Air France Rio-Paris flight missing with 228 aboard [Archive]

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: Air France Rio-Paris flight missing with 228 aboard

Harvey Specter

06-01-2009, 02:29 AM

Wow, lets just hope everything is fine.

PARIS (Reuters) – An Air France plane on its way from Brazil to Paris has disappeared from radar screens, the Paris airports authority said on Monday.

Flight AF 447 had 228 people on board, Air France said.

It left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. and was expected in Paris on Monday at 11:15 a.m. (0915 GMT), a spokesman for the airports authority said.

Its last known location was unclear.

An Air France-KLM spokeswoman in Amsterdam said there had been no radio contact with the missing plane "for a while".

The people on board are 216 passengers and 12 crew.

The plane was an Airbus 330-200, airport authorities said.

(Reporting by Jean-Baptiste Vey; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090601/ts_nm/us_france_plane

Bigbird36

06-01-2009, 02:48 AM

That is scary.

El Bastardo

06-01-2009, 02:50 AM

91LS-VTak

06-01-2009, 03:30 AM

The plane was supposed to land more than 3 hours ago. It doesn't look good :(

Timpo

06-01-2009, 04:09 AM

wow scary

Timpo

06-01-2009, 04:09 AM

Timpo

06-01-2009, 04:12 AM

did a quick research, finding an ELT isn't easy if they use 121.5MHz

http://www.eaa.org/news/2009/2009-01-29_elt.asp

Nintensity

06-01-2009, 08:20 AM

Here's another update by Reuters:

PARIS (Reuters) – An Air France plane with 228 people on board was presumed to have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on Monday after hitting heavy turbulence during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

The airline offered its condolences to the families of the passengers, making clear it did not expect to find survivors.

At least 60 of those on board were French, roughly 60 were Brazilians and two were Slovaks, their countries said.

Air France said the Airbus flew into stormy weather four hours after take-off from Brazil and soon afterwards sent an automatic message reporting electrical faults.

A company spokesman said several of the plane's mechanisms had malfunctioned.

"It is probably a combination of circumstances that could have led to the crash," he said, adding that the airliner might have been hit by lightning.

Aviation experts said lightning strikes on planes were common and were not enough alone to explain a disaster.

The Brazilian air force said the plane was far out over the sea when it went missing.

Military planes took off from the island of Fernando de Noronha off Brazil's northeast coast to look for it and the Brazilian navy sent three ships to help in the search.

France sent one of its air force planes from west Africa.

Flight AF 447 left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. (4:00 p.m. EDT) and had been expected to land at Paris's Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport on Monday at 11:15 a.m.

STORM PATCH

On its flight northeast from Rio, the jetliner would have had to pass through a notorious storm patch shifting around the equator known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

"It is a zone in the tropics where you can have particularly deep thunder clouds," said Barry Gromett, a meteorologist at the London Weather Center.

The carrier said 216 passengers were on board, including seven children and one baby, as well as 12 crew members.

The passenger list was not released, but French tire company Michelin said the head of its Latin American operations, Luis Roberto Anastacio, had been on the flight.

Tearful relatives and friends were led away by airport staff after they arrived at Roissy expecting to greet the passengers.

About 20 relatives of passengers also arrived at Rio's Galeao airport on Monday morning seeking information.

Bernardo Souza, whose brother and sister-in-law were on the flight, complained he had received no details from Air France.

"I had to come to the airport, but when I arrived I just found an empty counter," he said.

Senior French government minister Jean-Louis Borloo ruled out the possibility of a hijacking.

"It's an awful tragedy," he told France Info radio.

If no survivors are found it will be the worst loss of life involving an Air France plane in the firm's 75-year history.

The plane was an Airbus 330-200 powered with General Electric engines. If the plane is confirmed to have crashed, it would be the first time an A330 has been lost during an operational airline flight.

Air France said the plane had 18,870 flight hours on the clock and went into service in April 2005. It last underwent maintenance in a hangar in April this year.

The last major incident involving an Air France plane was in July 2000 when one of its Concorde supersonic airliners crashed just after taking off from Paris, bound for New York.

All 109 people on board were killed along with at least four on the ground.

