[Peetwo]

MS804 AAI - Problems with the CVR/FDR

Courtesy WSJ via the Oz:

EgyptAir Flight 804: crash teams struggle to crack black boxes

• Robert Wall, Dahlia Kholaif
  
• The Wall Street Journal
  
• 12:00AM June 24, 2016
  

A week after recovering the black boxes from EgyptAir Flight 804, which plunged into the Mediterranean last month, Egyptian officials appear to be struggling to get the devices ready for analysis.

Search teams on Thursday last week ­retrieved the Airbus A320’s cockpit voice recorder and a day later the flight-data recorder.

The Egyptian-led team investigating the crash began tests on the devices on Sunday. The crash team said it was “conducting thorough inspection and tests on the electronic boards of both” the recorders “in order to start the uploading process”.

The black boxes offer the best clues to determining why the plane crashed on May 19, killing all 66 people on board.

It was headed to Cairo from Paris when it deviated from its course while cruising at 37,000 feet, first turning left before rolling to the right and completing a full circle, say investigators.

Probes sometimes can identify the likely cause of a plane crash within days, if not hours, of extracting data from the black boxes.

The French air accident investigation office, the BEA, which is aiding the Egyptian crash probe team, has extensive experience in extracting and analysing ­information stored on flight data recorders.

Black box-maker Honeywell International has also been asked by Egypt to provide technical ­assistance.

“Inspection and removal of salt accumulations for more than 200 electrical circuits are ongoing to determine the circuit that doesn’t function properly in order to reach accurate reading of the memory units of the ­recorders,” Egyptian officials said, adding that the process was being witnessed by French and US officials.

The flight-data recorder is ­designed to store technical ­parameters for the last 25 hours of an aircraft’s movements.

It monitors basic information such as aircraft speed and altitude, but also smoke alarms, autopilot mode and control inputs made by the crew.

The cockpit voice recorder ­retains the last two hours of crew conversation.
Egyptian officials last week said the data analysis could “take several weeks”.

Flight 804 broadcast a number of fault messages before contact was lost, indicating the possibility of smoke in the nose of the plane, ­including a critical electronic equipment hub beneath the cockpit.

The messages alone have not proved sufficient to determine a likely cause for the crash, investigators have said.

Radar data also indicated it was not a sudden explosion that tore the plane apart mid-air.
The flight’s black box data should allow investigators to ­determine the sequence of events on board and what actions the crew might have taken.

Investigators also said that a specialised vessel, the John Lethbridge, belonging to Deep Ocean Search, was continuing to map the debris field of the plane’s wreckage for potential recovery later.

The ship was used to recover the black boxes from a depth of about 3000m, crash ­investigation officials said.

MTF...P2