Egypt Air 804 Paris-Cairo Missing

LTC8K6 · Wed Jun 08, 2016 1:45 pm

Quoting spacecookie (Reply 149):
It's really anoying when many of the airliners have already decided that it was terrorism and that Egypt wants to hide all the stuff about this incident.

Well, the media reported that idea very early in this case, including info from Egyptian and US officials.

CNN reported almost immediately that "US officials" suspected a bomb.

So in this case, I think the pump was well primed.

Deanger · Wed Jun 08, 2016 1:58 pm

So 20 days now has me thinking that the 30-day life of the pingers is really not enough.

If a plane goes down in one of the most heavily traveled bodies of water and it takes at least 20 days (and who knows how many more) to successfully locate the FDR and CVR, how are we to expect that any airplane that goes down over a significant body of water will ever be located this way. We place such a premium of importance on these devices. Is 30 days the best we can do?

Yes, yes... I hear everyone who says - let's skip to data streaming, etc...

I don't know the economics of that. But surely, in the last few decades, battery improvements driven by the demand of new technology would mean we can beat 30-days without too much trouble, wouldn't it?

greenair727 · Wed Jun 08, 2016 2:09 pm

^I agree with the 30-day limit being too little.

MS operating issues on-going. Maybe related to 804, maybe not, but a hoax bomb threat forced a Cairo-Beijing flight to emergency land in Uzbekistan.

"An EgyptAir plane that was forced to land in Uzbekistan last night due to a hoax bomb threat has been cleared to resume its journey from Cairo to Beijing. All 118 passengers and 17 crew on board the Airbus A330-220 were evacuated at Urgench International Airport. The aircraft was searched by Uzbek security forces but no explosive device was found, Egyptian officials said...."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36477768

zeke · Wed Jun 08, 2016 2:25 pm

Quoting flyingturtle (Reply 135):
read that the plane in question transmitted an ACARS message each time shortly after the three previous take-offs, but I have no information on the content of these messages.

Aircraft often automatically transmit a number of different phase reports each flight, these are absolutely normal part of the engineering monitoring of the aircraft. Airlines can program what reports they want transmitted.

hivue · Wed Jun 08, 2016 2:52 pm

Quoting Deanger (Reply 152):
So 20 days now has me thinking that the 30-day life of the pingers is really not enough.

Quoting Deanger (Reply 152):
Is 30 days the best we can do?

So what's your suggested number?

If they are designed to last N days, then as soon as some airplane goes missing for N+1 days we will see complaints like this.

kelvin933 · Wed Jun 08, 2016 3:51 pm

Quoting hivue (Reply 155):
If they are designed to last N days, then as soon as some airplane goes missing for N+1 days we will see complaints like this.

The time the pinger works depends on the batteries that power the pinger, the minimum time should be 30 days. Longer lasting batteries are now available (ca 90 days) but very few airlines have decided to install the new batteries as the additional time is not a requirement.
After the AF447 accident there where a few airlines that decided to replace the pinger batteries with the newer longer lasting ones.

D L X · Wed Jun 08, 2016 3:58 pm

Quoting theaviator380 (Reply 33):

If forensic experts claiming it was a bomb/terror strike, then it could have happened towards backside of the plane? keeping cockpit and thereby avionics intact for few seconds giving out those ACARS?

Quoting hivue (Reply 155):
So what's your suggested number?

If they are designed to last N days, then as soon as some airplane goes missing for N+1 days we will see complaints like this.

First off, we found AF447's flight recorders, what, two years after the plane sank to the bottom of the ocean? Honeywell has even boasted that there has yet to be a data recorder that has not been found. (I'm not sure if MH370 is a Honeywell recorder, so that would obviously alter that stat if it is.) All told, in the modern era, we find the plane *almost* every time.

Second, cost is always a factor. For every flight that goes down, millions upon millions didn't. Yet, they all have to carry around the boxes. Adding extra batteries means extra maintenance (gotta test the batteries, at least), extra weight (batteries are not light), and extra complexity. Before taking on increasing the post-crash life, the cost benefit analysis must be done: how many more days would bigger batteries get us versus how often we actually need more days.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the idea is that it within 30 days, we know basically where the plane is (MH370 notwithstanding) and that the time getting down to the sea floor is going to be the time it takes getting down to the sea floor no matter how long the battery lasts.

litz · Wed Jun 08, 2016 7:07 pm

There are, I think, only two cases where recorders were not recovered ...

