former residents of The Woodlands. http://www.click2houston.com/news/19635563/detail.html Former Houstonians On Air France Jet Anne Harris' Son Lives In Spring POSTED: Tuesday, June 2, 2009 UPDATED: 4:51 pm CDT June 2, 2009 NEW ORLEANS -- The two Americans on board a missing Air France plane were a geologist and his wife headed to Europe for work and vacation, a spokesman for his employer said Tuesday. Anne & Michael Harris Michael Harris, who turned 60 last month, worked in Rio de Janeiro for Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp., company spokesman Chip Minty said. Harris had planned to attend seminars in Barcelona, Spain. "After that, they had five days on R&R in Paris," Minty said. The airliner disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean late Sunday en route from Brazil to Paris with 228 people on board. Brazilian military pilots searching for the plane spotted floating debris Tuesday but no signs of life. Anne Harris, 54, was a physical therapist who put herself through school while a single mother, her sister, Mary Miley, told the Lafayette, La., newspaper The Advertiser. She was originally from Lafayette, about 130 miles west of New Orleans. "They were both gregarious, caring, patient, kind, fun-loving individuals," she told The Advertiser. "My only comfort is that they died together." Miley said the couple lived in Lafayette until 2004. They had been married for 16 years, and Anne Harris' son, a pilot with Continental, lives in their house in the Spring area outside Houston. A woman at that home declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press. A woman who answered the phone at Miley's home Tuesday also declined to talk and hung up. Minty said Michael Harris had started with Devon as a Houston-based contractor in 2004 and became a full-time employee there in 2006. He moved from Devon's Houston office to Rio de Janeiro in July. Michael Harris graduated from Clemson University in South Carolina in 1972 with a bachelor's degree in geology, said school spokeswoman Angela Nixon. He was a native of Greenville, S.C., said his sister, Barbara Harris Sorkin. "I'm going to miss him terribly," she told The Greenville News. Harris' niece, Charlstie Laytin, told The Greenville News that the couple had two children, B.S. Hampton Harris IV, 27, and Andrew Musgrove, 30.
My uncle is a commercial airline pilot overseas who flies A330s. He's actually in town and we went out to dinner this evening and he was telling me that when he first started flying (A320s) his plane was struck by lightning and all the instrument panels went haywire. There was so much turbulence that they immediately dropped 2,000 feet like it was nothing and then two seconds later they jumped back up another 4,000 feet. It was also very loud because there was large pieces of hail flying straight onto the plane that they couldn't hear anything or talk to one another. They eventually landed to check the plane and everything was structurally sound. He said ever since that incident he's never been afraid of lightning. These planes are specifically designed to withstand these types of storms. Something extraordinary must've happened weather-wise for this plane to crash the way it did. If you're interested there is some good discussion going on in the forums section of airliners.net.
Wow. I would be freaked out by lightning, not the other way around like your uncle. I think this is one of the hazards of a fly-by-wire system, where I know it hasn't been confirmed, electronics could have gone haywire by lightning.
Sorry to hear that, Landry. The main purpose of the 'black box' is not necessarily location/tracking. IIRC it's data is what's valuable, it's a flight recorder and voice recorder, which is still very important even if it isn't 'near' the crash site. If you know, for example, how long before the instrumentation went awry, and you know the route the plane was supposed to take, you could possibly estimate from there.
Is this the same wife who's fake picture you posted here? A popular profile picture from other "hotornot" type websites? Gotta love pathological liars.
It's okay. My wife was not close to them. I guess that doesn't make this situation any less tragic, but still, the misses is doin fine. I appreciate the thoughts though.
blah.....I had a witty one liner drummed up, but ehh, I'm just gonna pass. I guess you win. Congrats.
I missed this thread. I wanna see! Anyway, another local connection. http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6845251 A pretty couple. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/03/france.plane.memorial/index.html The experts are saying they might won't ever find the black box. It's like trying to find something in Grand Canyon. I hope it will be found because it'll give lot of clues what happened and some closure for the victims' families.
Here's an interesting twist to the story. Although, I highly doubt terrorism was the culprit in this case.
I'm not saying it is or even might be terrorism, but how exactly can officials feel so sure that it is not terrorism? They hardly know anything. What of the 3 pieces of information that they do have rules out terrorism? Or, are they just trying to avoid panic?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if it was terrorism, wouldn't the group responsible be shouting it from the rooftops? Has there been any claim of responsibility?
You pose a fair question. A bomb or something of that nature could explain why exactly the aircraft went from cruising along steadily at 35,000 feet then seemingly vanished into thin air. It also could explain why the flight crew gave no apparent signs of distress or any cause for concern. I'm not trying to be naive in dismissing this theory, I just really think with the combination of post-9/11 heightened security coupled with the relayed automatic messages indicating electrical and cabin pressurization failure, that this was likely some sort of nasty weather type induced mechanical failure that hit the flight crew too soon for them to respond and ultimately save the plane. Perhaps a mid-air break up? This could explain the apparent wide debris recovery range.
Will the plane still send messages if it exploded? I don't think so? Right? I'm not clear on cabin pressure. If the plane doesn't have cabin pressure, does that mean no oxygen for the passengers? Maybe that's why there were no signs of distress since the pilot crew could have passed out.
I also doubt a terrorist group would phone in the bomb before it happened. I am not dismissing the possibilty either, I just really hope that it's not the case.
