Arizona

Not quite in Denilson's league, but I remember Jody Morris going from Chelsea to Leeds to Rotherham in little over a year. If you look hard enough there are probably a few out there like that. Rivaldo nearly ended up at Bolton IIRC.

Just a bit of clarification on a few points: 1. The autopilot can be disengaged manually (quite unlikely in this situation)by a fault within some of the parameters feeding the autopilot (which could indicate damage to avionics and therefore lightning strike, or if the aircraft encounters turbulence so severe it cannot maintain the commanded flight path (which would lend weight to the turbulence causing inflight break-up theory) 2. ADIRU is the air data inertial reference unit. It supplies a lot of information regarding airspeed, altitude and inertial data (for positioning) to the autopilot. A fault with it could be caused by lightning. I'm not familiar with the ADIRU system in an airbus, but there would have to be more than one and if both failed, the autopilot would disconnect. ISIS is a standby display in the ****pit, not sure what this has to do with anything. 3. The 'cascade' indicates an in flight break up as many systems were damaged or destroyed simultaneously. Cabin vertical speed confirms this. Basically the cabin altitude would have gone from c8,000ft to whatever the aircraft was cruising at when the aircraft broke up. Weather updates will only get you so far, they will only tell you what weather you can expect in a certain area. The Air France pilots would certainly have known there were large thunderstorm cells in the ITCZ when they left Rio. When it comes to actually finding a path through them you're totally reliant on the weather radar, which all commercial aircraft have, and whatever information you can gather from looking out the window.

£1m (or less) in the past has been spent on Andrew Davies, Kelvin Davis (okay, that was £1.2m), James Beattie, Marian Pahars, Claus Lundekvam, Marek Saganowski, Stern John and Anders Svensson. All of whom were, at the time, much better players than DMG. 21 isn't all THAT young and scoring 10 goals from open play, starting all but one League matches last season isn't overly impressive either. I don't want him to leave, but I'd take £1m for him any day of the week.

Where to draw the line on abortion... If "killing" a child before they are born in murder, what about killing one before they are even conceived? Are there people out there who regard masturbation as murder? If a woman says she's 'got a headache' is that denying a person the right to be conceived and therefore murder. Are the hardcore muslims who believe a woman should go to prison for refusing sex right after all??? I think too much. :-s

This is an urban myth. There's really not much more that I can add to that. It's just not true. I am of the oppinion that this was not a bomb. I know there is no evidence to disprove that theory, but to me the report of severe turbulence just before is too much of a coincidence. Also the French and the Brazilians must be pretty far down the list of people liable to terrorist attacks. Especially when so many American airlines use Rio and they'd be the obvious target if a weakness in GIG's security was discovered. Cheap, but still a cost, an generally quite an unnescessary one. I cannot think of ANY aviation accident where having locator beacons on the rafts would have aided rescue, when the ELTs in the aircraft failed. As painful as it is to say it, if the ELT didn't go off on AF447, it was probably annihalated by the impact and nobody would have survived to use a raft. Again, an urban myth. All airlines carry emergency beacons (the ELT) which are portable. They can be activated manually, or automatically on contact with water. They broadcast on radio frequency which all commercial aircraft monitor in the cruise. I've heard them myself on occasion, although I don't know the circumstances in which they were activated. Funny story; a stewardess was once asked for a BLT by a passenger. English not being her first language, the misunderstood and brought the passenger a (fully activated) ELT beacon. Not sure which airline that was with, but I think it's safe to assume she is no longer with them. Large aircraft are no safer than small aircraft. Both are subjected to the same rigorous part testing and built to withstand 1.5x the strongest turbulence you can EVER expect (unless you fly through a very powerful hunderstorm cell). All the crews are familiar with the safety procedures on the aircraft... saftey varies depending on the type of aircraft and the company opperating it, but isn't related to the aircraft size. Aircraft are designed to comfortably take a lightning strike. I have a good friend who was hit by lightning whilst landing in prestwick last month. Other than 150 pairs of dirty underwear, no damage was done other than a small black mark where the lightning exited the fuselage. Lightning alone could not have caused this crash. IF it is involved, there must have been some pre-existing technical fault with the aircraft. The second and third statements are correct. The first I seriously doubt. Unless the cabin is filling with smoke or one fire, I can't think how you'd become injured by being securely held into your seat. In the event of a catastrophic crash this may well be the case, but the passengers would most likely have been killed instantly on impact if they weren't wearing their seatbelts. Correct. It takes very little explosive to bring down an aircraft. Having a pressurised cabin creates a potentially explosive scenario in itself (if you take the true meaning of explosive and not when it is incorrectly used instead of volatile or flamable.) Blowing a whole in the cabin, combined with this pressure can cause catestrophic damage (If you want to know more, Google Air India 182). You would struggle to kill a dosen people on the ground with the explosives it takes to bring down a jumbo, hence terrorists love taking a pop at them.

