French airliner missing over Atlantic

[Broomstick]

I'm sorry if whatever flight school you went to didn't cover flight data and cockpit voice recorders. I guess I got competent instructors.

The fuckers leak like a sieve when submerged after an accident, OK?

There really is no "maximum" depth here - 20,000 feet is the minimum requirement, the minimum. Manufacturers are free to design units that will function at a greater depth. Given the importance of saving the data collected by these devices designing greater tolerances than required makes sense, to allow for the normal degradation of any object over time and after being hit by a crashing airliner. It's not that an intact unit can survive to 20,000 feet, it's that the unit reliably survives that deep after a crash during which it is quite likely to sustain some damage. A post-crash blackbox is almost never a working device, the recording portion is usually destroyed. It's the data that's important, and that's what must survive. Just the data. The rest of it can be squashed flat, rent into pieces, it just doesn't matter as long as the data survives. That's the only goal here.

The solid state recording media that is now the new standard is much more durable than the old style tape (which also used to reliably survive long-term immersion at considerable depth).

[The Duchess of Zeon]

So, what happens to the data, when the CSMU itself is internally exposed to water, as opposed to the FDR as a whole? I'm sorry that my terminology has been incorrect in certain cases--though I made it explicit that I was referring to the data recording mechanisms, the whole time--but the simple fact is that the existence of a loss or crush depth, stated as such due to the need to "enforce the water pressure, directly implies a pressure ät which the internal components will cease to function, which was my point, nothing else, and nothing more.

The reason for this argument, furthermore, is I simply felt that you were expressing an almost godlike reverence for the black box in the way you carried on your posts, without seriously considering the engineering aspects that go into their manufacture. And clearly one of those engineering aspects, is some sort of sealed object, either the CSMU or a component of it, which is crucial to its function, and which is expected to fail after exceeding a depth of 6,100 meters.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'm sorry if whatever flight school you went to didn't cover flight data and cockpit voice recorders. I guess I got competent instructors.

The fuckers leak like a sieve when submerged after an accident, OK?

There really is no "maximum" depth here - 20,000 feet is the minimum requirement, the minimum. Manufacturers are free to design units that will function at a greater depth. Given the importance of saving the data collected by these devices designing greater tolerances than required makes sense, to allow for the normal degradation of any object over time and after being hit by a crashing airliner. It's not that an intact unit can survive to 20,000 feet, it's that the unit reliably survives that deep after a crash during which it is quite likely to sustain some damage. A post-crash blackbox is almost never a working device, the recording portion is usually destroyed. It's the data that's important, and that's what must survive. Just the data. The rest of it can be squashed flat, rent into pieces, it just doesn't matter as long as the data survives. That's the only goal here.

The solid state recording media that is now the new standard is much more durable than the old style tape (which also used to reliably survive long-term immersion at considerable depth).

I am aware that crush depth is a minimum, because there are numerous examples of vehicles and equipment exceeding their crush depths. That is the point of a crush depth, and that is not the issue here. The issue here is that the crush depth is being exceeded, at the bottom of the Romanche trench, by at least 1,660 meters--one mile, and therefore, 16 megapascals. IF, and the assumption has never been that it IS, but rather IF, the black box is at a depth 1,660 meters below its crush depth, it almost certainly did not survive, and the area of the Romanche Trench, of that depth, is 300km long and 19km wide, roughly.

The crush depth is nonetheless when the object is expected to fail, the fact that it doesn't fail at that depth, and instead fails somewhere deeper--you seemed to misunderstand this--is a function of your margin of error, and is necessarily uncertain; nonetheless there is a depth at which, inevitably, a pressure vessel will fail. And at that point the data which has not been exposed to water, will be directly exposed to water, because the actual data medium should not, if the pressure vessel is unbreached, fill with water in any circumstances. If it did, then it would not be a pressure vessel, and there would be no need to mention in the specifications a crush depth; yet, one is mentioned, ergo, it must eventually fail under pressure.

[Broomstick]

Furthermore, you're ignoring the fact that my points remain relevant whether or not it's the exterior welds that failure, or the mechanism by which the internal data recording mechanism is constructed which fails.[

The recording mechanism doesn't fucking matter! ONLY THE DATA MATTERS. Just that. Once the airplane breaks up the recording mechanism's job is DONE. Over. After that, only the data needs to survive.

