Crucial 'memory unit' from 2009 Air France crash recovered

Crucial

www.cnn.com

(CNN) -- The memory unit that may tell why an Air France jet plunged into the Atlantic nearly two years ago was recovered from the bottom of the ocean Sunday, France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said.

A remote-controlled submarine, known as the Remora 6000, located the memory unit Sunday morning and it was lifted on board the search ship Ile de Sein six hours later, the Paris-based BEA said.

All 228 people aboard the Air France Flight 447 were killed when the plane fell into the ocean on the way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009.

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i remember this terrible tragedy. And to recover one of the black boxes that holds crucial data 2 years later. Scientists say that data from it is still retrievable, which may give clues as to the reason for the mystery crash.

There was no indication of mechanical trouble or no emergency transmissions from the pilot, if memory serves me.

www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Alright, now what? Mods, please edit this title to fill in the missing words; it wont work for me, despite 3 attempts!!

They have probably had the box for awhile now. Just waiting to see who gets blamed and what war will be justified with the results.

My guess is that this won't end up as a technical malfunction....IMHO.

reply to post by mishigas


So they found this black box in the middle of the ocean but they couldn't find the blackbox's in the World Trade Center's rubble?

Originally posted by brianjordan
reply to post by mishigas

 

So they found this black box in the middle of the ocean but they couldn't find the blackbox's in the World Trade Center's rubble?

Yeah, not one of them...Interesting right?

and...now what...they say they have it but they're gunna hold the information for how long before telling us what happened? If they have it...and it's retrievable...then why the $#@% haven't they retrieved it and said what happened yet...couldn't be that hard to do if it's still intact and functional

Originally posted by jude11

Originally posted by brianjordan
reply to post by mishigas

 

So they found this black box in the middle of the ocean but they couldn't find the blackbox's in the World Trade Center's rubble?

Yeah, not one of them...Interesting right?

Very interesting as this quote from the article "it has been sitting between 2,000 to 4,000 meters (6,562 to 13,124 feet) below the ocean's surface for 23 months." explains that they can find the boxes at this depth but cannot find any at "ground zero" or if you will street level in New York City.

Makes you wonder about the tech they are using.
Regards, Iwinder

How deep was the water that this was found in? The middle of the Atlantic, so it had to be between 5-10k feet deep and in that deep of water, youd think that the box wouldve been crushed like to the size of a wad of tin foil.

Ok, the poster above answered my question the same time i was asking it..

reply to post by mishigas

There was no indication of mechanical trouble ....

Actually, there is already a fairly strong working hypothesis...and, yes it involves a mechanical problem, of sorts.

Your most modern airliners (like, in this case, the Airbus A-330) have data units onboard separate from the Digital Flight Data Recorder, that monitor various systems. These are used, info retrieved when on the ground, and also data is sent via radio links, in the air....to the airline's maintenance departments. Even over-water, nowadays, many airliners have Sat-Comm equipment.

Air France's MX department received a host of "error messages" ( as they're called ) from that flight. So, an idea has been formed about it.....recovery of the actual memory units will reinforce this, or change it...but mostly, will be additional info to fill in any gaps in knowledge.

Essentially....there are forward-facing tubes (probes) called "pitots" that measure the ram force of air, to determine airspeed. All airplanes have this basic system, airliners have several...for redundancy. They also serve other purposes, all related to "knowing" the airspeed.

In order to be able to fly in all weather conditions, these tubes that project outside the airplane are heated, electrically...so ice will not build up on them, and block them. It is thought, based on reports form other A-330s with the same brand of pitot tubes installed, that the heating elements could be insufficient, in some situations....allowing them to ice over. This is what they think happened, here.

After that crash, in 2009, it was mandated that ALL jets with that brand of pitot tube have them replaced.

There will be some incredible legal liabilities to go around, as more info comes out, for certain.

Additionally.....it is really a bit of an indictment on the pilots (depending what is learned, about mitigating circumstances) for not having the competence to deal with what might just be a simple "Unreliable Airspeed" type of emergency situation. We have procedures, for that...once it's recognized, and acted on appropriately, of course.