(Additional reporting by Jean-Baptiste Vey, Gerard Bon, Astrid Wendlandt and Tim Hepher in Paris, Pedro Fonseca in Rio; editing by Crispian Balmer and Richard Meares)

dark0821

06-01-2009, 09:16 AM

wow... RIP, i guess.. the flight shouldve been cancelled due to bad weather? thats realli sad to hear..

Ludepower

06-01-2009, 09:22 AM

RIP...such a shitty way to die...gotta endure 5-10 minutes of horror before it's over...getting shot by a gun is so much easier!

unit

06-01-2009, 09:31 AM

no way everything is fine.. rip
this type of shit is my worst nightmare..
ive flown a lot but i hate flying word to dj am

twitchyzero

06-01-2009, 09:45 AM

rip
i still remember the 2000 concorde crash caught on a vid

Rich Sandor

06-01-2009, 09:55 AM

Before anyone makes any Lost or Bermuda Triangle references - please don't.

But seriously, how does something like this happen in this day and age. If we can put GPS trackers on those hunk of junk tubs that B.C. Ferries forces us to use then why can't we do the same with airplanes?

The purported lightning strike could have destroyed the satellite tracking transmitter on the airbus. Athough the ELT's and FDR/CDR's are supposed to be self contained and bulletproof, it's possible they might have been damaged electrically during the weatherstorm as well.

In addition, if the ELT and FDR/CDR's are still working, but they are not floating on the surface of the ocean, it will be impossible to find them, as the ocean is extremely deep where the wreckage would be.

hotjoint

06-01-2009, 10:15 AM

damn rip

Durrann1984

06-01-2009, 10:27 AM

thats sad

the plane was all good before it took off too

411ken

06-01-2009, 10:30 AM

Thinking about it just gives me the chills and sad thoughts for the passengers/families.

Soundy

06-01-2009, 10:30 AM

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097883/

Honyoung

06-01-2009, 10:34 AM

sorry to hear that RIP to those on board
thats a really bad way to go....

Timpo

06-01-2009, 10:43 AM

The purported lightning strike could have destroyed the satellite tracking transmitter on the airbus. Athough the ELT's and FDR/CDR's are supposed to be self contained and bulletproof, it's possible they might have been damaged electrically during the weatherstorm as well.

In addition, if the ELT and FDR/CDR's are still working, but they are not floating on the surface of the ocean, it will be impossible to find them, as the ocean is extremely deep where the wreckage would be.I have never heard of FDR/CDR? what are they.

also from my understanding, aircrafts are lightening proof, it could damage some electricals, but that's only for few seconds...it should have that little propeller thing to generate electricity by itself.

also A330 is a big aircraft, it wouldn't just crash because of turbulance...it was way up in the sky too. If it does ever spin/stall because of turbulance, the pilot should have time to recover.
Microburst can be hazardrous to big planes too, but I don't think you would see it above the cloud.

if they can find a black box I guess NTSB can find what went wrong.

InvisibleSoul

06-01-2009, 10:50 AM

Soundy

06-01-2009, 10:55 AM

I have never heard of FDR/CDR? what are they.

Flight Data Recorder/Cockpit Data Recorder

JV6

06-01-2009, 10:58 AM

that is just sad to hear, rip

Soundy

06-01-2009, 11:29 AM

RIP...

They were cruising at approximately 35000 feet in the air... if I calculated it correctly, that means they would have about 90 seconds in a free fall.

What would you do in the last 90 seconds of your life inside the airplane?

Probably would have been a lot longer than that, chances are the pilots would have tried everything they could to bring it down slowly, give themselves time to restore power, and ultimately to attempt to ditch as gently as possible so the passengers could evacuate. Big jets DO have some glide capability, so it's possible they had a good 5-10 minutes before hitting the water.

124Y

06-01-2009, 11:40 AM

RIP
Indeed, it is a tragic way to end life... Imagine the horror...

rsx

06-01-2009, 11:47 AM

insert Lost Theme Music..

RIP

Chairman Kaga

06-01-2009, 12:19 PM

What would you do in the last 90 seconds of your life inside the airplane?

Bitch and moan about how it had to be this plane.