9/11 (theory is they were pulverized in the building collapses)
MH370

That's a pretty darned good track record.

Indy · Wed Jun 08, 2016 7:19 pm

There needs to be a change in the way black boxes work. Not sure adding battery life would really matter. Would 60 days have been enough to recover the boxes from the other missing flight? When you have no idea where the plane really crashed in the ocean I am not sure any amount of time is enough.

But what about changing functionality to work with today's technology? It wouldn't be too expensive assuming developers of the product weren't engaging in price gouging. Make the boxes 100% digital. Let them ping as they do now but also make them listen. Let them listen for a special encrypted signal coming from locator devices. Once the box hears the encrypted ping it then responds by sending out a signal that it is ready to begin sending data. The locator device responds with another signal indicating it is ready to receive. Once the black box receives that acknowledgement from the locating device it begins to stream all of the data it has recorded. You'd want functionality that would allow the locator device to send a stop signal in the event there is an issue with the transmission.

You don't want the box to just start streaming because it will wipe out the battery in a hurry. This recovery method would allow investigators to recover all of the data without actually ever finding the black box. You just have to get within transmission range. Of course the greater the transmission range the bigger the required battery. That would be a limiting factor. But I suspect if you use the same kind of technology cell phones use you should be able to keep the size down.

Just my two cents from the tech world.

D L X · Wed Jun 08, 2016 7:33 pm

Quoting Indy (Reply 159):

I was set to shoot it down, but actually, that's a really intriguing idea: upload the data when the appropriate device gets NEAR the wreckage instead of waiting for the wreckage to be found and surfaced. Very intriguing indeed.
I think there may be a problem with sending data from underwater.

I think it's a great topic, but probably not a good fit under this thread. Care to start a new one to discuss it?

litz · Wed Jun 08, 2016 9:00 pm

It's how you send the data underwater ... radio is flat out ... water is simply too good an insulator (it eats most radio waves).

If you own a GoPro, you can experience this yourself :

Put the camera in its waterproof housing, and engage WiFi mode. Ensure the app on your phone connects.

Drop the camera in a bucket of water. Watch the signal vanish.

Pick up camera, download video of the astonishment on your face.

sovietjet · Wed Jun 08, 2016 9:37 pm

Quoting litz (Reply 158):
There are, I think, only two cases where recorders were not recovered ...

9/11 (theory is they were pulverized in the building collapses)
MH370

That's a pretty darned good track record.

You would be wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unrecovered_flight_recorders

Granted, some of those were "found" but destroyed. Still, there are a bunch never found in the first place.

What should be done is that all planes should have a device which always streams the GPS position to a satellite while in flight. And I don't believe the BS that it would be too expensive or heavy. A freaking phone can do it, why not a critical piece of equipment? And now most airlines have streaming satellite TV, so I also don't buy any BS regarding to bandwidth or satellite coverage. The technology is there and it is easy, but it hasn't been done because of stupidity and bean counters. This should be a mandated rule in the future given all the difficulties and "transmitter rush" following every crash in the open sea/ocean!

rcair1 · Wed Jun 08, 2016 9:54 pm

Quoting D L X (Reply 157):
Adding extra batteries means extra maintenance (gotta test the batteries, at least), extra weight (batteries are not light), and extra complexity.

I think the idea is that new battery technology could achieve longer ping times w/o added size/weight. Testing you have to do anyway.

Quoting D L X (Reply 157):
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the idea is that it within 30 days, we know basically where the plane is (MH370 notwithstanding) and that the time getting down to the sea floor is going to be the time it takes getting down to the sea floor no matter how long the battery lasts.

Seems like this "pinger time" is always a factor.

------
However, I'm thinking that longer CVR recording may be a more beneficial investment. Goodness knows we can easily record > 30 minutes of 4 channel audio easily.

Indy · Wed Jun 08, 2016 10:07 pm

Quoting D L X (Reply 160):
I was set to shoot it down, but actually, that's a really intriguing idea: upload the data when the appropriate device gets NEAR the wreckage instead of waiting for the wreckage to be found and surfaced. Very intriguing indeed.
I think there may be a problem with sending data from underwater.

I think it's a great topic, but probably not a good fit under this thread. Care to start a new one to discuss it?

