Cockpit voice recorder recovered from Air France mystery crash

[RamboLiberal]

Source: CNN

The cockpit voice recorder from an Air France plane that crashed mysteriously nearly two years ago, killing all 228 people on board, has been found, the head of the company announced Tuesday.

The announcement came "only hours" after the recovery of the flight data recorder's memory unit, Air France chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said, citing the official French air accident investigation agency, the Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA).

He called it "another decisive step forward in the inquiry" into the cause of the crash, which remains unknown nearly two years after it happened.

Air France flight 447 crashed in stormy weather en route to Paris from Brazil on June 1, 2009. It took nearly two years and a massive undersea search to locate the bulk of the wreckage deep in the Atlantic Ocean.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/05/03/france.jet.crash/index.html?hpt=T2

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Hope one or both of these boxes that data is recoverable & able to provide further info on crash.

[Old and In the Way]

1. Nova did a very interesting documentary on 447

Sounds like the lightning made have screwed with their navigation and/or control surfaces.

[RamboLiberal]

2. Also frozen pitot tubes are a suspect that they didn't know true speed

[MicaelS]

4. That's my opinion, too n/t

[Old and In the Way]

5. It's been awhile since I saw it, but I believe you are correct.

Depending on the point of blockage, altimeter and Vertical Speed Indicator could also be effected. Given the level of electronics these planes have, I'm kind of surprised that these planes don't have pressure sensor technology for back up systems on these critical indicators.

[Angleae]

7. The pressure sensors are the primary system.

There is no other way of measuring airspeed and the inertial reference system/flight management system would have to be completely reprogrammed to provide altitude. Also, there are at least 3 seperate systems (#1/Capt, #2/FO, Aux/Standby), the first 2 are linked to the air data computers, the last directly to the indicator.

[joshcryer]

10. Yes, but as the test pilot experiment showed, if they followed the manual...

...and simply put the plane in a known safe state it would've stayed in the air. I think it was 70% throttle with flaps up or something like that (haven't seen the show in awhile, but basically there was a safe state that it could be put in).

[Angleae]

12. Pilots aren't often too bright.

Such as the pair that fell asleep flying over Minnesota(?). Once they take off, the autopilot comes on. After that, they just let the plane fly itself unless warning horns come on.

[joshcryer]

9. Yeah, I saw that one, you can watch it online here (PBS website):

http://video.pbs.org/video/1685933496/

Apparently works for people in the UK too but I make no guarantees. :hi:

And yes it is correct that the root cause is believed to be icing on the air flow gauges, and bad, very bad luck. Flying right into a big storm because the radar made them think it was a smaller storm that they could rough out, then the auto pilot vomited and failed hard. Sadly they indicated that pilot error may have played a role (since putting the plane in a certain state would keep it flying regardless). Showed an interesting disconnect with fly by wire pilots and pilots who are highly trained, imo.

[SoapBox]

3. Amazing that they found the second box...

And for more, Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_447

[SpartanDem]

6. I never thought they were gonna these things

[inwiththenew]

8. It would be great if they could recover useable data from these boxes

It would give us some answers as to what really happened.

[high density]

11. Too bad they didn't call these guys up immediately after it crashed

They seem to know what they're doing.

[Baclava]

13. Awesome! So we'll get to hear about the UFO attacking them

WEll, that was one of the theories...