Timpo

06-01-2009, 12:32 PM

Flight Data Recorder/Cockpit Data Recorder

ah I see

HonestTea

06-01-2009, 01:14 PM

Tragic..

RIP :(

q0192837465

06-01-2009, 01:23 PM

so they can't predict wut kind of weather the plane is gonna go thru before lift off?

Lychee

06-01-2009, 01:38 PM

Read about this in the morning. What a tragic incident, RIP to those on board.

Harvey Specter

06-01-2009, 01:48 PM

so they can't predict wut kind of weather the plane is gonna go thru before lift off?

They route their flightplans according to weather reports but when you're flying over stormy weather, anything can happen.

ryugeeh

06-01-2009, 01:55 PM

This is so sad. I hope they can atleast find some evidence of the crash. RIP

Rich Sandor

06-01-2009, 02:01 PM

so they can't predict wut kind of weather the plane is gonna go thru before lift off?

Yes, however it's not quite that simple. If there is a crasy weather system that can be avoided, the flight planners will route the plane in a different direction, and the airplane also has weather radar to avoid really nasty cells within a weather system if they need to go through it.

Since the weather systems in the south atlantic are so massive that they stretch across the entire eastern coast of the continent, airliners pretty have have to fly into the soup and use the wx radar to avoid the nasty cells. However, if the weather radar fails while the plane is IMC (ifr conditions) then it can only follow it's IFR instruments which do not see weather.

ATC Radar does not extend that far off the coast, so no one can vector them around weather either.

InvisibleSoul

06-01-2009, 02:12 PM

Probably would have been a lot longer than that, chances are the pilots would have tried everything they could to bring it down slowly, give themselves time to restore power, and ultimately to attempt to ditch as gently as possible so the passengers could evacuate. Big jets DO have some glide capability, so it's possible they had a good 5-10 minutes before hitting the water.
Possibly... but we would never know. If they actually lost all power and electricals, then I guess they wouldn't have been able to do anything to go down slower...

metal

06-01-2009, 02:55 PM

^Still would have had the RAT at least.

Anurag

06-01-2009, 03:09 PM

no survivors?

Nintensity

06-01-2009, 04:31 PM

no survivors?

Read the thread

Anurag

06-01-2009, 04:56 PM

Read the thread

RIP to those who were on board, and yes i did read the thread, it said nobody was expected to survive, but out of 228 people, I was thinking that maybe some people survived the severe crash

yson_3

06-01-2009, 05:02 PM

and yes i did read the thread,

no you didn't....

b/c if you did, you'd have read that they are still searching for the plane

jimzilla

06-01-2009, 06:00 PM

Hoping for the best for the passengers and aircrew,

Reminds me of one of those episodes on Mayday on discovery channel

Nintensity

06-01-2009, 06:32 PM

There was one canadian on the plane!

Harvey Specter

06-01-2009, 06:55 PM

No way would anyone have survived. The plane was 35,000ft and most likely broke up into pieces before well before hitting the water. Hopefully they can recover the blackbox but the toughest thing right now is locating the wreckage.

sh0n

06-01-2009, 07:07 PM

***Breaking news***

Reports in that they crashed and landed on an island with monsters and polar bears. Apparently the crash was due to an unexplained magnetic force.

Apparently there are 6 survivors and they are now known as the "Oceanic 6".

Wait a minute that happened on TV

*** End Breaking news ***

On a sad note. RIP and condolences to all the friends and families

hal0g0dv2

06-01-2009, 07:22 PM

TRDood

06-01-2009, 07:29 PM

keitaro

06-01-2009, 08:18 PM

did a quick research, finding an ELT isn't easy if they use 121.5MHz

http://www.eaa.org/news/2009/2009-01-29_elt.asp

that is out dated information. The new ELT frequency is 406MHz. It was changed last year.

also from my understanding, aircrafts are lightening proof, it could damage some electricals, but that's only for few seconds...

if they can find a black box I guess NTSB can find what went wrong.

Planes are not lightning proof. Planes are designed to withstand a direct lightning strikes of certain proportion. Usually there will be an entry and exit. There are times where there would be an entry strike, and no exit strike (lighting strike inspections are done, after a plane has been know to have been hit). If the lightning strike has enough power, it can/may do damage to the aircraft electrical systems. Most avionics on the airplane are very very sensitive, and easily damaged by static, let alone lightning.

