Shouldn't "Black Boxes" Be Redesigned?

Such improvements usually occur AFTER loss-of-life events, not before.

Stop signs, Traffic lights and other much more common things follow the same pattern of economics versus risk.

Sad but true in the "modern" age we live in that nothing happens without a push.

I agree that things can be done better, where would you like your new office lol.

You are right, bit about 3 years ago Air France 447 ditched in the Atlantic Ocean 300 miles off the Brazilian coast. Finding the plane was quite easier because there was no communications breakdown before the accident. Even though, black boxes were recovered 2 years later!

Still, some of the best progress is made by those who are undeterred from trying.

real time beamed to satellites withe the data erased weekly, only saved if the flight has issues.

OnStar for aircraft - I like it. Now get them to DO it.....

We certainly have the technologies to do much better but there are always those who are ruled by the bank account and not concience. Look at the car companies who deny problems because the number of fatalities is below threshold for action.

The cost of the current search, yet to be completed and determined, plus the cost of the 3 Air France searches, has got to be a consideration when weighing the cost of installation, and I believe that's what's forcing the airlines to the table right now.

Could not agree more.

Why does the recording have to be on the plane.

Component manufacturers have telemetry from their equipment as shown by engine data still being transmitted after so called 'loss of contact' with the plane.

We repeat this discussion every few years that an airplane goes down and the accident site is hard to determine.

IMHO the problem is not with the black boxes themselves. The problem is the expectation of many to immediately know the answer to a mysterious plane loss. Even when the site of the crash is well known it can take years to make a plausible guess about what went wrong. Then the conspiracy nuts crawl out with their even less believable fantasies. Just look at the continuing absurdities of the TWA 800 tragedy.

I certainly don't want to be tagged as a "conspiracy nut", but in the case of TWA 800, the official story sounds much more like fantasy than an accidental shoot down.

The New York Post, in its story of September 22, 1996, reported,

Law-enforcement sources said the hardest evidence gathered so far overwhelmingly suggests a surface-to-air missile...

The FBI interviewed 154 "credible" witnesses -- including scientists, schoolteachers, Army personnel and business executives -- who described seeing a missile heading through the sky just before TWA 800 exploded.

"Some of these people are extremely, extremely credible," a top federal official said.

FBI technicians mapped the various paths -- points in the sky where the witnesses said they saw the rising "flare-like" object -- and determined that the "triangulated" convergence point was virtually where the jumbo jet initially exploded.

OOOPS! isn´t there a guy in prison for having placed a bomb on the plane?

Wrong plane.

Back in June of last year several members of the original accident team said they believe the truth was buried. But was this an attempt to sell the documentary they were hocking? I just remember seeing the interview the next day from 2 military fighter jocks (that was my memory of them) who both said they saw a streak upward from the ground.

So yes I believe a conspiracy is possible. That and the US navy did all the deep water recovery of the airframe parts.

switch to decaf for a week

If you want a real good read, and talk about conspiracy theories get a hold of and read 'The Zero Option', by David Rollins. This is an absolute 'ripper' the quintessential re commercial plane disappearance.

After reading this book, the MH plane will be found in Afghanistan or China.

You can 'nod' approval, when they find it. I might be dead but they will find it.

doug

When we stop questioning the Official Version - that is when we enter the really deep water. Depending on whom is writing the Official Version, dismissing all other versions as the work of nutjobs can also be (and often is, I suspect) *also* a component of the Official Version; again depending on whom is writing it, and why.

I believe they are "working on that". The problem is that "they" will add so many additional "features" to it, that it will take years and $$$ before it's available. I still say, just add a GPS tracker to the aircraft NOW, and work on the fancy stuff later.

In addition to black boxes, radio/satellite/optical beacon-equipped buoys which are jettisoned automatically from a plane in imminent danger of crashing into water. Yes, wind and water currents will cause the buoys to drift, but equip them with GPS position tracking so that the initial impact points will be known. Launch the buoys based on the readings from an independent radar altimeter system - one which cannot be shut off from the cockpit.

