Black Boxes

Don't guess. Don't make uninformed statements such as, "Assuming the black boxed are ineffective".

Black boxes work exactly as designed.

The real story is not public because no one knows what it was/is, yet.

This is not a place to start conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy aside, there's still some valid discussion to be had. Is standard battery life good enough ? Should 'ejectable black boxes' be more widely used ? There are plenty of questions that could be raised without going down any daft conspiracy route. It's a shame the OP used that last line. Hey-ho.

Technology often out-paces aircraft advancements, since it has become so rapid.

Most airlines won't even let me use my GPS receiver during flights. I think because they are afraid I'll know if we deviate from the intended course.

I also keep going back to the reality that very few commercial planes ever crash and almost none have ever been lost at sea without a trace.

I'm willing to risk the odds that I'll make it to my destination, unimpeded by anything other than weather and traffic congestion in the air.

In other words, "Welcome to CR4, now go away?"

The Bermuda Triangle is not located in the Indian Ocean, so they'll never find that plane.

Not only the blackbox entire aviation procedure & superpower politics should be revised and UN should supervise IATA.

And you base that wild claim on what?

commonsense

It's more of nonsense than commonsense.

"commonsense" seems to have taken on a new identity.

UN should supervise IATA.

The last thing the airline industry needs is supervision by a bunch of power crazy politicians.

Why the hell vote for crazy politicians by a fu....g process called "democracy" introduced by british assh...s to US & Commonwealth,where fools rule intelligent people because they are majority.

The United States is a republic, not a democracy, or commonwealth.

Your radical nature is well known here, and frankly, not appreciated.

The discussion is not about politics.

Butt out.

Well, you're certainly in the right place. A political Eden?

How does one become a fool in Sri Lanka?

Perhaps our misguided member from Sri Lanka does not understand how politics works in our republic form of government.

Crazy politicians are presented to the voters by the political machines that run at the precinct, county, state and national political levels.

Voters don't choose who runs, they just vote for the Democratic and Republican party's choices that are presented to them by the party bosses. Independent and write-in candidates are sometimes included on the ballots but are never, ever a serious threat to the two ruling parties chosen ones.

Presidential elections make no pretense of allowing the voters to choose the leader of the country. That is determined solely by the political machines in power.

There is a ceremonial popular vote for president, but it is meaningless to the outcome.

And that's the civic lesson for this morning, boys and girls.

For the record, I always dismiss, out of hand, the mindless ramblings of pnaban.

The UN??!!

UNbeleivable! _{lots of other "UN"s as well, none good}

You don't have the UN "working" in your neighbourhood do you Pnaban?

Bad, bad idea.

My understanding is RF frequencies do not work under water. Hence sonars are used fro communication under water. So if the black box emits any RF frequency it is absorbed by sea water and cannot be detected by any aircraft flying over.

I am interested to know more- whether my knowledge is old or is there any other communication system adopted by black boxes.- Just for my knowledge.

RF is a type of signal, not a specific portion of the spectrum.

It depends on the water and the frequency. Seawater is highly conductive and so only very-low-frequency radio waves can penetrate to any depth and certainly not to the full depths of the world's oceans.

There are other problems as well, not the least of which is the problem of efficiently transmitting an ultra-low-frequency radio signal. Huge antennae are required, measuring in the hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of kilometers - completely impractical. For smaller antennae operating at these frequencies, such as earth dipoles, megawatts of input power are required just to radiate only a few watts. A ULF underwater beacon is definitely out-of-the-question, especially in seawater.

For more info, visit wiki's pages under 'VLF,' 'ELF' and also under 'submarine communications.'

The acoustic beacons used presently are far more practical, as you surmised.

Radio Frequency "signals", as in traditional radio frequency modulated signals, do not work well at all under the sea...you could say not at all.

Audio Frequency (AF) signals (even at the same frequency as an RF transmission) however, do travel quite well under water. Audio is not necessarily limited to the human ear, though.

Consider Ultrasound. Though not RF, it shares a portion of the same spectrum.

re:

Assigning a portion of the spectrum to one type of transmission or species is just greedy!

