Wide Angle: Air France Plane Crash

Air France flight 447 was en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when air traffic controllers suddenly lost contact with the plane over the equatorial Atlantic Ocean around four hours after takeoff. An intense search and rescue effort ultimately found nothing. Meteorologists say the plane likely encountered severe storms in a region known for generating the worst storms on the planet, though speculation over what happened is running from a bomb to a meteor strike.

Discovery News follows the story, looking at how weather can manipulate planes in flight, how tropical storms can turn deadly, and more.

• Audio Interview: Pilot: Lightning 'Not A Problem'
  First Officer Kevin Gillespie, a pilot with a major airline for 20 years, talks about flying through thunderstorms, what happens when lightning does strike the plane and transatlantic flying.
  
  
• Timeline: World's Deadliest Air Disasters from the Past 20 Years
  With the recent tragedy of Air France flight 447, we take a look back at the world's most horrific air accidents from the past two decades.
  
  
• Blog: Unequal Thunderheads and Plane Travel
  Thunderstorms in the tropics are a lot different than those in the U.S. proper or even in Hawaii. For one thing, the Earth's atmosphere is literally much thicker near the equator.
  
  
• Blog: The Mysteries of Lightning
  Scientists don't know everything they want to know about lightning, to be sure, or about the atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic, but on the face of it, it is fair to say that nothing about an airliner flying through the region would jump out as a particularly life-threatening circumstance to a researcher in the field.
  
  
• Survival Guide: How To Survive a Plane Crash
  If you are in an aircraft that goes down at sea, take the following actions once you clear the aircraft.
  
  
• HowStuffWorks: Recipe For Weather
  The weather is simply the state of the atmosphere, the gaseous layer that serves as the outermost barrier between Earth and the rest of the universe.
  
  AIR FRANCE CRASH NEWS
  
  
• News: Air France Jet Likely Broke Up Flying: Expert
  June 17, 2009 -- Bodies recovered in the Air France disaster show multiple fractures in the legs, hips and arms, a Brazilian official said Wednesday. Experts said such injuries suggest the plane broke up in the air.
  
  
• News: Air France Tail Found, US Helps Hunt for Black Boxes
  June 8, 2009 -- A large tail section from an Air France jet, one of the biggest pieces of the wreckage, was recovered. A U.S. Navy team has been brought in to help search for the vital black boxes.
  
  
• News: Air France Crash Victims Found
  June 8, 2009 -- Seventeen bodies recovered from a remote part of the Atlantic where an Air France jet came down a week ago were being transported by ship Monday to Fernando de Noronha, Brazil.
  
  
• News: Titanic-Exploring Sub to Aid Flight 447 Search
  June 5, 2009 -- A mini-submarine that explored the undersea wreckage of the Titanic is being whisked across the Atlantic to help retrieve the flight recorders of Air France Flight 447.
  
  
• News: Plane Vanished in Ferocious Storm Zone
  June 4, 2009 -- Air France Flight 447 vanished in a zone of ferocious weather over the Atlantic Ocean known as the birthplace of some of the world's strongest storms -- just as the plane was encountering a 400-mile-long maze of lightning, hail, driving rain and fierce 100-mph updrafts. So why didn't the pilot simply turn around?
  
  
• News: Lightning Strikes Common for Jets
  June 2, 2009 -- Passenger jets like Air France flight 447 are hit by lightning every 1,000 hours -- on average twice a year -- and experts say the risk from lightning is growing.
  
  
• News: Thick Storms May Have Doomed Missing Plane
  June 1, 2009 -- A missing Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into a tower of thunderstorms and heavy turbulence over the Atlantic Ocean, officials said Monday, fearing that all aboard were lost.
  
  MORE AIRPLANE-RELATED FEATURES
  
  
• Wide Angle: How Planes Avoid Bird Strikes
  Discovery Tech explores how airports can prevent aircraft colliding with birds, as Flight 1549 did with two Canada geese recently.
  
  
• Video: Visit a bird strike forensics lab!
  Discovery News investigates how the Smithsonian's Feather Identification Lab IDs thousands of feathers, and why they're so important to improving airport safety.
  
  
• Video: Why? Tell Me Why!: Cell Phones on Planes
  Kasey-Dee Gardner finds out why cell phones must be turned off on airplanes.
  
  
• Study: Solved: The Best Way to Board a Plane
  Frustrated by slow airplane boarding procedures? Blame the airline, not the person trying to squeeze an oversized bag into the overhead storage bin.
  
  

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