There would not be a stated depth at which the black box will cease to operate, unless there was some reason to believe that greater depths would, in fact, cause it to cease to operate.

You are ignoring that the stated depth of 20,000 feet is a MINIMUM requirement. There is NO regulatory obstacle to building a data storage unit capable of surviving to a greater depth. You're treating a minimum requirement like some immutable law of nature and it isn't.

If the black box is designed so that the data storage components are always equalized in pressure to the sea water outside of said components, then there would be no depth at which the black box would cease to operate.

A black box doesn't "operate" post crash. Seriously, it doesn't. Post-crash it just has to protect the data, which doesn't require anything to "operate". The pinger will certainly quit working past a certain depth.

For damn sure, even if one landed in the Marinas Trench the NSTB would want to retrieve and would try to get data off it. Damn unlikely it would work, but they'd try it anyway.

Ergo, there must be some part of the black box crucial to its function, which will fail under a pressure in excession of 60 megapascals.

I'm sure a whole LOT of it would fail at that point. Pretty much the whole damn thing... except, perhaps, the solid state data core. THAT has to remain intact to at least that depth. Other than engineering, there is no obstacle to that data remaining intact beneath 20,000 feet.

That is simple logic, which you are ignoring.

No, it's your stubborn refusal to admit even the possibility that you were misinformed as to the capability of these devices.

And that fact, that the black box has a depth at which it will be lost, is stated in YOUR posts as well as mine, and is therefore not a subject for debate--you have already conceded it.

I concede nothing. YOU are treating a MINIMUM requirement as a MAXIMUM requirement. Frankly, I am disappointed in you for doing so. Perhaps you were up late last night or something and are tired.

Now it is your job, not mine, to show why "endure the water pressure at 6,100 meters" somehow means that the all of the black box components are equalized to the outside water pressure, at which point that statement would be irrelevant to its function, and its inclusion nonsensical.

Will you STOP twisting what I am saying? NO, "all the black box components" do not need to survive down to 20,000 feet. It's the fucking DATA STORAGE that is the important bit. Who the fuck cares if the recording interfaces are fucked to hell? They aren't needed any more, they've done their job and are useless appendages at that point.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Data is recorded. When I say "data recording mechanism" I am referring to the device which stores the data, because data is recorded on it. Also, by operate, you again misunderstand my terminology. A device operates, when it successfully performs its function. If the function is data storage, the device is in successful operation, as long as it stores data. When it fails to store data, it therefore fails to operate. Does that help?

Therefore, we are not disagreeing, the devices which transmit the data from the cockpit and translate it into the recordable form, can indeed fail at much lower pressures without an issue by that point. You are simply misunderstanding the terminology I used in that case; and since that point unhinges so much of your argument, you are still ignoring the fundamental issue at hand, which is that the data recording box--Data STORAGE, if you prefer--must fail somewhere below 6,100 meters for the black box to be rendered useless. WHERE it fails is uncertain, but it must ultimately fail, or else a crush depth would be an irrelevant specification.

Are. We. Clear?

[Broomstick]

So, what happens to the data, when the CSMU itself is internally exposed to water, as opposed to the FDR as a whole?

Nothing. The data storage media - even the pre-1990's metalized tape - is fully capable of resisting corrosion by sea water for at least the stated 90 days, and if I recall there have been successful data retrievals basic that interval. The data media is also required to survive immersion in things like jet fuel, hydraulic fluid, firefighting chemicals... basically anything likely to be encountered in an aircraft accident. That's why the units are something like $15,000 each - they use some fancy materials.

I'm sorry that my terminology has been incorrect in certain cases--though I made it explicit that I was referring to the data recording mechanisms, the whole time--but the simple fact is that the existence of a loss or crush depth, stated as such due to the need to "enforce the water pressure, directly implies a pressure ät which the internal components will cease to function, which was my point, nothing else, and nothing more.

Except that nothing needs to function in a mechanical sense. It just needs to protect the data, which is a largely a passive thing. There is pressure equalization, as noted. The media itself is resistant to chemicals, including seawater, likely to be encountered.

Hell, during the Columbia breakup/reentry some fucking bog-standard videotape managed to survive, albeit some of it was damaged, but data was retrievable. Granted, that's not the same as deep immersion, just an illustration that data can be quite durable.