I don't really spend enough time on here anymore to start up a discussion on anything. I agree about the limitation of underwater transmissions but apparently a solution may now be here or near. Check out this link.

http://www.ibtimes.com/scientists-de...net-deep-sea-communication-1425518

aeronaftis · Thu Jun 09, 2016 9:21 am

Quoting rcair1 (Reply 163):
What should be done is that all planes should have a device which always streams the GPS position to a satellite while in flight. And I don't believe the BS that it would be too expensive or heavy. A freaking phone can do it, why not a critical piece of equipment? And now most airlines have streaming satellite TV, so I also don't buy any BS regarding to bandwidth or satellite coverage. The technology is there and it is easy, but it hasn't been done because of stupidity and bean counters. This should be a mandated rule in the future given all the difficulties and "transmitter rush" following every crash in the open sea/ocean!

Agree. Mobile phones provide constant tracking. Why can't aircraft after a crash?

Another blindingly simple aid to pilots and investigators - why not comprehensive camera placement on various external aircraft areas that report in real time to pilots and to home base. This simple improvement could have saved countless crashes should the crew been aware what the problem was.

Diverting but sort of on topic: Why are most airport cameras (the ones we often see reporting runway incidents/crashes) seemingly low res, terribly positioned views? Surely critical environments like airports should have much better camera coverage from many angles?

seat64k · Thu Jun 09, 2016 9:55 am

Quoting aeronaftis (Reply 165):
Diverting but sort of on topic: Why are most airport cameras (the ones we often see reporting runway incidents/crashes) seemingly low res, terribly positioned views? Surely critical environments like airports should have much better camera coverage from many angles?

Possibly because they never replaced the CCTV system that was installed in 1972.

About 10 years ago I was doing contract work for a company that does CCTV installations. They showed me their demo room. The company office was on a hill, so they had a great view of the surrounding area, which means they could demo their cameras at a variety of distances. First thing that surprised me was that it was full colour, and the image was clear (although low resolution by today's standards). The second surprise was how good the digital zoom was on some of these cameras.

So yeah, I think for the most part the reason why we see such low quality CCTV footage is because we're looking at the product of systems that are as old as some of us.

Aesma · Thu Jun 09, 2016 11:48 am

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 162):
What should be done is that all planes should have a device which always streams the GPS position to a satellite while in flight. And I don't believe the BS that it would be too expensive or heavy. A freaking phone can do it, why not a critical piece of equipment? And now most airlines have streaming satellite TV, so I also don't buy any BS regarding to bandwidth or satellite coverage. The technology is there and it is easy, but it hasn't been done because of stupidity and bean counters. This should be a mandated rule in the future given all the difficulties and "transmitter rush" following every crash in the open sea/ocean!

Millions of people, including in the poorest places on the planet, have satellite TV, yet almost nobody has satellite phone, why is that ? Because they're not the same thing at all.

Your smartphone can transmit its position only because there is a phone antenna a few miles away at most. Go to an empty place and your phone loses its ability to communicate. A satcom system must send data to a satellite that is a bit farther than a few miles away.

Andy33 · Thu Jun 09, 2016 12:07 pm

Quoting aeronaftis (Reply 165):
Mobile phones provide constant tracking. Why can't aircraft after a crash?

Possibly because mobile phones don't work underwater, and neither do satellite phones. It might be possible to develop something that could transmit accurate position information from the ocean bed, but not using mobile phone technology.
It isn't normally a problem to find crash sites which are on land - that's what the ELT beacons are for.

okobjorn · Thu Jun 09, 2016 2:03 pm

I get the idea of extending the battery time, but how about increasing the range of the signal, so it will be easier to pick up?

sovietjet · Thu Jun 09, 2016 2:17 pm

Quoting Aesma (Reply 167):
Your smartphone can transmit its position only because there is a phone antenna a few miles away at most. Go to an empty place and your phone loses its ability to communicate. A satcom system must send data to a satellite that is a bit farther than a few miles away.

Great, however your simple Garmin or TomTom doesn't need a network tower. In fact many smaller aircraft, and even some military, use store bought Garmins to navigate. Which means it works. How hard is it to install something like that on every aircraft and have it transmit location?

