EgyptAir - signaler fra FDR/CVR er oppdaget - BBC

 

EgyptAir crash: Black box signals heard, Egypt says

• 3 minutes ago
• From the section Middle East

Image copyright AP

Image caption Search teams have been trying to find the plane's black boxes in the Mediterranean Sea

EgyptAir disaster

Signals likely to have come from the black boxes of the EgyptAir plane that crashed last month have been detected, Egyptian investigators say.

A statement said they were picked up by a French vessel searching the Mediterranean Sea.
There were 66 people on board when the Airbus A320 crashed on 19 May while flying from Paris to Cairo.
It vanished from Greek and Egyptian radar screens, apparently without having sent a distress call.
There is no word yet from the French authorities about the finding.

Egyptian officials said last week signals from the plane's emergency beacon had been detected but later said they were received on the day of the crash and were not new.

DEJA VU: THE NIGHT FLIGHT FROM PARIS A FSI COMMENTARY By Roger Rapoport Contributing Editor LE BOURGET, France - An Airbus disappears in the night thousands of feet below the surface. The French Navy dispatches a search vessel to join submarines and aircraft from from numerous countries in the hunt for the downed passenger plane. Here at the French Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (BEA) headquarters within site of the runway where Charles Lindbergh landed on his historic solo translantic crossing in 1927, an accident investigation is well underway. If the aviation had been listening to the BEA, it's likely that this missing aircraft would have already been pinpointed to the benefit of everyone who flies.  Today is the seventh anniversary of the biggest crash in French aviation history, an accident that has revolutionized flight training worldwide, Air France 447. This time the missing plane is Egypt Air 804 carrying 66 passengers and crew from Paris to Cairo. And just like the Airbus 330 with 228 people on board lost in the South Atlantic on a June 1, 2009 flight from Rio to Paris, the search for this aircraft is the victim of industry myopia. Failure to promptly locate the plane demonstrates what happens when the industry refuses to listen to accident investigators like the experts at the BEA or America's National Transportation Safety Board. Following the 22 month search for Air France 447, which cost upwards of $50 million dollar the BEA pointed out that current aircraft Underwater Locator Beacons (ULBs) typically transmit an acoustic pulse at 37.5 kHz, which is better suited for shallow water and was never intended to locate an object in the deeper parts of the ocean.    The BEA recommended adding a second ULB capable of transmitting over longer distances with less attenuation on a lower frequency between 8.5 and 9.5 kHz. Oceanographers agree it would have been much easier to locate the missing aircraft if this system had been in place on Air France 447. "Clearly this lower-frequency ULB would have aided search teams still hunting for Malaysia Air 370 which has been missing for more than two years," says accident investigator Shem Malmquist. After spending a combined total of more than $170 million on the search for Air France 447 and still missing Malaysia Air 370, the industry, once again is victimized by its failure to follow the BEA's overdue recommendation. Although the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has endorsed the idea of streaming detailed tracking information via satellite for planes in distress, this new mandate won't take effect for years. To make matters worse the mandate only applies to long range transoceanic aircraft, not planes flying over smaller bodies of water such as the Lake Michigan where one Northwest Airlines  DC-4 has been missing since 1950.   It would also not apply to flights transiting the Mediterranean. With airline profits somewhere north of $33 billion this year the cost of these upgrades is well within the reach of the aviation community. Failure to find missing aircraft promptly makes it impossible for rescue teams to save the lives of survivors. As Air France 447 has proven, recovery of a downed aircraft, particularly a plane with no previous accident history, can lead to valuable lessons that will prevent similar calamities. Among the critical lessons learned from that accident was the discovery that simulator training for high altitude aerodynamic stalls was incorrect. That problem is now being addressed industry wide.  Equally important recovering a missing aircraft also helps lead to better pilot training. Not knowing the cause of an accident like Malaysia Air 370 or the latest Egypt Air crash could mean important learning opportunities are lost. In the early days following the loss of Air France 447 there was wild speculation about the cause of the accident. Self proclaimed experts talked about sabotage, pilot error mechanical failures, pitot problems, even conspiracy theories. Ironically maintenance crews who received a streamed list of breakdowns were preparing to meet Air France 447 and fix a series of broken systems, not realizing the plane had actually disappeared. We now run the risk that the Egypt Air crash can be exploited by know nothings like Donald Trump who immediately speculated that the accident had to be sabotage. It's hard to believe that seven years after Air France 447, failure to apply the valuable lessons learned by the BEA during its three and a half year investigation leave the industry guessing what happened to the Egypt Air and Malaysia Air planes.  Fixes to emergency tracking and ULB systems are affordable and well within reach of a prosperous industry. Mark Twain once wrote that "denial is not a city in Egypt." Denial has no place in an industry moving more than 3.5 billion people a year around the world. Roger Rapoport is the producer of the feature film Pilot Error. For more information is available at the Pilot Error Website. Copyright Roger Rapoport. All rights reserved.                Back to Top

