Postflyhavariet - Siste om FDR/CVR - Flight Intl.

CRJ crash probe wrestles with damaged recorders

11 JANUARY, 2016 BY: DAVID KAMINSKI-MORROWLONDON

Swedish investigators have yet to ascertain the extent of the data which can be extracted from the flight recorders of the crashed West Atlantic Bombardier CRJ200 freighter.

The aircraft, with two crew members on board, came down west of lake Akkajaure in the far north of Sweden.

Recovery personnel retrieved the flight-data recorder on 9 January. Investigation authority SHK says the device was “heavily demolished” and a technical analysis is being conducted to establish whether its memory module is intact.

Extraction of information might take “some weeks”, it adds.

SHK says the cockpit-voice recorder was recovered in various pieces over 9-10 January, with memory units having separated from other parts. This system is also being examined to see whether it contains useful data.

“Since the aircraft's two [recorders] have been found, SHK believes that it will be possible to determine why the aircraft crashed,” the inquiry states.

SHK says it intends to compile and release a report on the crash within a year.

The CRJ200 package freighter had been operating an Oslo-Tromso postal flight when radar contact was lost around midnight on 8 January, about the same take as the jet’s crew transmitted an emergency call.

SHK says it came down in a mountainous region but that the wreckage site is “localised” in a crater, from which the recovery teams pumped liquid – primarily jet fuel – the day after the accident.