However, airspeed indications outside the "norm" or expected can be very confusing, and lead to loss of control. Especially if there was a lot of turbulence, and in non-visual conditions (IMC....Instrument Meteorological Conditions).

The SSFDR was recovered from the Adam Air flight that went down in 2007 after a year of being underwater.

It had to go to a specialists data recovery company in Germany, but they got it.

If they have got the memory unit, then this will take a little time to salvage the data. and I hope they do. Those of us in the aviation industry are desperate to know what really happened that night

reply to post by weedwhacker


That is true, however blocked pitots would not necessarily generate the laundry list of ECAM Failure messages that was received by AFMX.

I hope the real reason come to light because of this, as no-one I know likes this unsolved mystery

reply to post by JakiusFogg


The pitot info affects a lot of systems, especially on these modern computer-dependent jets.

I have not flown any Airbuses, except the old A-300-B4s....and they were "old" technology, comparatively.

Still, just one example, off the top of my head....pitot inputs needed for elevator feel. Depending on the model jet, may have a dedicated couple of pitots, just for the feel computers. The (two) primary pitot tubes (on most Boeings I'm familiar with) input to the Air Data Computers...and the third is for the Standby Instruments.

My point is, complacency is a problem, as ever-more incredible technology is inserted into the cockpits, and the instruments displays, for pilots....they become like crutches. When taken away, it is hard, hard, hard to IGNORE them, and the garbage they may (or may not) be displaying, in favor of the simple, and basic Standby Instrument cluster.

Even in turbulence.....just by using pitch attitude, and proper power settings....and you can remain stabilized, even with NO airspeed reference at all. This is why it is puzzling, the loss of control. We don't yet have the entire chain of events, lot of info to fill in.....

reply to post by weedwhacker


All of your information is backed up by the investigation presented by NOVA last year. It is a very plausible scenario and the team at NOVA as always does an excellent job at conveying the sequence of events.
You can view it HERE.

I tend to agree with you although nothing can be ruled out till we get a hold of that data.

These pilot tubes...are they part of a feedback loop, or do they only measure? If they only measure, Im confused as to how ice-over could be a problem.

WW mentioned turbulence. Sounds like it might apply here:

The Airbus A330's pilots lost contact with air traffic controllers while flying across an area of the Atlantic Ocean known for constant bands of severe turbulence, officials said.

reply to post by here4awhile


They found it today, after being almost two years at the bottom of the ocean, give them some time.

It's not a flash drive that you take out of your pocket and just need to connect to your computer.

I just read that on another site. Its really amazing at what man is capable of.

With that being said, my money is on it broke up in flight. And I just find it hard to believe this modern aircraft broke up in flight during up drafts at 30,000 feet. I'm thinking that aircraft blew up in flight. I don't recall a mayday was sent out. Just those automatic messages from the computers.

reply to post by LosLobos


Maybe possible that it took a massive lightening strike, knocking out all the electronics and the radio?

reply to post by JakiusFogg


I worked on some advanced aircraft in the military. First of all, these tubes should have heaters on them. The aircraft I worked on had a code for pitot heaters are inoperable. I didn't see any messages on this Air France plane that indicated the heaters were not working. Just that the probes were sensing wrong inputs.

Second of all, a pitot problem should never cause the primary and secondary computers to fail. The flight control computers are the brains of the aircraft. They should be the last things to fail during normal flight. However, a hard short somewhere in the system should generate a hard fail but not cause the computer's to indicate fail themselves. Just that something in the system has a hard short or open.

Third of all, those messages in 14 minutes suggest to me a catastrophic power failure. The message system most likely still transmits on battery power.

Fifth of all, if the pilot had TIME he would have called in a mayday. This suggest events in the cockpit must have been beyond their rational thougts to give their location. They were figting to save the aircraft. Or they were already gone before they knew what happened. I could be wrong about that one since there is some kind of dead spot they encounter over the ocean. But if those messages got through then a simple RF tramsmission should have gotten through.

reply to post by TriForce


The planes I worked on had lightning arrestors. So even if they were struck by lightning the arrestors would protect sensitive equipment. Even then, the bulk of the lightning should just pass through the aircraft.

We did "lightning strike" inspections every time a pilot "claimed" he was struck by lightning.