The reason for this argument, furthermore, is I simply felt that you were expressing an almost godlike reverence for the black box in the way you carried on your posts, without seriously considering the engineering aspects that go into their manufacture.

Oh, hell no - on 9/11 three of four crashes had their black box units entirely destroyed. Only the one from Flight 93 survived, none of the others did - I guess they weren't built to withstand a plane crash, fire, humongous building falling down on top of them, and more fire. But that's 3 or 4 disasters, not just the one disaster of a plane crash. They aren't indestructible, just very very hard to destroy.

And clearly one of those engineering aspects, is some sort of sealed object, either the CSMU or a component of it, which is crucial to its function, and which is expected to fail after exceeding a depth of 6,100 meters.

I think - think, do not know as a fact - that the current solid state media is the item intended to directly resist crush forces, with the outer shell intended as insulation from fire, not pressure. Of course, at a certain point the material itself will deform but I frankly don't know how far past 20,000 feet that will occur.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And clearly one of those engineering aspects, is some sort of sealed object, either the CSMU or a component of it, which is crucial to its function, and which is expected to fail after exceeding a depth of 6,100 meters.

I think - think, do not know as a fact - that the current solid state media is the item intended to directly resist crush forces, with the outer shell intended as insulation from fire, not pressure. Of course, at a certain point the material itself will deform but I frankly don't know how far past 20,000 feet that will occur.

[/quote]

Isn't that so easy? Now we have no disagreement; the only point I was trying to make, Broomstick, is that the issued specifications would not include a minimum acceptable crush depth, unless the device is expected to fail (and that is the correct terminology) at some point beyond that depth, and therefore, seeing as it may be up to 1,660 meters beyond that depth, there is a likelihood that if it fell into the Romanche Trench, no useful data will be recovered.

[Broomstick]

Data STORAGE, if you prefer--must fail somewhere below 6,100 meters for the black box to be rendered useless. WHERE it fails is uncertain, but it must ultimately fail, or else a crush depth would be an irrelevant specification.

Are. We. Clear?

Sort of - the crush depth requirement is to ensure survival in all but the most unlikely depths, but as I said, manufacturers are free to exceed the current requirement. I don't doubt that when we have a reliable storage medium good down to the bottom of the Marianas Trench that THAT will become the minimum requirement. Crash data is too valuable to let it escape.

In a crash the first priority is to find survivors. The second is to locate the damned boxes. What in the boxes won't help anyone from this crash - it may save a lot of lives down the road, though.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Data STORAGE, if you prefer--must fail somewhere below 6,100 meters for the black box to be rendered useless. WHERE it fails is uncertain, but it must ultimately fail, or else a crush depth would be an irrelevant specification.

Are. We. Clear?

Sort of - the crush depth requirement is to ensure survival in all but the most unlikely depths, but as I said, manufacturers are free to exceed the current requirement. I don't doubt that when we have a reliable storage medium good down to the bottom of the Marianas Trench that THAT will become the minimum requirement. Crash data is too valuable to let it escape.

In a crash the first priority is to find survivors. The second is to locate the damned boxes. What in the boxes won't help anyone from this crash - it may save a lot of lives down the road, though.

Oh, it would be currently possible to engineer a black box that could survive the challenger deep right now, but it would be enormously expensive, it would be very heavy, and it would be pointless. And that's why I think that the manufacturers don't exceed the current requirement, because there's just not enough cost-benefit in doing so; this is probably the first crash that's occurred even within the vicinity of an ocean trench in the era of the black box, and why bother with all that extra expense and weight penalty in design to get data off of one flight? I think you're being too optimistic about the lengths people are willing to go, and if I was manufacturing black boxes, I would not be concerned with engineering them to survive conditions only found on a fraction of a percent of the earth's surface--which is why the requirements for black boxes do not include the challenger deep and similar trenches, even though we could, in fact, engineer a data storage medium into a pressure vessel which could survive those depths, seeing as humans have reached them and returned alive (a titanium sphere with walls 5 inches thick would be quite sufficient, for example). I expect a failure at around 23,000 feet, which is a 15% margin of error, to be most likely. (about 7,000 meters), but that is a WAG.

[Broomstick]

Isn't that so easy? Now we have no disagreement; the only point I was trying to make, Broomstick, is that the issued specifications would not include a minimum acceptable crush depth, unless the device is expected to fail (and that is the correct terminology) at some point beyond that depth, and therefore, seeing as it may be up to 1,660 meters beyond that depth, there is a likelihood that if it fell into the Romanche Trench, no useful data will be recovered.

