Word: gourguechon
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...some people have firsthand experience of ADIRU failures on Air France flights: Air France pilots. Julien Gourguechon, International Secretary General of the French Pilots Union (SNPL) and an Air France pilot of 10 years, says ADIRU failures are not foreign to him, his colleagues or other French pilots flying for other companies and the military. "For sure there are pilots from SNPL who have experienced ADIRU problems," he says. But, he adds, this is "very rare ... You don't have more fly-by-wire technical failure with them than you do with hydraulic, mechanic or engine failure." As for Flight...
...Gourguechon finds the endless speculating exhausting. "Initially we were talking about electrical failure, yesterday we were talking about icing conditions, tomorrow we will talk about something else," he says. "ADIRU failure is as credible as very bad weather, hail, an electrical failure. I would not give priority to one scenario...
...until investigators figure out what happened - if they ever do - Gourguechon says there's little chance we'll be able to escape the realm of the hypothetical. "The biggest fear for us is that if we don't find the [flight] recorders, then all the analysis, even made by experts and professionals with all the time they need, runs the risk of being very incomplete and based on a lot of interpretation...
...Unfortunately, as long as the plane or its black box are not recovered, it will be impossible to know what caused the disappearance of Air France Flight 447, says Gourguechon. "As frustrating as it is, we'll need more information before we can imagine any scenarios." But for Learmount, if a short-circuit fire is to blame, one thing is for sure. "We have to look here for the lessons we got from that [Swissair flight]," he says. "Airplanes should have heat and smoke detectors all over them ... so that if a fire started anywhere, you would know immediately...
...Given the stormy weather off the Brazilian coast, Air France said the plane may have been struck by lightning, but that alone wouldn't necessarily lead to catastrophe, Gourguechon says. "Lightning strikes happen every day and usually have no consequences. The airplane was built to survive that...