NEWS: Afghan Air Crash Mystery - Empty Blackbox

Mystery surrounds the recovery of the Afghan Kam Air 737's black box flight recorder which U.S Analysts have found contains no information. The boeing crashed en route from Herat to Kabul on February 3 this year, after encountering a snowstorm and hitting a 3,300 metre mountain top killing all 104 people onboard including 24 foreigners. The black box was sent to the U.S for data analysis as the Afghans do not have the technology to open or analyse the device and was opened in front of Afghan officials.



The black box has no records on it from the period of 25 hours before the crash. Also a mystery is the absence of the aircrafts second black box which has not been recovered. The second black box records data and conversation from the cockpit during flight. Both black boxes are designed to withstand crashes and fire along with sending out signals after a crash that aids in their detection and recovery.


[edit on 10-4-2005 by Mayet]

Has this ever happened before? Very interesting. Let me check if this has a precedent.

EDIT Oh, how stupid of me, none of the 9/11 blackboxes were officially recovered...

Well, this information might be appropriate to an Afghani airliner, though maybe my media-inspired predisposition to Afghanistan includes the subscription to the stereotype that it is a bass-ackwards nation of yocals:

FDR's are often poorly maintained, because they are not critical to flight and have six-year batteries, although normally powered from the aircraft generators. FAA regulations do not require a regular test. There is a growing sentiment that they should be reliable, solid-state digital systems (a digital flight data recorder, DFDR).

(From WikiPedia.org)

[edit on 10-4-2005 by Zipdot]

Maybe because no black box was ever designed to sustain a crash into a skyscraper and then be cooked at temperatures hot enough to melt steel. That is why none of them were ever officially collected. Also who needs a black box when you see why the plane crashed and have cell phone conversations stating the cause?

Originally posted by CAConrad0825
Maybe because no black box was ever designed to sustain a crash into a skyscraper and then be cooked at temperatures hot enough to melt steel.

This is not true. Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVR) and Flight Data Recorders (FDR) are designed to withstand impacts of up to 3400G's and temperatures of 1100C.

National Transport Safety Board - Aviation Office
Cockpit Voice Recorder

Impact tolerance: 3400Gs / 6.5 ms
Fire resistance: 1100 degC / 30 min

Flight Data Recorder

Impact tolerance: 3400Gs / 6.5 ms
Fire resistance: 1100 degC / 30 min

The Afghan crash could never produce conditions capable of destroying a CVR and FDR.

Since you brought up 9-11, revised official reports now admit that the temperatures in the 9-11 fires were not hot enough to melt steel, rather they claim the fires were hot enough to cause thermal-induced expansion and thus warp the steel because the strut/support ends are fixed. Still not enough to destroy blackboxes.

And if the fires were hot enough to destroy black boxes, then how did the "magical passports" survive intact? You can't have your cake and eat it too.

edit: The FDRs from the four hijacked flight were recovered:
Flight recorders could answer key questions, but alas, no Cockpit Voice Recorders.

[edit on 2005/4/10 by wecomeinpeace]

No FDRs? Cant wait to see if any Afghan officials were onboard foreign agents etc...Could also just be poorly run third world airlines. The 9/11 FDR thing makes me itch. Could have been anything of course but damn. The Afghan crash could also have been an Al Qaeda operation since it seems crashing airliners is their specialty.

This crash has bothered me from day one.
First, a freak snow storm hits and the plane can't land. Jet aircraft must file flight reports before takeoff. Part of that is weather reports. Surely, the pilots must have known about the weather.

Second, the flight gets diverted to new airport. The pilot wants to land at Bagram AFB because he lacks fuel to go further. But jet aircraft are required to carry extra fuel for reasons just like this. I believe it is 1 hour of extra fuel.

Third, the flight loses communication after talking to Bagram AFB.

Fourth, with all the US military surveillance and airborne radar systems (AWACS), the aircraft is lost and takes 5 days to find. When it is found, it is less than 20 miles from the capital of Afghanistan, well within radar range.

Isn't the US military protecting the capital city? And wouldn't that include ground radar and AWACS? Wouldn't we have MPs patrolling that might see the crash? How about all of the rest of our ground troops? After contacting Bagram AFB, wouldn't our military keep an eye on them?

And now the DFRs have no data for 25 hours (not 24 hours). I assume that means there is data 26 hours old. Sounds very strange to me.

And to top it off, if we can't see a jet aircraft crash, how do we ever expect to find Osama bin Laden???

Ther FDR, and CVR are tested on a daily basis.
That will probably be try for most US major air carriers.

[edit on 11-4-2005 by Red Golem]

According to Wikipedia and my post above, often these FDRs are neglected and not maintained well. Check out the first post after the news post.

Zip

Zipdot,
The other posts you menchened were noticed. I speak from the experience that I have. Also the routien maintence is failery similer between the major US carriers. It is because of that, I can say the the CVR, FDR are checked on a daily basis.

way to go ATS...
great post, and it came up as the top valid link on google...(the other one has been removed for some reason)

we're in the big time now...

why do they call them black boxes, when they are orange?

I cant say I know where the term black box came from, would only be makeing a guess and probably wrong. But they are orange with refelctive stripes for visibilty.

why do they call them black boxes, when they are orange?

Pffft! Well, obviously because "black box" sounds sexier. I mean, no one's going to be willing to search a wreckage scene for an orange box, now are they?

wecomeinpeace
Well I cant say your wrong, black box does sound a whole buch sexier. But it might also have something to do with that all the other boxes that live in the belly of the aire plane, are indeed actually black.
go fig

A visit to www.chichakli.com will reveal some interesting information and photos regarding the Kam Air Boeing 737 crash south of Kabul in early February 2005. Click on "Latest News" and scroll down to "See the type of help rendered by the U.S."

If they were important enough for them to fly up there in a helicopter, strip all the bodies hunting for this information, wouldn't it have been a LOT easier, to simply let the plane land where it was supposed to? And then you still have twe live agents that can still gather information for you.

That seems to be a very good question, for which no answers seem to be readily available.
There are, of course, many possible conjectures.

Chichakli has added some new photos and comments regarding the Kam Air crash
to his Web Site:
www.chichakli.com...

This includes a Power Point presentation with many photos. If there is someone
capable of interpreting the photos, in particular capable of verifying that the
wreckage is spread over 50 km I would be interested in their analysis. The photos also seem to include a photo of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (or at least what is asserted to be the CVR) which "officially" was never found. If what is stated at the above site is true, it
certainly bears wider attention, but will almost surely not receive such attention, since the
facts seem to be irretrievably lost to an indifferent public opinion.

In addition the photos previously cited
www.chichakli.com...
remain.