard to imagine that a P1 with 1,700 hours on type and a co-pilot with around 6,000 hours or so would be inclined to make such an error.

I agree But this can be less easy if the P1 and copilot have not reliable indications about the speed of the plane...That's a hypothesis (between many others) by the french BEA ... cause of some indications they have about the pitot tubes .....Seem's also the plane was in a situation (altitude ..etc) where the margins to the coffin corner were very thin...Wait and see ....Regards.

From the News bulletins from t time yesterday state that 24 error messages were sent from the aircraft and that a previous report stated the Auto Pilot was switched off?!As we all know, newspapers/reporters tend to over exaggerate/speculate on causes. The best thing we can do is wait and see what the Black Box's say when or if they are ever located.

I'm just a private pilot with no experience in flying the big stuff, but, wouldn't bad indications by the pitot tube based airspeed indicator be relatively inconsequential? If it were me, and I do this on my own in my own plane, with GPS and all, I cross reference all the time, and pretty much trust the GPS more. Don't they even have inertial navigation on the Airbus?