Most major components (and composite panels) are grounded. Ground wire varies depending on what the component is. During maintenance, where a component should be grounded, a bonding check is done to determine if the component is bonded to within design limits.

In this situation, the airbus is all fly-by-wire, and a direct hit to it's flight control systems, the surge in electricity could fry a flight control system(such as a power control unit), or engine control system. Even with a deployment of a RAT, the system could have been fatally damaged by the strike and become U/S.

Reports on the news says that the plane was flying in an area know for sever thunderstorms. With a large enough strike, there might have not been enough bonding to handle the large amount of current going through.

Also I don't think NTSB will be leading the investigation. Most likely it would be the Brazilian government or EASA(since its a European built aircraft, and European carrier). .

orange7

06-01-2009, 09:39 PM

RIP.

I hope this doesn't happen to me when i fly in August.

danned

06-01-2009, 10:28 PM

oh god
scary missing plane

Harvey Specter

06-01-2009, 10:35 PM

It could have been lighting, serve icing, serve turbulence...know one really knows until they recover the black box.

kookoobird88

06-01-2009, 10:43 PM

somone forgot to enter the numbers at the hatch

no_mercy

06-01-2009, 11:10 PM

composites aren't very good when it comes to lightning strikes. there was this helicopter going over to the oil rig carrying employees where they encountered a lightning strike which basically shattered the tail rotor blades. it was found that composites aren't very conductive.

the solution boeing used on their composite aircraft, the 787, was to sandwich a wired conductive meshing in between the layers of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP)

now this may have been a once in a million chance that the lightning knocked out the FBW on board which controls the aircraft therefore losing total control and eventually crashing

Harvey Specter

06-02-2009, 12:23 AM

Little more insight on what could have happen:

As far as I know, A330 has Fly-by-wire control system. In case ALL electric power is lost the plane becomes uncontrollable as there is no direct cables that provide mechanical connection between side stick and control surfaces, or at least actuators.
Fire on the water (still unconfirmed) can tell of an in-flight breakup, like it was with Lauda 767 OE-LAV over Thailand due to reverser in-flight deployment. There is usually no fire when an aircraft hits water surface, even with large amount of fuel on board. In-flight breakup version is also confirmed by ACARS message about decompression (if this message is true).
So the chain of events can be the following. The A330 for some unknown reason lost ALL electric power. Flight crew failed to restore it using RAT or other standby sources or simply didn't have time to do it. It rendered the plane totally uncontrollable. No autoflight, no stability augmention, no thrust control. In turbulent atmosphere strong gusts of wind could throw the plane hard, possibly turning it upside down and sending it into dive. This resulted in breakup due to excessive loads, decopmression and fire.
Anyway the sequence of ACARS automatic messages hopefully will shed some light to this horrible story.

Source: Airliners forum/

7seven

06-02-2009, 06:07 AM

Looks like they found some of the wreckage

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/02/brazil.france.plane.missing/index.html

Wreckage has been found in the Atlantic Ocean that could have come from a missing Air France jet that disappeared Monday with 228 passengers and crew on board, Brazilian aviation officials said Tuesday.
Americans Anne and Michael Harris, who lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were aboard the flight.

Americans Anne and Michael Harris, who lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were aboard the flight.

Floating objects and seats were found 720 kilometers (447 miles) from the island of Fernando de Noronha, said Brazilian Air Force spokesman Jorge Amaral.

Fernando de Noronha is an archipelago of 21 islands around 354 kilometers (220 miles) off the northeast coast of Brazil.

hotjoint

06-02-2009, 07:23 AM

^ yeah heard about it on the radio on the way to work

no_mercy

06-02-2009, 09:13 AM

Little more insight on what could have happen:

Source: Airliners forum/

As far as I know, A330 has Fly-by-wire control system. In case ALL electric power is lost the plane becomes uncontrollable as there is no direct cables that provide mechanical connection between side stick and control surfaces, or at least actuators.

"Not likely, the aircraft can fly on its batteries alone, or on the emergency generator, APU, engines etc."