Quoting Andy33 (Reply 168):
Possibly because mobile phones don't work underwater, and neither do satellite phones. It might be possible to develop something that could transmit accurate position information from the ocean bed, but not using mobile phone technology.

I'm not saying it should work underwater. But if it transmitting location until the moment of impact (or very close to it) then the investigators will have a pretty narrow search area from the start. There won't be any of this combing through vast areas of ocean and racing to do it before the ELT batteries expire.

maartent · Thu Jun 09, 2016 3:42 pm

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 170):
Great, however your simple Garmin or TomTom doesn't need a network tower. In fact many smaller aircraft, and even some military, use store bought Garmins to navigate. Which means it works. How hard is it to install something like that on every aircraft and have it transmit location?

TomTom etc is a positioning system, they RECIEVE the GPS from 2 or three satellites. They don´t TRANSMIT it.

Aesma · Thu Jun 09, 2016 3:57 pm

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 170):
Great, however your simple Garmin or TomTom doesn't need a network tower

Because they're like satellite TV, they only receive information from satellites, they don't communicate with them.

In fact some GPS systems communicate nowadays (things you put in the bag of your children or the collar of your pet), in that case they use a SIM card and phone towers.

Everything is possible technically, and might not be that expensive, but remember two things :

- it has to be mandated by regulatory bodies, and many airlines will fight against this.

- not expensive becomes 10 times more expensive if it has to be put on a plane.

pygmalion · Thu Jun 09, 2016 4:20 pm

The pinger batteries have to transmit for a minimum of 30 days at the end of the life of the battery. So after 10 years installed in an airplane... they then have to last 30 days. That pinger and the battery powering it, both have to survive an airplane crash. That is not a trivial problem.

All the current FDR constantly records hundreds of channels of data at fairly high rates. The CVRs are digital and will contain all the current flights conversations... not just 30 minutes.

apfpilot · Thu Jun 09, 2016 4:58 pm

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 162):
freaking phone can do it, why not a critical piece of equipment? And now most airlines have streaming satellite TV, so I also don't buy any BS regarding to bandwidth or satellite coverage

Are you just talking about position data? Other than MH370 where would just position data have been useful. I just returned from the Global Connected Aircraft Summit in LAX and on one of the panels ET had a speaker who said that if every bus off of the airplane was to be recorded and then streamed back to a ground station on a 787 flight from JKF - LHR it would be in the order of 500GB. Retail price of 1MB on the Inmarsat network is around $6.00 for over 100MB a month. Let's say they get way better than retail because they are consuming so much data, so half price. At 500 GB of data that is $1,437,500 per flight. Ok so you want to remove some of the parameters you off set. Which ones? How do you decide. The A350 generates even MORE operational data per flight.

Quoting aeronaftis (Reply 165):
Another blindingly simple aid to pilots and investigators - why not comprehensive camera placement on various external aircraft areas that report in real time to pilots and to home base. This simple improvement could have saved countless crashes should the crew been aware what the problem was.

How do you get that off the airplane?

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 170):
Great, however your simple Garmin or TomTom doesn't need a network tower. In fact many smaller aircraft, and even some military, use store bought Garmins to navigate. Which means it works. How hard is it to install something like that on every aircraft and have it transmit location?

GPS is one way. Transmitting position to satellite is a lot harder than receiving.

seat64k · Thu Jun 09, 2016 4:58 pm

It's also worth remembering that phones don't use GPS most of the time. They will look for cell towers and wifi access points first. Wifi access points can be looked up (via the 3G/4G internet connection) against a database like skyhook - all these options use much less battery than turning on the GPS radio and waiting for enough satellite locks.

As others have said, transmitting - particularly to satellites - requires much more power than your cell phone talking to the tower a block or two away.

One thing that might help in more densely travelled areas, is to establish a loosely connected grid network between aircraft. Send your position (and aircraft registration and date/time in UTC) out every second or 5 seconds or whatever. Everyone who hears it records it, keeps it for 24-480 hours. This does not take up much space, even if one aircraft "hears" several dozen other aircraft. This way, if one aircraft goes quiet, it would be pretty easy to quickly determine its last location.