I don't know if I'd say likely so much as possibly - the Airbus is manufactured to the highest standards in the industry today, including remote datafeeds (as noted in this instance) so information can be captured even if the black boxes are lost. I would find it puzzling if they used the minimum available for the black boxes. I don't know if an additional 1660 meters would exceed the ultimate failure pressure for that unit or not.

It's rather like the "never exceed" airspeed - the airplane is only guaranteed to hold together up to that point, it could disintegrate at that point and still meet specifications. In reality, though, airplanes almost always exceed that by significant margin. Sure, you'll likely fuck your machine up, cause structural damage, but it won't usually come apart at the seams the instant you hit that number. Likewise, I'd be VERY surprised if any black box unit actually imploded/ceased to be useful at precisely 20,000 feet. I'd expect a margin beyond that. How much requires knowledge of the materials used that I simply don't have available.

[Broomstick]

Oh, it would be currently possible to engineer a black box that could survive the challenger deep right now, but it would be enormously expensive, it would be very heavy, and it would be pointless.

I think the accident investigators would argue that it would NOT be pointless... but they don't' make those particular decisions. It's not economically feasible, and at a certain point yes, economics does enter the equation.

And that's why I think that the manufacturers don't exceed the current requirement, because there's just not enough cost-benefit in doing so;

The first time they haul up a black box from 19,999 feet and 11 inches and find it unusable the manufacturer is TOAST. It's in their self interest to at least slightly overengineer, particularly since it must resist that pressure AFTER a crash.

this is probably the first crash that's occurred even within the vicinity of an ocean trench in the era of the black box, and why bother with all that extra expense and weight penalty in design to get data off of one flight?

I actually went to the NTSB, FAA, and the British and Canadian CAA sites last night trying to get more information on oceanic crashes. Without much success. My knowledge of ocean floors isn't sufficient to determine that from the information on those databases. However, a lot of airplanes have fallen into the sea over the years, and quite a few of them have had black boxes. Not sure I'd so blithely assume this is the first to occur near a trench.

Of course, it wasn't that many years ago that retrieval of anything from 20,000 feet was unlikely at best and that will affect the data as well.

which is why the requirements for black boxes do not include the challenger deep and similar trenches, even though we could, in fact, engineer a data storage medium into a pressure vessel which could survive those depths, seeing as humans have reached them and returned alive.

Forget the pressure vessel - could we design a data storage medium that didn't require a pressure vessel but could withstand those pressures directly? Because I think that would be preferred in this application, IF we could do it.

[Sky Captain]

What is the greatest depth a usable black box have been recovered previously?

I`d expect a black box like any critically important piece of equipment is significantly overengineered so it should be possible for the data storage device to survive much greater pressures than asked by design requirements.

[CaptainChewbacca]

What is the greatest depth a usable black box have been recovered previously?

I`d expect a black box like any critically important piece of equipment is significantly overengineered so it should be possible for the data storage device to survive much greater pressures than asked by design requirements.

On South African Airways 295 the voice recorder was salvaged at a depth of over 4,000 meters and held retrievable data. The flight recorder was never recovered, though I imagine they're engineered to similar tolerances.

[Broomstick]

Apparently in that case the tape had been in the deep ocean for a year and the information was still recoverable, despite the depth exceeding the engineering requirements of the time.

[Intio]

<----- (Looks at Duchess and Broomstick. Tries to push the pin back into the grenade.)

[Surlethe]

<----- (Looks at Duchess and Broomstick. Tries to push the pin back into the grenade.)

One-liners like this are not welcome.

[Broomstick]

Oh, I dunno, I found it pretty funny. Then again, I've had a full night's sleep, I'm no longer exhausted, and I got a paycheck today so I'm in a much better mood. I got the point, though - we were getting off into the deep end over something that's not really worth getting into a knock-down argument over.

[FSTargetDrone]

So anyway, a relatively large piece of the wreck has been spotted (by radar):

More wreckage spotted at presumed Air France crash site



Brazilian air force / AFP/Getty Images

A photograph released by the Brazilian air force shows a fuel slick in the Atlantic Ocean where Air France Flight 447 may have crashed Sunday with 228 people on board en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Spotter aircraft from the U.S. and France joined Brazil's military in making visual sweeps for wreckage of the plane, officials said.

