George’s Point of View

Twice now, within a month, Airbus equipment has failed in bad weather, for whatever reason.

That is not supposed to happen. Planes aren’t supposed to fail. There is something wrong with the design of that plane, even my pool of expert pilots of Airbus quietly tell me this.

And the fact-gathering news is still grim. The Air France flight 447 black boxes have not been found, and neither have the Yemenia Air black boxes. They have been “heard” — but the same thing was rumored about the Air France boxes, but that didn’t pan out.

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But Yemenia is suspending all flights from Marseille to Moroni. 61 of the victims were from Marseille.

Yemenia Flight 626 crashed 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) south of Yemen, between Africa’s southeastern coast and the island of Madagascar. but the black boxes have been by a searching submarine.

Some online opinions state that on the second pass attempting to land, the pilot simply flew into the sea while trying to negotiate the bad weather. There is apparently no radar at the airport where they were attempting to land.

French and US ships are looking for debris and bodies; the BEA and Airbus are investigating.

ILS Approach Runway 02 (Graphics: AIS ASECNA):