Speaking of storage, I find the amount of storage available for things like the CVR to be fantastically small. While I understand the need to have devices that are extremely robust, we also know that things like SD cards are incredibly hardy, can survive tremendous shock and years in ocean water, and are available in fairly large sizes - up to 512GB last time I checked. Setting up the CVR to record to the super-durable crazy expensive storage, and rotating out older recordings to cheaper storage would only add a few grams. Quick back-of-the-envelope suggests that can accommodate nearly 900 hours of uncompressed CD quality stereo audio.

apfpilot · Thu Jun 09, 2016 5:07 pm

Quoting seat64k (Reply 175):
One thing that might help in more densely travelled areas, is to establish a loosely connected grid network between aircraft. Send your position (and aircraft registration and date/time in UTC) out every second or 5 seconds or whatever. Everyone who hears it records it, keeps it for 24-480 hours. This does not take up much space, even if one aircraft "hears" several dozen other aircraft. This way, if one aircraft goes quiet, it would be pretty easy to quickly determine its last location.

Panasonic is trialing that very thing with ET

sovietjet · Thu Jun 09, 2016 6:32 pm

Quoting apfpilot (Reply 174):
Are you just talking about position data? Other than MH370 where would just position data have been useful. I just returned from the Global Connected Aircraft Summit in LAX and on one of the panels ET had a speaker who said that if every bus off of the airplane was to be recorded and then streamed back to a ground station on a 787 flight from JKF - LHR it would be in the order of 500GB. Retail price of 1MB on the Inmarsat network is around $6.00 for over 100MB a month. Let's say they get way better than retail because they are consuming so much data, so half price. At 500 GB of data that is $1,437,500 per flight. Ok so you want to remove some of the parameters you off set. Which ones? How do you decide. The A350 generates even MORE operational data per flight.

You don't need ALL the data streamed continuously. You just need the VERY BASIC. Position, altitude, speed and maybe a few others like engine parameters. That will not be 500GB. It's a few lines of text, and if sending it every 15 seconds that is several KB of data per minute. You just need that info to find the plane, the rest will of course be on the FDR/CVR. The bottom line is the several key parameters will not be expensive or heavy and the only excuse for them not to be implemented is the airline penny pinchers and the incredibly slow and blind regulatory bodies who have continuously failed to introduce newer technology to replace the current archaic systems.

apfpilot · Thu Jun 09, 2016 7:07 pm

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 177):
Position, altitude, speed and maybe a few others like engine parameters.

I say again, other than with MH370 what does position data streamed real time do. What does the engine data provide that would help with an accident investigation in any of the recent accidents.

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 177):
incredibly slow and blind regulatory bodies who have continuously failed to introduce newer technology to replace the current archaic systems.

What?

flyingturtle · Thu Jun 09, 2016 7:25 pm

Quoting apfpilot (Reply 176):
Panasonic is trialing that very thing with ET

An idea that is already widely used in sailplanes... FLARM.

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

It's cheap, and it's based on a GPS device that broadcasts its position (as well as a calculated flight trajectory) to other aircraft in the vicinity. In the case of a missing aircraft, the FLARM device is often impounded from other sailplanes just in case it might have recorded the signals of the other guy.

Helicopters in alpine areas use the system too, and paragliders often use a passive system (that only broadcasts, but does not receive).

Basically, it's something like the poor man's TCAS.

David

apfpilot · Thu Jun 09, 2016 7:27 pm

Quoting flyingturtle (Reply 179):

An idea that is already widely used in sailplanes... FLARM.

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

It's cheap, and it's based on a GPS device that broadcasts its position (as well as a calculated flight trajectory) to other aircraft in the vicinity. In the case of a missing aircraft, the FLARM device is often impounded from other sailplanes just in case it might have recorded the signals of the other guy.

Helicopters in alpine areas use the system too, and paragliders often use a passive system (that only broadcasts, but does not receive).

Basically, it's something like the poor man's TCAS.

David

Sounds a lot like ADS-B

sovietjet · Thu Jun 09, 2016 7:42 pm

Quoting apfpilot (Reply 178):
What does the engine data provide that would help with an accident investigation in any of the recent accidents.

Maybe you are right, and engine data might not be useful. But position, heading, speed, and altitude at the minimum would be greatly useful.

Quoting apfpilot (Reply 178):
What?

