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Black box from doomed EgyptAir flight found, is damaged

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S

Spring Drive

Banned
The cockpit voice recorder from doomed EgyptAir Flight 804 has been found and at least partially recovered from the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt’s investigation committee said Thursday.

The "black box" was damaged and had to be carefully retrieved in stages, Reuters reported, citing the committee. The committee said in a statement that a specialist vessel owned by Mauritius-based Deep Ocean Search had been able to recover the crucial memory unit from the recorder.

There was no immediate word on the fate of the data recorder. Searchers spotted the wreckage Wednesday, almost one month after the Cairo-bound Airbus A320 plunged into the sea more than three hours into the flight from Paris. All 66 people aboard perished.

The discovery came only days before the 30-day lifespan expires on the batteries for the emergency signals from the voice and data recorders in the May 19 crash. The cause of the crash remains a mystery, although Egyptian officials said last week they would release a report of their findings thus far one month after the May 19 crash.

Chief investigator Ayman al-Moqqadem said his team was continuing to search for more debris and body parts for indicators of what caused the disaster.

A vessel contracted by the Egyptian government to join the search “identified several main locations of the wreckage" and the first images of the wreckage were provided to the investigation committee Wednesday. Searchers plan to map the wreckage's distribution on the seabed.

The French ship LaPlace detected pings from one of the plane's recorders about two weeks ago. The Egyptian government contracted with Deep Ocean Search to send the ship John Lethbridge to the scene with a remote-controlled underwater vehicle capable of scouring the ocean floor nearly 2 miles deep. The Comanche 6000 vehicle uses video cameras and limbs to sample and recover objects.

Recovering the voice and data black boxes — which are actually orange — from the plane is key to figuring out whether a mechanical flaw, crew mistake or terrorism downed the A320, one of the world’s most popular airliners.

The crew didn’t issue any distress calls before the crash. An automated system onboard the plane sent messages that smoke was detected in several locations on the jet during its final minutes.

The cockpit-voice recorder should relay what pilots were saying to each other during the crisis, and perhaps give hints as to what controls were being adjusted. The flight-data recorder collects more than 1,000 streams of information about how the aircraft is functioning, such as how the engines are running and positions of wings flaps.

A key part of the investigation is whether the plane broke up before entering the water or as it struck the surface. Besides the recorders, the wreckage itself could offer clues about what happened.

For example, if a crucial piece of equipment fell off the plane, that could explain a loss of control. A possible bomb would typically leave distinctive markings and traces of explosive on the wreckage.

The A320 family is a workhorse of the fleet, with 6,700 flying worldwide. The plane has been relatively safe, with 0.14 accidents involving fatalities per million departures, according to a Boeing study.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...-doomed-egyptair-flight-found-egypt/85974260/
 
L

Lafazar

Member
Spring Drive said:
It's harder to localize when it's floating, because of currents...?
Click to expand...

But the radio signal would not be blocked/attenuated by the water and could be detected for many miles instead of around 1-2 miles for the ultrasonic pulse underwater. That would make locating it so much quicker.

Edit: Okay, I was wrong. It's not that simple:
Sending a signal when you're NOT under water is harder: you can activate the signaling device with a "G Switch" the same way the ELT is activated, but after that the problems get harder:

  • You can't use sound (effectively)
    A "pinger" beeping in the air is much less effective than under water - the range would be extremely limited even at very high volumes. Add to that the fact that crash scenes are pretty noisy with firefighting and rescue crews working and the chances of anyone hearing an acoustic beacon on the surface are pretty slim.
  • You can't use light (effectively)
    A strobe on the black box may work OK in the dark, but it's easily damaged and not terribly effective during the day, or if the recorder is upside-down, in dense foliage, under snow/mud, etc.
  • Radio locator beacons are problematic
    Radio locator beacons require an antenna - if the antenna is damaged or torn off in the crash the effective range of a radio beacon would be drastically reduced, possibly to the point of being completely ineffective.
    If the antenna remains attached the signal can still be reduced drastically if the box is buried under natural features (dirt) or aircraft debris (aluminum skin).
    (Both of these issues are frequently raised in criticism of ELT technology.)
Click to expand...
http://aviation.stackexchange.com/q...nt-black-boxes-send-a-signal-when-above-water
 
Slayer-33

Slayer-33

Liverpool-2
Spring Drive said:
It's harder to localize when it's floating, because of currents...?
Click to expand...

Don't they have tracking devices on these things? I'm sure immediately finding one of these floating is a hell of a lot better than finding it weeks or months later at the bottom of the ocean.

I'm certain all these engineers could come up with a much better solution than whatever is in place now. Don't all these planes break apart anyways? Make it so that the area that this thing is in breaks off clean on all crashes.
 
T

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
Spring Drive said:
It's harder to localize when it's floating, because of currents...?
Click to expand...
Really doubt it'd be harder to localize than deep in the ocean. They're too heavy to float be wise they need to withstand insane forces. They are built to suffer like g did.
 
B

bootsthecat

Banned
Black boxes seem so archaic. The FAA and whatever partner regulatory agencies around the globe need to move toward requiring real-time satellite recording of these flights. We know that the carriers aren't going to budge unless they're forced. I suppose the physical boxes would remain as well, as a fail-safe.

Something like this.
 
Coreda

Coreda

Member
bootsthecat said:
Black boxes seem so archaic. The FAA and whatever partner regulatory agencies around the globe need to move toward requiring real-time satellite recording of these flights. We know that the carriers aren't going to budge unless they're forced. I suppose the physical boxes would remain as well, as a fail-safe.