Source: Airliners forum
From a respectable Airbus pilot

Beilei

06-02-2009, 05:02 PM

reminds me of the Tv series LOST

ynot-llat

06-02-2009, 05:57 PM

i watched an interview of a man that missed this flight.

He's one lucky mofo.

Not really racist!

06-02-2009, 06:02 PM

RIP

shitty way to die :(

CanadaGoose

06-02-2009, 07:01 PM

I just read in the Calgary papers the black box should be easy to locate by design, (apparently the A330's will send out sonar pings from as deep as 6000M underwater) but obviously it may not be easy to get to.

If this crash is confirmed it will be the worst in French Aviation history =(

hal0g0dv2

06-02-2009, 07:56 PM

i watched an interview of a man that missed this flight.

He's one lucky mofo.

holly shit yeahhhhh

Not really racist!

06-02-2009, 08:04 PM

vid link?

can't seem to fi nd it

Fafine

06-02-2009, 08:11 PM

for the guy that missed his plane thats like some final destination shit now imagine you were on the plane and you survived but end up on an island alone like cast away. fucking scary

Harvey Specter

06-03-2009, 12:28 AM

Interesting read;

http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/

and;

A Past Flight May Offer Clues to Air France 447
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090602/wl_time/08599190242100

Harvey Specter

06-04-2009, 11:50 PM

Looks like the debris they found doesn't belong to the AF crash....this is starting to get a bit spooky.

thumper

06-05-2009, 06:00 AM

Looks like the debris they found doesn't belong to the AF crash....this is starting to get a bit spooky.

i just heard that on the radio! so wtf is going on... is it just junk floating around, or is there another crashed plane out there?!?:eek:

twitchyzero

06-05-2009, 10:35 AM

Looks like the debris they found doesn't belong to the AF crash....this is starting to get a bit spooky.wtf?

this is starting to sound like some Lost shit

bengy

06-05-2009, 10:56 AM

Interesting read;
A Past Flight May Offer Clues to Air France 447
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090602/wl_time/08599190242100

That's why they tell you to keep your seatbelt on at all times...

Durrann1984

06-05-2009, 11:02 AM

i know its far fetched but.. investigators think that the plane crashed and everyone died but how would they really know
if they didnt even find any evidence yet

InvisibleSoul

06-05-2009, 02:17 PM

i know its far fetched but.. investigators think that the plane crashed and everyone died but how would they really know
if they didnt even find any evidence yet
Well, they do have crash evidence now... but even if they didn't, there isn't any other logical possible outcome.

q0192837465

06-05-2009, 02:19 PM

maybe the plane sunk?

Durrann1984

06-05-2009, 02:21 PM

Well, they do have crash evidence now... but even if they didn't, there isn't any other logical possible outcome.

but they said debris wasnt from the crash?

Harvey Specter

06-05-2009, 02:35 PM

They still haven't any debris from the plane itself however; Airbus has issued a replacement for the air speed indicators.

orange7

06-05-2009, 06:03 PM

Why don't they just dismiss this case? It's quite pointless in searching a plane in an Ocean; it's like a needle in a hay stack.

CRS

06-05-2009, 06:40 PM

Why don't they just dismiss this case? It's quite pointless in searching a plane in an Ocean; it's like a needle in a hay stack.

What are you going to say to the families?

That it is "pointless"?

scheng924

06-05-2009, 10:26 PM

imagine they're alive.... i can only hope...

danned

06-05-2009, 10:29 PM

damn, the plane is too werid

Lude S

06-05-2009, 11:58 PM

Why don't they just dismiss this case? It's quite pointless in searching a plane in an Ocean; it's like a needle in a hay stack.

What if there is a design problem with the plane? What if there was a bomb?

There are over 300+ A330 flying around the world and the only way to make sure its not a problem that might come up again is to find the FDR and the wreckage.

411ken

06-06-2009, 07:22 AM

Why don't they just dismiss this case? It's quite pointless in searching a plane in an Ocean; it's like a needle in a hay stack.

I'm sorry but this is probably one of the idiotic comment I've read here..

Rich Sandor

06-06-2009, 08:22 AM

Why don't they just dismiss this case? It's quite pointless in searching a plane in an Ocean; it's like a needle in a hay stack.