It's been 2+ years since MH370 disappeared. AF447 took years to find. They still can't find the Egyptair flight. Yet the regulatory bodies haven't really done anything to prevent these expensive, long and frustrating searches if an accident should happen. I would call that slow and blind, and ignoring that this is a problem. Even if not with every crash. There is a whole list of planes which have never been found. Of course, GPS was not existent when most of those crashes happened. But lots of planes fly over large remote bodies of water every day. Ignoring this problem today, when the technology to fix it exists and is readily available, is just foolish.

o0OOO0oChris · Thu Jun 09, 2016 7:46 pm

Some news:
http://www.turnto23.com/news/second-...to-join-egyptair-flight-804-search
http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/de...search-for-egyptair-wreck-20160609
The second vessle John Lethbridge with the deep sea robot arrived in Alexandria today and is set to begin searching the seabed tomorrow.
Some additional information given on the previous search for the black boxes. They picked up the signal of one black box, but where unable to locate it. No singnal from the second black box was detected.

apfpilot · Thu Jun 09, 2016 7:56 pm

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 181):

It's been 2+ years since MH370 disappeared. AF447 took years to find. They still can't find the Egyptair flight

Other than MH370 what would the GPS position have done that the Radar coverage didn't? AF447 didn't take years to find, it took years to find the wreckage on the sea floor. A GPS position wouldn't have helped with that.

pygmalion · Thu Jun 09, 2016 8:11 pm

Quoting apfpilot (Reply 180):
Sounds a lot like ADS-B

ADS-B is a whole lot better than FLARM ever dreams of being. ADS-B is "line of sight" and uses standard radio so out over the water or other locations where radio coverage is spotty... it doesn't do much...

There are quite a few locations where satellite coverage isnt that good for that matter.

and on a previous post.. the main reason that the CVR doesnt keep more data is that the pilots and their unions push back. They are more than willing to have the CVR data for use in an investigation... but push back strongly on cockpit conversations being saved for all those many thousands of flights without any issues. Pilots talk about lots of things non-aviation related during all those hours in the air.... Would you like all of your hours at work recorded and available to your boss? Most pilots will delete the prior flights conversations after landing... just as a routine matter

flyingturtle · Thu Jun 09, 2016 9:19 pm

Quoting apfpilot (Reply 180):
Sounds a lot like ADS-B

ADS-B was designed to have a very small cost. It uses GPS, and the radio connection already is built-in. So the only connection to other aircraft systems is the power source.

Quoting pygmalion (Reply 184):
ADS-B is a whole lot better than FLARM ever dreams of being.

Yes, as FLARM has only about 10 km of range. But ADS-B could learn from FLARM by storing all ADS-B broadcasts from other airplanes, so that if a plane goes missing, you can download the data from all aircraft that have been in the vicinity.

David

rcair1 · Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:34 pm

Quoting aeronaftis (Reply 165):
Quoting rcair1 (Reply 163):
What should be done is that all planes should have a device which always streams the GPS position to a satellite while in flight. And I don't believe the BS that it would be too expensive or heavy.

Just noting that I did not say that - it was sovietjet.

There are consumer level devices that do this today. Spot and Delorme are two examples. However, they transmit at a rate that is not really useful for fast movers (like planes).

But let's say you have one that is a 10 second ping and it operates until impact.

How many airliner crashes would this have helped find in, say, that last 10 years.
I think 2. AF447 (which we eventually found anyway) and MH370 (which we have not). I think 804 will be found.
My 2 cents, better data when found is worth more (longer CVR, better redundant power for both DVR and CVF)

-rcair1

sovietjet · Fri Jun 10, 2016 2:47 am

Quoting rcair1 (Reply 186):
How many airliner crashes would this have helped find in, say, that last 10 years.

Yea just those two, but isn't that enough? That's several hundred people missing with no clue, albeit the AF447 was found.

Quoting apfpilot (Reply 183):
AF447 didn't take years to find, it took years to find the wreckage on the sea floor. A GPS position wouldn't have helped with that.

But it would've made the initial search area much smaller so that it didn't take years to find the wreckage. What costs more, a GPS device or a multi-year international deep sea search?

Quoting rcair1 (Reply 186):
My 2 cents, better data when found is worth more (longer CVR, better redundant power for both DVR and CVF)

I never suggested the CVR/FDR be replaced by a satellite streaming transmitter. Just that the transmitter would help us get to the worthwhile data faster.

Andy33 · Fri Jun 10, 2016 7:17 am

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 187):
What costs more, a GPS device or a multi-year international deep sea search?

