Brazilian and French rescue teams continued to search Tuesday for the passengers of an AirBus A330
archive images of the airbus A330
(Air France) that disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean.
brazilian airforce planes are taking part in the search...
The plane carrying 228 people, left Rio on time but 4 hours into its flight it disappeared from the radar screens.
the plane's route over the Atlantic
Possible cause of the tragedy might be a heavy tropical storm, a thunder strike, or even a hailstorm.
because of these facts, meteorologists have been called in to explain what else might have happened, the extra factor that might have come on top of the lightning.
The accident took place in a turbulent area along the equator known as the Intertropical Convergence zone.
The zone has long been feared by sailors and aviators. In French, it is called the “pot au noir”, meaning the murky cauldron.
Intertropical Convergence Zone... new Bermuda triangle?
According to meteorologist Pierre Lasnais, the zone “is prone to storms and lightning, but also to mini-cyclonic phenomena, which create extremely strong up currents, as well as hail stones that can be bigger than tennis-balls”.
“It’s possible for a plane to be exposed to lightning, and at the same to be caught in an up current which can reach speeds of 200 km/h,” he says.
“You can imagine the effect that has on a plane – complete depressurisation of course, almost uncontrollable,” he said.
sources: cnn, bbc
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