228 people have certainly died here. Yes, It's definately like finding a needle in a haystack, but if and when they find that needle, they can use it to find out what happened, and come up with a way to prevent it from happening again and losing another 228 people - which next time, might be someone you love.

That's why.

That's why they've searched for wreckages of previous airline crashes in locations that made it very difficult to find anything. Yet they searched, and they found, and they discovered things that made the effort worthwhile.

411ken

06-06-2009, 11:32 AM

So the searchers found 2 bodies and a seat with serial # that matched the plane. I hope they find the reason of this.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/06/brazil.plane.crash/index.html

RIP

dark0821

06-06-2009, 11:47 AM

omg... the more i read this.. the worse the situation becomes.. i mean.. man.. seriously/!

shenmecar

06-06-2009, 03:12 PM

228 people have certainly died here. Yes, It's definately like finding a needle in a haystack, but if and when they find that needle, they can use it to find out what happened, and come up with a way to prevent it from happening again and losing another 228 people - which next time, might be someone you love.

That's why.

That's why they've searched for wreckages of previous airline crashes in locations that made it very difficult to find anything. Yet they searched, and they found, and they discovered things that made the effort worthwhile.

agreed.

Plus, they have to give the victim's families a proper explanation of why the plane went down.

InvisibleSoul

06-06-2009, 05:59 PM

omg... the more i read this.. the worse the situation becomes.. i mean.. man.. seriously/!
How is it becoming worse? Even from the get-go they pretty much concluded all 228 people died...

ecchiecchi

06-22-2009, 10:59 PM

Deleted for Fail.

Dinan3

06-22-2009, 11:03 PM

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/7664/image001ebd.jpghttp://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8017/image002bdu.jpg

The two photos attached were apparently taken by one of the passengers before the aircraft crashed. The photos were retrieved from the camera's memory stick. You will never get to see photos like this. In the first photo, there is a gaping hole in the fuselage through which you can see the tailplane and vertical fin of the aircraft. In the second photo, one of the passengers is being sucked out of the gaping hole.

These photos were found in a digital Casio Z750, amidst the remains. Although the camera was destroyed, the Memory Stick was recovered. Investigating the serial number of the camera, the owner was identified as Paulo G. Muller, an actor of a theatre for children known in the outskirts of Porto Alegre .. It can be imagined that he was standing during the turbulence, he managed to take these photos, just seconds after the tail loss the aircraft plunged. The structural stress probably ripped the engines away, diminishing the falling speed, protecting the electronic equipment but not unfortunately the victims. Paulo Muller leaves behind two daughters, Bruna and Beatriz.

That's very scary. RIP.:(

JulyZerg

06-22-2009, 11:04 PM

Oh FUCK!

RIP! :( :(

Presto

06-22-2009, 11:09 PM

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8017/image002bdu.jpg

The photos are surreal. The man in the foreground left looks like he's already injured. I wonder what that dude, that just got sucked out, was thinking?

RIP

ecchiecchi

06-22-2009, 11:11 PM

OH F**K

Apparently pics are Hoax.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_photos_gol_737_crash.htm

Sorry =/

JulyZerg

06-22-2009, 11:19 PM

Harvey Specter

06-23-2009, 12:06 AM

The tail in the first picture gives it away that it's fake but very scary pictures indeed. The scene in the pictures must have been very similar to what the people on the AF plane went through.

thumper

06-23-2009, 05:45 AM

i'm surprised no one realized the pics were a hoax right away. you can even see the Oceanic logo on the vertical stabilizer in the 1st shot...

am i the only one left who still watches LOST? :(

Soundy

06-23-2009, 09:11 AM

FUCK!

2006 Analysis: Hoax. The images above are video captures from the pilot episodes of the ABC television series Lost (note the handcuffs worn by the woman pictured on the left, a character recognizable to viewers of the series as Kate Austen, played by actress Evangeline Lilly). Similar images can be seen in video trailers for the series.

Dammit! I was gonna post that this was a hoax - as soon as I saw that shots, I knew they were from Lost. I see everyone else beat me to it :P

HOAX FAIL.

Edit: Hey, anyone else notice in the first shot, the handcuffs aren't even locked?