A large piece of debris seen floating in the Atlantic may be part of Flight 447's fuselage, a Brazilian military spokesman says.

By Chris Kraul and Marcelo Soares

10:28 AM PDT, June 3, 2009

Reporting from Bogota, Colombia, and Sao Paulo, Brazil -- Brazilian authorities said military aircraft early today located several more pieces of debris in an area where an ill-fated Air France flight is believed to have crashed with 228 people aboard.

The debris detected by aircraft radar included a 23-foot section that officials said may be part of Flight 447 that disappeared late Sunday after flying through turbulence and sending out an automatic alert of an electrical failure.

No further communication from the cockpit of the Rio de Janeiro-to-Paris flight was received. The 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board are feared dead.

Brazilian television began broadcasting images of the debris and a 12-mile fuel slick taken by air force planes over the suspected crash area about 400 miles north of the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha.

On Tuesday, Brazil's Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said debris previously sighted in the area almost certainly belonged to the doomed aircraft. None of the fragments have been recovered yet.

Three Brazilian naval vessels were expected to arrive today on the scene. Three merchant ships, two Dutch and one French, have been in the vicinity since Tuesday.

"It could be a side, a piece of steel or any part of the fuselage or tail," said military spokesman Jorge Amaral of the fragments detected today. "A 23-foot piece, seemingly metallic, is a considerable piece."

Brazilian officials also said the debris was spotted within a 3-mile radius of the fuel slick. Still, there have been no markings sighted yet identifying the debris as belonging to the Air France jetliner. No bodies have been sighted, he said.

A U.S. military P-3C Orion surveillance plane that can fly lengthy missions and is equipped with radar and sonar to track submarines is in Brazil to support the search. It departed early today from the northeastern city of Natal.

"We have two crews to fly 24 hours," said Air Force Lt. Col. Thomas Geiser, a liaison officer with the U.S. Embassy in Brazil. "We don't have a planned date for return, so we'll stay as long as needed."

Brazilian officials said the cause of the apparent crash was still a mystery.

"Since no one knows the origin, we're searching for clues. We still hope to find survivors," Brazilian navy spokesman Savio Nogueira said in an interview with Globo News.

Jobim, the defense minister, had a frank talk with passenger families in Rio de Janiero on Tuesday. Although it was a closed-door meeting, parts of what was said were leaked to reporters.

Folha de Sao Paulo reported that Jobim told families that bodies that had been mutilated may never be recovered, while those that remained in one piece after the crash probably will begin to surface near the debris.

Meanwhile, an Air France spokesmen said today there was no specific date set for the release of the flight's complete list of passengers and crew members. What names have become public have been confirmed through family and employers .

At least two Americans were on board: Michael Harris, a geologist who worked in Rio de Janeiro for Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp., and his wife, Ann.

France will take charge of the investigation, although authorities say the so-called black box data recorders may never be recovered due to the ocean depths of 2 to 4 miles. The BBC reported that a French submarine named Nautile, which was used to find the wreck of the Titanic, is headed to the site of the crash.

Kraul and Soares are special correspondents.

Pretty grim stuff. As mentioned, the French are not holding out much hope in finding either of the data recorders, even at this early stage. They are by no means putting out much in the way of good news at all. It is easy to see why, especially since the weather in the area has been poor, interfering with the search.

[Stuart]

Latest word form the herd is that the wreckage is spread over an area at least 37 miles long, suggesting the aircraft came apart in mid-air. It turns out the automated warning signals transmitted from the aircraft are much more extensive than previously admitted and show a cascade failure of the aircraft's communications, environmental and eventually control systems. Nobody is making any theories public yet but Airbus are looking and sounding very grim.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

That doesn't surprise me at all. It might well be a serious flaw with the computer controls for the fly by wire system which let something commonplace like a lightning strike make the aircraft impossible to handle during a severe storm.

[Broomstick]

That doesn't surprise me at all. It might well be a serious flaw with the computer controls for the fly by wire system which let something commonplace like a lightning strike make the aircraft impossible to handle during a severe storm.