Quite possibly the GPS device, given that you'd need to fit one to every single commercial aircraft and provide systems to record the data it sends somewhere on the ground or on a satellite, and maintain and test every single device on a regular basis. Now there might be other reasons for doing this, but lower cost, no.

apfpilot · Fri Jun 10, 2016 11:57 am

Quoting flyingturtle (Reply 185):
ADS-B was designed to have a very small cost. It uses GPS, and the radio connection already is built-in. So the only connection to other aircraft systems is the power source.

Ummm.... Not quite. I've been selling ADS-B Solutions for years and you are significantly minimizing it.

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 187):
But it would've made the initial search area much smaller so that it didn't take years to find the wreckage. What costs more, a GPS device or a multi-year international deep sea search?

How would it have made it any smaller than finding wreckage on the surface of the sea did?

D L X · Fri Jun 10, 2016 1:17 pm

How long did it take to find the AirAsia wreckage? Or the Adam Air wreckage?

Deanger · Fri Jun 10, 2016 2:44 pm

Hivue - sorry if I wasn't clear about extending the pinger life.

Per your post, I suggest we make N the maximum days possible without significant cost increases. (Even if we just do this for new deliveries)

My point wasn't that maybe 35 days or 60 days or any number will be a magic one. You are 100% right. Of course.

It was that, while people discuss more costly improvements that may take real time/leverage/will to enact, I was thinking that hasn't battery technology improved to the point that new blackboxes could be fitted with improved battery life WITHOUT much difficulty?

It wasn't meant as a magic bullet. There will never be. Even if every aircraft was fitted with every device imaginable - there will surely come some situation where people say, "If only they had... blah blah blah"

rcair1 · Fri Jun 10, 2016 2:45 pm

Quoting sovietjet (Reply 187):
Yea just those two, but isn't that enough? That's several hundred people missing with no clue, albeit the AF447 was found.

This may sound harsh, but remember that I'm a longtime fireman so I have to deal with harsh realities sometimes. In neither of those cases would the rapid (instant) location of the aircraft made a difference to the passengers/crew on board. It may have eased pain and anguish for passengers/crew. But remember, the primary purpose of these investigations is to prevent further related accidents. AF447 was eventually found and the data recovered. MH380, we are still frustrated by.

While you could make the argument that "one" is enough, that is a black hole. You can make that argument about many, many things in life that we will not change.

Quoting Andy33 (Reply 188):
Quite possibly the GPS device,

The cost will be the data service.

Quoting D L X (Reply 190):
How long did it take to find the AirAsia wreckage? Or the Adam Air wreckage?

AirAsia 8501 was lost on Dec 28, 2014. Wreckage and bodies found on December 30. Wreckage on Jan 3. CVF/FDR recovered Jan 13.
Adam Air 574 was lost Jan 1, 2007. Floating debris was found on Jan 11. CRV/FDR located on Jan 21, however they were not recovered till August 28 and August 27 respectively. However, the delay was not, primarily, lack of location, but because of availability of equipment.

seat64k · Sat Jun 11, 2016 4:54 am

Quoting apfpilot (Reply 174):
Other than MH370 where would just position data have been useful.

Primarily to narrow the search area, and rely less on a certain amount of luck involved in spotting floating debris. If an aircraft broadcast its position and altitude, say, every 15 seconds, we can extrapolate from that its speed and trajectory, and thus more or less exactly where it will have hit the water, and what sort of debris we're looking for. Add to that knowledge of currents, it should allow us to narrow down the area where the fuselage might have come to rest.

IMHO Speeding up the discovery process will ultimately save costs in search operations, and hopefully give relatives some measure of closure sooner.

Quoting apfpilot (Reply 176):
Panasonic is trialing that very thing with ET

I did not know that - that's great to hear!

Quoting flyingturtle (Reply 179):
An idea that is already widely used in sailplanes... FLARM.

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

Very cool. Now imagine if ships and planes used the same standard for this - it would increase the coverage quite a bit. Although I can see how this could be a tough sell for ships, as it doesn't benefit them one bit.