Is it worth the expense for the 1 in a million times that a plane ditches without someone knowing where it is?

I expect some thought is being given to this subject.

Considering the scarce number of planes that crash, 3 ditches (Air France, US Airways, Malaysian) in 4 years is a number to be taken into account!

Well there's already been millions spent trying to find the current lost plane. If you at least knew that last known position, rescue efforts could be started rather than recovery efforts.

I submit that there would be no one to rescue.

One might be able to begin the recovery operation sooner.

The miracle landing on the Hudson, performed by Chesley Sullenberger, was just that. A miracle.

It's a cost benefit thing. This is one flight that is very abnormal and the number of aircraft that crash is very, very low.

You may not mind paying higher airfare for your tickets, but most people are unhappy with the cost as it is.

Air certified avionics cost a lot more than car stereos by orders of magnitude. Adding or changing an aircraft LRU is a staggering cost in time and money that 99.99% of people have no idea as to the magnitude.

Yes, but that cost is amortised over hundreds and maybe thousands of flights per plane. 99.9% would be equally amazed at the total fuel cost for those flights which I am very sure is well in excess of the price of an LRU. I reckon the cost of such improvements when spread over all those passenger-miles wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. For U.S.-built and owned aircraft, the price of one or two jet fighters would pay for them all. We can spend trillions on a pointless war in the Middle East but can't help our airlines upgrade their safety equipment and training. WTF.

You wanted to shoot at that Russian plane, too, and so, insofar as your remark, I'll just consider the source.

Freski, you owe me an apology for suggesting that I hate my fellow countrymen.

I am American, born and bred. I am a Texan, furthermore, and from a family whose sons and daughters have fought and sometimes died in the defense of their country - all the way back to Day One and before (1627).

I am not an Australian, as my posts attest, even where I use the word 'reckon' - a common expression in Texas, among other places. Nor do Australians hate this country, by the way. They are staunch allies of the United States even if they don't always agree with our policies.

You insulted me publicly, Fredski, and I expect your apology to be likewise and not via the PM backdoor. To me and my family both.

A 777 burns about 6 gal/mile.

I agree with AH that the cost/time to develop/build/certify/install a new aircraft system is glacial and expensive and not worth it.

But I don't fly over the ocean.

"but can't help our airlines upgrade their safety equipment and training. WTF."

What's that got to do with flight recorders, which are an after the fact item.

It's almost like pitching better coffins will help reduce cancer deaths.

Perhaps a different wording, but post-mortem analysis of why the plane went down can aid designers in designing better, *safer* planes, and so your analogy is not quite apropos. Sometimes that black box data are all they have to go by.

Better training, as poor airmanship is figuring more often in aircraft incidents, this info also recorded.

Yes, safety, but indirectly and in the interest of future aircraft design and operation.

"Air certified avionics cost a lot more than car stereos by orders of magnitude. Adding or changing an aircraft LRU is a staggering cost in time and money that 99.99% of people have no idea as to the magnitude" I agree with you, but the funny thing is that many airlines allow their pilots to navigate using electronic charts loaded on their personal (non certified) Ipads!

international flights are one animal......... flying in/through US airspace is different. this discussion isn't a childish discussion about stereos, its about lives.

Yep. Or should be.

This discussion reminds me of a certain, well-known coffeemaker manufacturer who knowingly used cheap potentially-defective switches on their product in order to gleen a few more cents' profit from every sale. Their in-house bean-counters and legal department weighed the cost of potential lawsuits over lost lives and concluded they would still come out ahead if they used the cheaper switch.

What they didn't anticipate when people actually died in a fire due to their defective product, is that the facts would surface, besmirching the company's name and the consequent lost revenue.

The same sort of mentality was found in BP, where a they risked using a cheaper safety device on the Deepwater Horizon's wellhead. Bean counters don't include the human cost because their spreadsheets can't accommodate all those digits - an infinite number in fact - and their masters any concept of the value.

