That's possible, of course. I always thought it would be easier to cover the microphone with chewing gum. I doubt that inop'ing the CVR would accomplish anything. If the intent was to crash, then mission accomplished. What purpose would there be in disabling the recorder?
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Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 missing
- Thread starter quagmire
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That's possible, of course. I always thought it would be easier to cover the microphone with chewing gum. I doubt that inop'ing the CVR would accomplish anything. If the intent was to crash, then mission accomplished. What purpose would there be in disabling the recorder?
The transponder is more of a supplement to radar than a method to track lost or missing aircraft.
I do get your point though. It is time for a safe and tested system that cannot be turned off. It is tricky though as it needs to be electrically powered, and have battery backup. With power and battery comes the chance of a short and/or fire.
The "black box" also uses electrical power and has a battery. Perhaps the best route is to enhance it with communication and tracking abilities that go beyond the, rather crude, system that is in place now. Personally I think the data being recorded to the black box should also be transmitted (and stored terrestrially), even if it has to be a subset of what is recorded to the box itself.
Michael
I'm going to play devil's advocate. Why the sudden need? There hasn't been a plane 'missing' like this for about 40 years. As you've noted above, any changes to the system has to deal with potential electrical fires and other problems. In other words - any changes would have to cause no catastrophic problems for over 40 years before there was a net benefit.
On the other-hand.... We know that the aircraft's engines were 'pinging' a satellite on an regular basis - which created the two search arcs to the north and south. I'm under the impression that there was a 'premium' service available (but not used) that included much more information in those pings. The communication technology may already be in place and is not being used due to costs. If it became mandatory to use it... well, don't complain about increased airfares - because that extra cost will be passed on to the consumer.
Who said it was a "sudden" need?
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/beyond-the-black-box
That was written nearly four years ago after Air France Flight 447. Lo and behold we have another incident. Not forty years later, just four.
This was written in an article about flight 370: "The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has rekindled a debate over the iconic "black box" flight recorder and whether it's time for aircraft to start live-streaming in-flight data in real time."
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-malaysia-airlines-mystery-revives-black-box.html
Michael
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Modern aircraft like these are constantly sending data to satellites. All they'd have to do is include positional info with this data stream. This is not something normally controlled by pilots, but I don't know if degrading the electrical system could be used as a tactic to stop this info. It would require someone with specific technical knowledge beyond that of your average pilot.
So it's ok if I (a professional pilot) have the ability to turn off the transponder if I'm not over an ocean. Thanks!
I'm thinking you lost track of what was being discussed, or didn't quite grasp it in the first place.
Michael
I saw people who know nothing about aviation stating opinions of how things should be, so I commented (sarcastically).
Latest report is there has been "material" has washed ashore in Australia.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/mi...igators-probe-material-australia-shore-n87371
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/mi...igators-probe-material-australia-shore-n87371
I wonder how money has been wasted on this search thus far and how much more will be squandered on a search that will not help anyone. When its all over they are going to call it pilot error or pilot suicide.
And you thought my post in the other thread was taking it to the extreme when I brought up MH370?
There have been very few crashes where they have been able to recover wreckage and we haven't learned something to improve air safety. Thats why things like this aren't a regular occurrence.
Will we learn enough to justify the enormous amount of money that is being spent? It took two years to find Air France 447's black box and they knew where it crashed within 5 days. Just imagine how long it will take to find the crash site, let alone the black boxes on this one.
IMO, there are likely to be many benefits from a (successful) search. For the families & friends, it helps offer some kind of closure. If the black boxes are recovered, it could well yield some useful information on making future flights safer (through improved procedures, changes to aircraft, or to crew training).
Even in the search itself, it wouldn't surprise me if those involved learned a lot. Wasn't the procedure used to narrow the search area to SW of Australia created during this search? That's something that could be used again in future searches, perhaps where lives still can be saved.
It's hard to accurately measure what the benefits of the search could be.
Money spent finding out why a plane went down is almost never "wasted."
Our present-day air travel system has the remarkable record of safety that it does in large part because of the painstaking investigations of each and every preceding air accident.
I'm going to be taking a flight on a Boeing 777 in a couple of weeks. And I want to know what happened to this Malaysian Air 777. Is there some combination of factors, defective components, flight procedures, cargo manifest, etc. etc. that combined to cause the loss of that plane? And if so, until we find the wreck of MA 370 - we simply have no way of knowing.
Yes: They spent two years looking for the Air France plane that went down off Brazil. But once they had recovered the wreckage investigators were able to theorize that it was a problem with icing on the plane's pitot tubes, which play a vital role in determining airspeed, that caused the crash. Once airlines and pilots know about the problem - they can develop procedures to make sure it never happens again.
Maybe it will turn out that 370 was lost due to flight crew misbehavior. And maybe it will turn out to be a mechanical or design flaw. But either way - we, the flying public - will be better off knowing what it was.
And that search was worth it since we learned from finding it. I highly doubt that we will ever see a crash from the same exact problem again since they have fixed it after finding the wreckage and seeing what went wrong.
It's very worthwhile. Even if there is no evidence of mechanical failure that information is useful - otherwise you have to operate on the premise that there is something about to fail on the other 777s of the same vintage that has not yet been detected. No evidence of failure is still good data.
Besides... there is a much larger geo-political game being played here, imho. The money is also being spent as part of a regional power play. I would suspect several Ministries of Foreign Affairs are going to end up subsidizing this search.
I don't think "wasted" is the correct wording for this. Since we always seem to learn something about a plane when it has crashed and the black box is recovered.
Not to mention closure for those involved.
To be fair, $98 million of that was spent by CNN on fancy hologram graphics and renting a flight simulator for a month straight.
Possible debris located 3,000 miles away from the current search area.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/mi...ble-mh370-wreck-site-found-3-000-miles-n92171
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/mi...ble-mh370-wreck-site-found-3-000-miles-n92171