Actually, while a malfunction in the fly-by-wire system could have caused a crash I'm not convinced it is the main culprit here, or even a contributing factor. Fact is, airplanes get hit every day by lightning and it's seldom more than annoyance. At night, the pilots being temporarily dazzled/blinded by the flash might be considered a greater hazard than what typically happens to the airplane itself. Yeah, a lightning strike can fuck with the avionics but it almost never does. Even when it does cause a problem they are typically minor can easily compensated for by either back up systems or by the human beings in the cockpit.

Another pilot and I were discussing the crash today (my landlord/employer is a former airline pilot). The sudden flurry of messages from the airplane - basically summed up as "Holy fuck! Everything is going apeshit!" as electrical and pressure failures were rapidly transmitted, is entirely consistent with an airplane breaking up in flight. And by "break up" I mean it's consistent with the airplane being shredded - airplanes can loose large bits and keep flying (see Aloha Airlines Flight 243 where a large part of fuselage ripped off the plane but it was still able to fly to a safe landing) but this isn't a bad failure, it seems to be a complete failure, with everything going to hell in a very, very short time frame. It certainly would account for multiple and severe simultaneous failures in all those systems.

The question is - what could rip apart an Airbus?

They were flying through the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a region that generates some of the heaviest/most intense thunderstorms on Earth. If they hit the main action area of a supercell, the mesocyclone, that by itself could account for the crash. Hit a tornado - well, tornado winds have often been clocked at 400 kph (the really intense ones have been estimated to have winds in excess of 700+ kph - there are, needless to say, difficulties in measuring them). Have one wing hit by a wind going 400 kph in one direction, and the other wing on the opposite of the vortex being hit by a 400 kph wind going the other way... Or have the nose hit by one wall of the funnel and the tail by the other...Someone more skilled at math than I am can have a stab at calculating the forces at play in that scenario. Those rotations can be in a horizontal plane as well as a vertical, really any direction or angle.... Keep in mind that's not even the worst case scenario, those sorts of conditions can be generated by average funnel clouds, and supercells can generate multiple funnels. That's ignoring hail, lightning, microbursts (which have also destroyed their share of airplanes of all sizes)... I don't care how well built or how well functioning your aircraft is, that's a good way to get killed. I can't put it more bluntly than that. Don't ever fly through a thunderstorm. No matter what you're riding the sky in.

Of course, airplanes fly through that zone all the time without crashing, but the trick is to avoid the supercells that arise in those areas which, with clouds towering up to 60,000 feet/18,300 meters, no airliner is capable of flying over (hell, I'm not sure the Concorde could have safely cleared on of those by going over the top). Most of the time pilots do avoid these, but at night, if there's a malfunction in the weather-warning systems, and you're past radar coverage (which they were) yeah, you could blunder into the center of one of these monsters.

So... today I'm leaning towards weather being the primary culprit here. But, of course, further information could well change that. I really hope they find those data recorders, I think it would shed some light on this. Also wonder how much of the wreckage they'll be able to recover, and I have no doubt they will attempt to gather up whatever they can. I'm still leaning towards "weather" being the primary, if not only, cause and frankly the only way to deal with a supercell is to keep the hell away from it.

[Jaepheth]

The possibility of a computer failure reminded me of this post in which an engineer got in legal trouble for blowing the whistle on the Airbus 380.

Any possible connection to this incident?

[Broomstick]

Different airplane, and the A330 has a track record of being reliable despite reports of occasional computer glitches. Stuff does go wrong on airplanes, that's why they have backup systems and human pilots. Asking if there was a fly-by-wire problem is perfectly reasonable, but I think at this point people are latching onto it a little too tightly. Given the severe weather they encountered you have to consider that, too.

Personally, I'm a Boeing fan - home team and all - but I wouldn't hesitate to set foot on an Airbus. They're good airplanes. I would be very surprised to find computer failure to be a primary cause of this crash.

[Starglider]

That doesn't surprise me at all. It might well be a serious flaw with the computer controls for the fly by wire system which let something commonplace like a lightning strike make the aircraft impossible to handle during a severe storm.

A flight computer failure would not affect communications and environmental controls, so (assuming Stuart's remark is correct) while a software fault might been a compounding factor, it is unlikely to be the primary cause.

[Starglider]

The possibility of a computer failure reminded me of this post in which an engineer got in legal trouble for blowing the whistle on the Airbus 380. Any possible connection to this incident?

No. That part isn't used on any other aircraft yet.