The thinking is: "A few hundred lives lost here and there? No biggie."

Sorry, i don´t get your point..... I said zillions are spent in avionics, but pilots are allowed to use their charts stored on Ipads to navigate those planes...

Why should they be different? Is the FAA less stringent than all other aviation Authorities?

Australia operates over-the-horizon (OTH) radars with a *published* range of several thousand km.

On the northwest coast of Australia, right on the Indian Ocean the U.S. has a multi-megawatt sub-communications transmitter to talk to subs presumably in that part of the world. You can bet other nations have subs there, in the Indian Ocean, as well - subs whose locations the U.S. and allies want to know about.

Passive sonar nets on the oceans' floors are one way of detecting anomalous acoustic sources and triangulating their position to a high degree of accuracy. These nets can detect whales breaching on the ocean's surface and planes crashing in to same, among other things, including devices *designed* to be located underwater. They've had a month now - and still no black boxes and no idea where the plane went down.

Right.

I just read somewhere. Possibly Popular Mechanics that there is GPS/Sattellte system that will be required by some year in the future by the FAA, BUT the cost to outfit each plane is $100,000. The $100,000 may include the cost of the satellite support system that's not in place yet.

That's peanuts.

Never mind, they don't do peanuts any more.

You can hire a lot of attorneys for the cost of an ignition switch coffee maker switch GPS/Sattellte system that will be used once every 10 years.

Sure can and still come out ahead.

Now, a plane loaded with lawyers, sitting in pieces in the ocean floor? A step in the right direction - but a cryin' shame if there's one empty seat.

Why don't we require the Insurance Companies to pony up many of the fees that are attendant to the Signal Retrieval Systems? After all, they are the last ones on the food /money chains that will be responsible for "Insuring" the cargo, whether it be Life or Cargo. Had a great discussion with my Insurance agent about that. Assuming that my Bank owned 80% of my house (20% down), why do I have to pay 100% of the Insurance? Just a Rhetorical question….He couldn't answer it. As a offshore sailor, I carry Spot, and other types of Epirbs with me at all times--Why is it that when a Solo Around the World Ocean Racer has a problem, he is immediately in touch with personnel around the Globe, for rescue, and or, at least for communication, with Position updates every so many minutes. These guys race in the Roaring Forties, where this plane disappeared, and THEY are found and assisted. And they can also track a Space venture to Mars… (Friends at JPL also, and it is amazing to see how they do that in 3-D) . Just asking...

Great points, all. GA

Why can't these same technologies be carried aboard commercial aircraft. Oh yes, I forgot: Certification. I'm beginning to wonder if the glacial certification process has itself become something of a liability in its present form and needs to be streamlined without compromising its core elements.

On the other hand, no amount of technology will help if it's been decided that certain aircraft must not be found.

The circumstances of this flight's disappearance are most bizarre.

"Why don't we require the Insurance Companies to pony up many of the fees that are attendant to the Signal Retrieval Systems? After all, they are the last ones on the food /money chains that will be responsible for "Insuring" the cargo, whether it be Life or Cargo. Had a great discussion with my Insurance agent about that. Assuming that my Bank owned 80% of my house (20% down), why do I have to pay 100% of the Insurance? Just a Rhetorical question….He couldn't answer it."

This is the type of ill thought out suggestion that arises from time to time. Where in hell do you think the money comes from? It would be a surcharge on the tickets and freight charges; and in the case of your house it is not a rhetorical question, there would be a surcharge to your account. Worse, the mortgage company would insist on the most expensive insurance available from their company's insurance division plus a fee for administering it. It would cost you more than it does now.

