EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo has vanished from Radar

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

If the fire was in the avionics bay it would have cut at least some of the data to the recorders.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Agreed.

The good news is, the wreckage is relatively fresh for forensic analysis. It hasn't been in the water long enough for significant degradation and encrustation.

It sounds like there are two wreckage sites. I haven't read how far apart these sites are. At 3,000m depth, two major segments of wreckage could drift quite a ways apart, possibly as much as a mile or more (up to two). If further, I would posit the airframe impacted the water in two different places.

a reply to: Zaphod58

At this point, I'm thinking the most valuable data will be the data immediately surrounding the ACARS messages (in time). There's probably some pretty good data before the ACARS message events, beyond that of the ACARS data sent. In my mind, this will hold the key.

The fire in the avionics bay could very well have severed all FDR data...if it was truly a fire Hence the analysis of the data immediately before those ACARS alerts. CVR not so much.

They found the CVR

www.bbc.com...

No trace of the FDR yet.

/e:
Here is a bit more information. According to the link, they salvaged "only" the memory unit.

a reply to: gisolator

it is a start,,,,. glad they found something...now we wait and see....the ping will run out on june 24 on the other box

www.dailymail.co.uk... .html

a reply to: research100

They have a very good idea of where it is. Even if the batteries die they won't have a lot of trouble finding it IMO.

a reply to: gisolator

That's all they need.

FDR has now also been recovered...

Flight Data Recorder recovered

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

oh...glad to hear that...will be interesting to see what is found out

Both recorders will require some work before they can be decoded. They suffered a lot of damage they said. The CVR came up in two pieces.

The recorders went through dryers Saturday and now are undergoing electrical tests on the memory units before they attempt to download them.

www.nbcnews.com...

Investigators said repairs would be carried out Monday and would only take a few hours. They still had to determine whether it would be easy or difficult to extract the data.

And they're having problems. There's a damaged circuit but they're having to clean salt buildup off 200 circuits to figure out which one is damaged.

www.bloomberg.com...

The recorders are being sent to France. Attempts to download them in Egypt failed.

wap.business-standard.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Go figure!

And in France they'll....oh, never mind, ...


ETA...(starred it anyway) Editorial: if this isn't a reason to find a better design for FDR/CVR's I don't know what is! It's arcane technology!!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Egypt doesn't have the technology to investigate accidents like this, even if they were halfway competent. That's one of the reasons France and the US were asked to help.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
The recorders are being sent to France. Attempts to download them in Egypt failed.

wap.business-standard.com...

From the article:

It said members of the panel would travel to France next week "with the electronic circuits of the two black boxes to have them repaired in laboratories of the (French air safety agency) BEA and to eliminate salt deposits". The repaired units would be returned to Cairo for analysis in Egypt's aviation ministry laboratories, the committee said.

That's a lot of back and forth for devices, which might contain the only evidence to solve what happened with MS 804. Hopefully they treat them like raw eggs.

a reply to: gisolator

France has a good history of investigating accidents recently. They know how to handle them when transporting them.

a reply to: Zaphod58

They have had a lot of practice.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

it would have had to have been one hell of a catastrophic fire

That is why a fire is highly unlikely to me as the cause of this crash.
There certainly seems to have been a source of heat (picture few pages back) but a fire with no distress call and a sudden loss of contact?
There are about 1500 A320s in the sky every minute of the day, an aircraft that has a very good safety record.