Egypt says signals picked up from doomed plane's black boxes CAIRO -- Egypt said Wednesday that a French ship has picked up signals from deep under the Mediterranean Sea, presumed to be from black boxes of EgyptAir Flight 804 that crashed last month, killing all 66 passengers and crew on board. The Civil Aviation Ministry cited a statement from the committee investigating the crash as saying the vessel Laplace was the one that received the signals. It did not say when the signals were detected but the French Navy confirmed the Laplace arrived on Tuesday in the search area. CBS News presses Egypt aviation chief for answers on EgyptAir flight 804 Laplace's equipment picked up the "signals from the seabed of the wreckage search area, assumed to be from one of the data recorders," the statement read. It added that a second ship, John Lethbridge affiliated with the Deep Ocean Search firm, will join the search team later this week. Locator pings emitted by flight data and cockpit voice recorders, known as the black boxes, can be picked up from deep underwater. The Airbus A320 had been cruising normally in clear skies on a nighttime flight to from Paris to Cairo early on May 19 when it suddenly lurched left, then right, spinning all the way around and plummeting 38,000 feet into the sea. A distress signal was never issued, EgyptAir has said. Since the crash, small pieces of the wreckage and human remains have been recovered while the bulk of the plane and the bodies of the passengers are believed to be deep under the sea. A Cairo forensic team has received the human remains and is carrying DNA tests to identify the victims. The search has narrowed down to a 3-mile area in the Mediterranean. Conflicting reports in EgyptAir crash The black boxes could finally explain what went wrong when it mysteriously crashed in the Mediterranean Sea, CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reported. David Learmount, a consulting editor at the aviation news website Flightglobal, said the black boxes' batteries can transmit signals up to 30 days after the crash. But even if the batteries expire, locating the boxes remains a possibility. "It's terribly important to find the black boxes, because if they don't find them, they will know nothing about the aircraft," he said, citing a 2009 incident when black boxes were found two years after a crash in the Atlantic Ocean. Nearly two weeks after the crash off Egypt's northern coast, the cause of the tragedy still has not been determined. Egyptian officials have told CBS News they believe it was more likely a terror attack that brought the plane down than a technical failure. But no hard evidence has emerged on the cause, and no militant group has claimed to have downed the jet. Earlier, leaked flight data indicated a sensor had detected smoke in a lavatory and a fault in two of the plane's cockpit windows in the final moments of the flight. In France, the country's air accident investigation agency or the BEA could not immediately comment on the developments since they have not yet received any "official communication" from Egyptian authorities. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/egyptair-flight-804-signals-picked-up-from-doomed-planes-black-boxes-egypt-says/                         Back to Top

French vessel detects signals likely from EgyptAir jet black box A French naval search vessel has picked up signals believed to originate from one of the black boxes of EgyptAir flight MS804 which crashed into the Mediterranean last month, the Egyptian investigation committee said on Wednesday. It said in a statement the search for the black boxes was intensifying ahead of the expected arrival within a week of another vessel, the John Lethbridge, from Mauritius-based company Deep Ocean Search to help retrieve the devices. "Search equipment aboard French naval vessel Laplace... has detected signals from the seabed of the search area, which likely belong to one of the data boxes," the committee said. Investigators are searching in some of the deepest waters of the Mediterranean for flight recorders from the Airbus A320 which crashed on May 19, killing 66 people. The jet's flight recorders or "black boxes" are designed to emit acoustic signals for 30 days after a crash, giving search teams fewer than three weeks to spot them in waters up to 9,840-feet (3,000-meters) deep, which is on the edge of their range. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-egyptair-airplane-blackboxes-idUSKCN0YN4A0 Back to Top

Egyptair flight 804: future black boxes should eject in crash, says Airbus Engineering chief says 'deployable' flight recorders that launch from an airliner and float rather than sinking with wreckage would speed up search and recovery Flight recorders should eject in a crash so they can be more easily recovered, the head of engineering at Airbus has said. The crash of an EgyptAir jet has strengthened the case for ejectable "black boxes" that are launched out of an aircraft in an accident, making them easier to find, the most senior engineer at Airbus has said. Investigators are searching in some of the deepest waters of the Mediterranean for flight recorders from an EgyptAir Airbus A320, which crashed on 19 May, killing 66 people. Distress signal from EgyptAir flight 804 confirmed by authorities in Cairo and US The jet's flight recorders or "black boxes" are designed to emit acoustic signals for 30 days after a crash, giving search teams less than five weeks to pinpoint the sound in waters up to 3,000 metres deep. Rules that would extend the duration and range of acoustic pingers do not take effect until 2018. "If we have a deployable recorder it will be much easier to find," said Charles Champion, the Airbus executive vice-president for engineering. "We have been working on that and this only reinforces our overall approach." Ejectable or "deployable" recorders would separate from the tail during a crash and float in the water while emitting a distress signal. Recommended by investigators after an Air France A330 jet crashed in 2009, the idea was again discussed after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 in March 2014. The United Nations' aviation agency, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, has called for key data to be recoverable in a "timely manner" from aeroplanes delivered after 2021. It will be left to airlines and manufacturers to decide how to meet the goal - whether through deployable recorders or other technology such as new homing methods or data streaming. Deployable recorders have long been used in the military. But some in the industry have expressed doubts about their safe use on civil airliners, saying they could be ejected accidentally and introduce new risks. Airbus has said in the past it was talking to regulators about adding deployable devices to its two largest models of jets. Boeing has been more sceptical, citing instances where they have failed on warplanes. A series of accidents over water including the EgyptAir disaster and wider safety issues are likely to be discussed at a meeting of global airlines in Dublin this week.