Let's just say , that when the Greatest Housing Bubble went down, (As our President , and others call it), if you remember, WHO received the Bailout, as being TOO big to Fail? The Banks --The Re-Insurance Policies, that were not sufficient to cover the losses (IE Berkshire Hathaway , etc. ) all fell back to the TARP program-- They should have gone bankrupt , but the Government (IE:--You and Me), bailed them out--So… Where is the Re-Insurance for the little guy? The "Owner", as you say? The "Lien Holder" gets bailed out, through a bunch of shady back door deals, but the home owner , who defaults because of shady lending practices has no where to go….. So, in the long run, WHO is really footing the bill, and who is still operating as usual.. So , In this case, WHERE DO YOU THINK ALL THE MONEY CAME FROM? Sorry--I hate to make this all caps, but this whole business of banks and Government being tied up as one, and not separated as different entities, is what is creating the problem…I have been under the weather for several days, so if my tone is matching yours, I am sorry. Civility rules..

I too, can't find any logic in anything C-Mac says here.

Insurance companies PAY for safety devices? Not on your life! They just won't insure anything they find unsafe. Apparently they think modern aircraft are safe enough.

Houses are insured by the owner, not the lien holder.

A boat race is hardly the same scale as having 4,000 aircraft in the air every day of the week.

Hardly a "good answer".

Of course they won't--But they do a lot of research, and they do an lot of Re-Insurance on risky things.. Why do you think Warren Buffet is making a killing? A boat race only demonstrates the technology available. If an airline doesn't have the same procedures in place that a solo Racing boat does, than something is wrong.--4000 of anything in the air, AFTER the fact,is not an excuse, or a solution... Liken the situation to the Twin Towers. Why weren't they protected better, in this day and age? The technology was there, just not employed. Let's put up 4000 planes three days after, and see if anything changes.. BTW, Lyn==Really enjoy many of your posts, BUT, sometimes I think you have too many lemon slices in your coffee when you hit the ground. Arguments, with a touch of civility, will gather you more constructive arguments, than not. My 2 cents...

Not sure you actually appreciate the magnitude of the solution you so easily suggest.

Imagine 4,000 racing boats in the water, every day. Do you think, for a minute, that they are all safely in the arms of an angle?

Your concept of preventing 9-11 is also a dream. It still amazes me that they were able to pull off an unheard of ground stop so well.

My wife paid $12.00/gal for gas in Oberlin Kansas during that ordeal, and was on the first plane out of Colorado Springs after it.

General aviation suffered much longer than 3 days.

Point is there is no easy solution for a once-in-a-lifetime problem.

Yes, I see what you are saying, regarding the number of potential targets. Am looking at an Australian Military site, that shows current Russian radar capabilities, up to, and including one system capable of tracking 120 planes at one time. (www.Ausairpower.net / APA-Rus-Low-Band-Radar HTM). Many of them are mobile , also, which itself, is a bit scary, for us, that is, and maybe the Ukrainians. The other poster mentioning a system that automatically activates is the type of Epirb that I have for offshore use, and immediately activates upon contact with water, and is in direct contact with satellites, then relayed to the appropriate land responders. This is what should be on all aircraft, in a commercial form, of course, designed as a breakaway device. If they can shed a rocket booster after using up it's thrust propellant, and also recover it after some EXTREME use, such a device / devices should be easy to design and deploy. Re: 9-11--I have seen some disturbing comments made in regards to the actual Military deployment of aircraft in the area at that time, and it seems that the coverage was not as it should have been. There were some large holes, apparently, in that coverage, but with no real data, will not go into it. THx.

I'm not disputing that there is better technology available today. My point is that it would be a monumental task to actively track all aircraft in the air, all the time. Especially since the likely hood of a single plane disappearing into the night is astronomical. Epirbs may well be an option more attractive than active tracking, I'm no expert. (That fact does not keep me from voicing my opinion)

We are ignoring the civilian aircraft that also fly.

I watched 9-11 unfold, as I said earlier my wife and mother-in-law were traveling at the time. I've also listened to, and read, the full transcript of the activities of that awful day. More than once.

I am continually amazed at the complete lack of organization, leadership, communications and response. It was a complete operational disaster. Compounded by the fact that, once again, the essential aircraft identifying system was so easily disabled.

That left ATC with only an indistinct blip on their crowded screens.