There is an ELT (locator beacon) on the aircraft, which goes off automatically on contact with water. There is, to my knowledge, nothing on any of the individual slides.

Almost all in flight injuries and fatalities (which aren't attributed to an accident or pre-existing medical condition) are caused by people not having their seatbelts on during turbulence. Obviously if you slam into the ground at 400kts, they aren't going to help, but in the event of a crash like the Sioux City crash (youtube it) half the people onboard survived. I doubt many of them would have been so fortunate had they not been wearing their seatbelts. In short, buckle up whenever you're in your seat, same as any car journey. P.S. You don't know it has 'dropped'. A controlled landing on water is possible, if extremely unlikely.

On long range aircraft like the one in question the escape slides double up as life rafts.

An Air France aircraft with 228 people on board has gone missing in the Atlantic. There is no hope of the aircraft now landing safely as it would have run out of fuel several hours ago. The aircraft apparently encountered severe turbulence and suffered an electrical problem at some point. Little else is known. We can only hope there are half a dosen life rafts full of survivors drifting around, but it doesn't look good.

R.I.P. End of an era I guess, although if you were stood on the deck of a sinking liner in the middle of the freezing Atlantic, and someone offered you another 97 years, you'd probably take it.

Well, clearly not clutching at straws as that role has already been taken.

Beaten to it I'm afraid... http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=87104624628&ref=nf Wow, Dalek isn't the only one...

Average Austrian driver Alex Wurz is apparently trying to enter a team called Superfund in next years championship. They're going to have to filter 3 or 4 candidates from them, Campos, Aston Martin, US Grand Prix, Litespeed and Lola. Be interesting to see who makes it onto the grid. Would love to see an Aston in British Racing Green.

It's amazing that someone who should be pretty clued up on the running of a football club can be such a spanner.

Stelling is a legend. I just love some of his quotes on Soccer Saturday. I watch it for that more than the football too. It will be a shame to miss out on Saints vs Hartlepool for the first time on there. "They'll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions" Every time they took the lead. "Kevin Webster has scored, Sally will be pleased" "I feel good" every time James Brown scores. Deportivo Gijon (Pronounced 'hee haw') "Beevers has been booked... must have been fighting."

With Matty is charge, I expect the catering to be world class next season.

I really hope this is true, it would be so funny.

Mike, is that you?

I thought he was gonna slip off and get hit by a car.

As a slight aside, has Matt confirmed yet whether he will be leaving Soccer Saturday? Would be a shame if so, especially if Sky replace him with another crusty old Northerner who used to play for Liverpool.

Drink driving is a very serious issue and I don't think you should be making a mockery of it. Executive Suite barman surely?

1,023 posts and we've finally got something sensible out of 19C.

WGS, Woggy, David Coles, Tessem (as coach), Pinder (half time entertainemnt), Pahars (I'm not sure in what capacity, I just like him).

hth