Quoting pygmalion (Reply 184):
the main reason that the CVR doesnt keep more data is that the pilots and their unions push back. They are more than willing to have the CVR data for use in an investigation... but push back strongly on cockpit conversations being saved for all those many thousands of flights without any issues. Pilots talk about lots of things non-aviation related during all those hours in the air.... Would you like all of your hours at work recorded and available to your boss? Most pilots will delete the prior flights conversations after landing... just as a routine matter

My point was to illustrate the absurdity of 30 minute limits, given the kind of storage available. But I take your point. I have no problem with pilots having control and being able to clear the recordings after an incident-free flight.

For what it's worth, at work I sit within earshot of my boss, so I know exactly what it's like

TWA302 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 8:24 pm

Report: https://twitter.com/breakingnews/status ... 6623455232

Looks like they have found the wreckage.

litz · Wed Jun 15, 2016 8:41 pm

New news :

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wir ... e-39884720

Apparently they have images, so this may well be legit.

Western727 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 8:45 pm

If true, I'm glad it's been found.

CO953 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:38 pm

RE: Egypt Air 804 Paris-Cairo Missing Part 5#9711043
By rcair1 - 10 Jun 2016 14:45
Quoting sovietjet (Reply 187):
Yea just those two, but isn't that enough? That's several hundred people missing with no clue, albeit the AF447 was found.

This may sound harsh, but remember that I'm a longtime fireman so I have to deal with harsh realities sometimes. In neither of those cases would the rapid (instant) location of the aircraft made a difference to the passengers/crew on board. It may have eased pain and anguish for passengers/crew. But remember, the primary purpose of these investigations is to prevent further related accidents. AF447 was eventually found and the data recovered. MH380, we are still frustrated by.
---------------------------------------------------

UGH - will have to learn this new format. I will highlight the part of rcair1's reply above that I'm trying to reply to:

But here's the problem for me - aside from the unlikely but theoretically possible rescue of passengers in a ditching: What if there is a critical error that needs to be found right away because other aircraft may be affected by it - such as a bad batch of electrical components, or even a bad software update to the plane's computers? So because of the current system of "acceptable" delay, you potentially have thousands of flights operating with a potentially disastrous fault, which might be revealed by quicker recovery of the boxes. What if AA 191 had had the pylon attachment fail during a transatlantic flight, and the boxes took this long to find? Under the current systems, you'd have fleets of DC-10s crisscrossing the globe for weeks, just waiting to kill their passengers. Just saying.

spacecadet · Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:51 pm

sovietjet wrote:
What should be done is that all planes should have a device which always streams the GPS position to a satellite while in flight. And I don't believe the BS that it would be too expensive or heavy. A freaking phone can do it, why not a critical piece of equipment?

A phone *can't* do it, or at least doesn't. A phone *receives* position information, it doesn't transmit it anywhere. That's why you still hear about police tracing the movements of criminals through things like "pings" on a cell tower. There's no record of their GPS-based position information kept anywhere, except maybe on the phone itself (if you have an app that'll do it).

And airplanes actually *do* transmit position information, until such time as something catastrophically breaks or is manually turned off.

And now most airlines have streaming satellite TV, so I also don't buy any BS regarding to bandwidth or satellite coverage.

The very places you would need coverage the most - because they're remote locations over water - is where it wouldn't work. Your own example is proof of that - satellite TV doesn't work even a few miles from the US coast. There would be no coverage for an accident like MH370. Probably not for Egypt Air 804 either. At least not without - yes - expensive dedicated satellites launched just for this purpose.

ordell · Thu Jun 16, 2016 2:54 am

Wreckage found, says CNN.

www.cnn.com/2016/06/15/middleeast/egypt ... index.html

(CNN)The Egyptian government says it has found wreckage of EgyptAir Flight 804, which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea last month.
Images taken of the wreckage were provided to an Egyptian investigative committee, the Civil Aviation Ministry said Wednesday.
Wreckage was found in several places. The ministry did not specify the size or the location of the parts that were found.

The Airbus A320, which had 66 people aboard, crashed in the Mediterranean on May 19 on a flight from Paris to Cairo.

jim90265 · Thu Jun 16, 2016 4:52 am

s5daw wrote:
Is there a chance somebody in the cockpit was smoking? Just a thought, because smoking is quite prevalent in Egypt.

There are several reports on Skytrax of passangers complaining of cigarette smoke smell emanating from the cockpit. One suggested that If you do a Google it appears that smoking in the cockpit is a common occurrence by pilots on EgyptAir.
http://www.airlinequality.com/airline-reviews/egyptair/page/3/

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