Indecision prevailed. Aircraft were misidentified. NORAD was clueless during the entire event. There was no one at the helm. At one point some non-com even says, "they're all in a meeting" when referring to whomever was supposed to be guarding our country against the very event that was unfolding.

I won't even go into the fact that most military aircraft in the air at the time were unarmed or unable to identify the issue or the enemy. There's also the burning question of, would an American military pilot actually shoot down an American commercial aircraft, even if they were in position and capable of doing so?

I ramble on because that day was our "Pearl Harbor" of sorts and very disturbing to us all.

Sorry for having to recount that day, as you have. I was i Hawaii 6 years after Pearl Harbor, and knew many people that went through that day of Infamy. A neighbor awoke early that Sunday Morning, hearing the planes, and thinking it so unusual since they never flew over the upper valley he lived in. He carried up on the roof, a little home movie camera of some sort, , stood on the roof, and filmed the Japanese aircraft for over 15 minutes. He turned the film over to the Military, with the agreement, that after transfer of said film, he would get it back. He never heard from them again. He thinks he must have gotten some classified footage, because later Military statements claimed that the Japanese had NEVER flown over that particular part of the Island. And another strange thing: They never made an attempt to take out the oil and fuel depots that were behind Pearl harbor, above ground, easily seen and vulnerable. Lots of other strange facts from that day, but will not go into it. Maybe Occam's Razor is the correct attempt at solutions for these events. I do have a conspiratorial side though.

When I was kid, my older brother, then a teenager, mentioned having read something about the words "Remember Pearl Harbor" being scrawled on a sidewalk (I think in Hawaii, but it's been many years now) some days or a few weeks *before* the event. I'd nearly forgotten that until I read your post. I've never looked into it nor does he remember where he read it.

Anyone else know anything about this?

Another conspiracy theory, with two sides.

But, regardless of prior events, bombs dropped, lives were lost, ships sank and a war started.

It was a desperate, last ditch effort on the part of the Land of the Rising Sun to win. Their culture would never allow defeat.

I believe that "we" knew of the impending doom. I also believe that Roosevelt, et al was willing to spend American lives and resources that day in order to keep support and public outrage alive on our side. He knew what carnage lay ahead and only hatred of the Japanese would inspire men to go willingly to their deaths.

If you search, you can find much on either side of the controversy/conspiracy.

Thanks. I've always wondered why the Pacific Fleet were all mustered conveniently at one location when our relationship with Japan was seriously on the skids. It just doesn't make sense. Even in peacetime it's foolhardy and anyone with any military insight - hell, just plain common sense - would know that.

My dad's oldest brother died there that day. He was 22.

Sorry to hear about your uncle. Many people on both sides lost their lives. Many were just fodder for the war machine.

I'm not sure the fleet was there by design.

Nor am I sure that the carriers were not there, by design.

I'm just glad that we won.

Yup. And thanks. My dad enlisted that day and lied about his age to get in. Some of his records still show him as being two years older. He passed away last September. I miss him.

I believe they were ordered in to avoid being torpedoed, nobody expected an air attack.

Probably two lovers left it. Were there hand prints and a heart, too? :-)

I too know we can devise a fail safe system that can be activated simply by a sudden decrease in altitude. A plane could eject a floating signaling device that would record it's point of origin. We go there and then straight below it is your lost plane. Won't help the insurance companies though, they still have to cover the cost of the plane, but from a civility stand point, we can at least experience closure for the sad loss of those many poor souls. Alan

I was forwarded, a few months ago, a real time Satellite Global Map, showing all International Flights in the air. I can't find it, as it was probably deleted, DANG!! Has anyone else seen the same site?

The World's Air Traffic over 24 Hours (Video) : TreeHugger

This may not be the one.

Ants on the move.

Lyn--I do think that is the one I saw, although the one forwarded to me had the ability to go full screen, which is amazing to look at. Do you think this Video is being created on a daily basis, or was just a representational 24 sequence?

Daily? I don't know. Haven't tried to find out. I'd say one day's just about like the next as far as air travel goes.