Something like this.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how eager manufacturers like Airbus are to improve the availability of flight data for such incidents, considering they don't like bringing to light their history of mechanical failures and unaddressed issues.
 
S

Spring Drive

Banned
bootsthecat said:
Black boxes seem so archaic. The FAA and whatever partner regulatory agencies around the globe need to move toward requiring real-time satellite recording of these flights. We know that the carriers aren't going to budge unless they're forced. I suppose the physical boxes would remain as well, as a fail-safe.

Something like this.
Click to expand...

That would cost a lot of bandwith
 
L

Lord Virgin

Unconfirmed Member
bootsthecat said:
Black boxes seem so archaic. The FAA and whatever partner regulatory agencies around the globe need to move toward requiring real-time satellite recording of these flights. We know that the carriers aren't going to budge unless they're forced. I suppose the physical boxes would remain as well, as a fail-safe.

Something like this.
Click to expand...

Hmm, yeah that would cost them a lot. Don't see them jumping on it anytime soon.

I was thinking more of making the data remotely accessible. So basically download/stream it after a crash. Should be doable and it would cost less than streaming all the time.
 
B

bootsthecat

Banned
INST said:
Hmm, yeah that would cost them a lot. Don't see them jumping on it anytime soon.

I was thinking more of making the data remotely accessible. So basically download/stream it after a crash. Should be doable and it would cost less than streaming all the time.
Click to expand...
Interesting thought. Is it feasible to transfer data from a box 2+ miles deep in the ocean? You'd also have to know where the wreckage is (ie. the missing Malaysia flight, this approach wouldn't help in finding the aircraft)

Edit: or do you mean the box auto-transmitting immediately after an incident if whatever triggers are met?
 
C

Cosmo Clock 21

Banned
INST said:
Hmm, yeah that would cost them a lot. Don't see them jumping on it anytime soon.

I was thinking more of making the data remotely accessible. So basically download/stream it after a crash. Should be doable and it would cost less than streaming all the time.
Click to expand...
Hmm, spend money on a one-time infrastructure upgrade or spend millions on fruitless search and recover operations every time something like this happens. Tough decision
 
L

Lord Virgin

Unconfirmed Member
bootsthecat said:
Interesting thought. Is it feasible to transfer data from a box 2+ miles deep in the ocean? You'd also have to know where the wreckage is (ie. the missing Malaysia flight, this approach wouldn't help in finding the aircraft)

Edit: or do you mean the box auto-transmitting immediately after an incident if whatever triggers are met?
Click to expand...

Granted it is a tough one. Especially planes that crash into deep waters. I'm guessing there are several ways to go with it, I'd say put in a transmitter in there that is able to send the 'file' containing all of the flight data. Wondering myself how strong the signal has to be to still receive it even if it crashed to the bottom of the ocean.

Don't know about streaming it about right before a crash (with a trigger like you said). Could be false alarm and you'd need insane upload/download speeds. Don't see that happening either. But I simply see this method as a midway. Airliners don't want to jump on the streaming because it would cost them billions probably. While at the same time getting criticized for not being able to find the black boxes isn't great for business either. So I was thinking streaming AFTER a crash.

Cosmo Clock 21 said:
Hmm, spend money on a one-time infrastructure upgrade or spend millions on fruitless search and recover operations every time something like this happens. Tough decision
Click to expand...

Well, I didn't calculate all of it. But on the long-term, I'd say the streaming will simply cost more. The logistics of simply setting that up AND keeping it rolling. And air crashes are luckily pretty rare, so are you going to spend millions of dollars every year on something that might not give you your money's worth or keep the current situation intact? Reason they haven't jumped on streaming is simply because most of the time the boxes are retrieved in good condition. If it ain't broke....that is their motto it seems and with good reason tbf.
 
B

bootsthecat

Banned
INST said:
Airliners don't want to jump on the streaming because it would cost them billions probably. While at the same time getting criticized for not being able to find the black boxes isn't great for business either. So I was thinking streaming AFTER a crash.
Click to expand...

Yeah regarding the cost, I admit I'll need to read further into it to understand better...but how much bandwidth would really be required? It's not as if there's video and such included. Broadband internet access on airlines is getting more and more common every day, why couldn't they just piggyback off of that bandwidth I wonder?
 
F

Future

Member
bootsthecat said:
Black boxes seem so archaic. The FAA and whatever partner regulatory agencies around the globe need to move toward requiring real-time satellite recording of these flights. We know that the carriers aren't going to budge unless they're forced. I suppose the physical boxes would remain as well, as a fail-safe.

Something like this.
Click to expand...

Considering that planes typically have wifi and Internet access, why isn't black box details just constantly being uploaded throughout? Too much data?
 
L

Lord Virgin

Unconfirmed Member
bootsthecat said:
Yeah regarding the cost, I admit I'll need to read further into it to understand better...but how much bandwidth would really be required? It's not as if there's video and such included. Broadband internet access on airlines is getting more and more common every day, why couldn't they just piggyback off of that bandwidth I wonder?
Click to expand...

Future said:
Considering that planes typically have wifi and Internet access, why isn't black box details just constantly being uploaded throughout? Too much data?
Click to expand...

Not all airplanes have wifi/internet and aren't there extra costs for it? Also, does wifi still work when flying over water, far away from ground station? Might not want the data recording to quit streaming right then and there.

As for data, depends on the flight. Is it true that the FDR only does the last two hours or is it just the whole flight? I'm guessing a few GB at most? It's just voice recording, dunno about the data on the plane's functioning though. But every single plane, X the amount of planes one airliner has in the sky, every few hours etc. etc. That adds up. And like I said, with air crashes still being so rare and them finding the Black boxes most of the time. It would just cost them money without benefit from it.
 
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