You're display of ignorance is astounding....The so called "black box" is a flight recorder that records flight systems data that works in conjunction with the flight data acquisition box, there is also another device that records cockpit voice communications, they are three separate devices....

The plane is tracked by primary and secondary radar, which has a limited range of around 160 miles, so once you're out over the ocean, you are out of radar range....

These systems can fail, be shut off or sabotaged, or damaged or destroyed, nothing is foolproof....Pilots monitor their position with GPS and can relay that information to ground control via Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) which sends flight systems data to ground control via rf or sat sys....

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-26544554

"You're display of ignorance is astounding...."

Shouldn't that be "Your display ..." in keeping with certain others' manners on this thread?

Yes, I agree - the poor ignorant mortal should have known better than to approach Olympus unprepared.

You're certainly right....

"An underwater locator beacon (ULB) or underwater acoustic beacon, is a device fitted to aviation flight recorders such as the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR). ULBs are also sometimes required to be attached directly to an aircraft fuselage. ULBs are triggered by water immersion; most emit an ultrasonic 10ms pulse once per second at 37.5 kHz ± 1kHz.^[1][2][3]

The device is designed not only to survive accidents, but to function correctly after impact. Research by the French Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (BEA) has shown that it has had an 90% survival rate spanning 27 air accidents over the sea.^[4] The ULBs fitted in Air France Flight 447, which crashed on 1 June 2009, were certified to transmit on 37.5 kHz for minimum 30 days at 4°C temperature. Investigating the crash, the BEA recommended that FDR ULBs' transmission period be increased to 90 days and that "airplanes performing public transport flights over maritime areas to be equipped with an additional ULB capable of transmitting on a frequency (for example between 8.5 kHz and 9.5 kHz) and for a duration adapted to the pre-localisation of wreckage" (i.e. with increased range).^[5]

A beacon is typically supplied with electrical power by a lithium battery, which needs to be replaced once every several years. Once the beacon becomes immersed into water, a built-in "water switch" activates it (water closing an electric circuit), and the beacon starts emitting its "pings"; the battery power should be sufficient for at least 30 days after the activation.^[6]

The National Transportation Safety Board has recorded a case when the water switch had accidentally activated during the aircraft's normal operation; as a result, the battery power had been exhausted by the time the accident happened, and the beacon was not emitting the acoustic signal when it needed to do so.^[7]

Maximum detection range[edit]

A 37.5 kHz (160.5 dB re 1 μPa) pinger can be detectable 1-2 kilometres (0.62-1.24 mi) from the surface in normal conditions and 4-5 kilometres (2.5-3.1 mi) in good conditions. A 37.5 kHz (180 dB re 1 μPa) transponder pinger can be detected 4-5 kilometres (2.5-3.1 mi) in normal conditions and 6-7 kilometres (3.7-4.3 mi) in good conditions. Transponder 10 kHz (180 dB re 1 μPa) range is 7-9 kilometres (4.3-5.6 mi) in normal conditions and 17-22 kilometres (11-14 mi) in good conditions.^[8]"

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

http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/flight.data.recovery.working.group.final.report.pdf

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/08/23/2011-21536/underwater-locating-devices-acoustic-self-powered

http://flyht.com/products/afirs-228/

"Its premier technology, AFIRS™ UpTime™, allows airlines to monitor and manage aircraft operations anywhere, anytime, in real-time. If an aircraft encounters an emergency, AMA's triggered data streaming mode, FLYHTStream™, automatically streams vital data, normally secured in the black box, to designated sites on the ground in real-time. The company has been publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange since 2003 under the trading symbol AMA."

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2011/08/aeromechanical-services-signs-afirs-220.html?m=1

http://flyht.com/wp-content/uploads/FLYHT_AR_2013_Final.pdf

http://www.iridium.com/products/FLYHTafirsUpTime.aspx

The locater beacons(ULB) were never intended for deep water(below 200') location...

http://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/pdf/na68-7.pdf

New regulations will come into effect by 2019, however some airlines are not waiting and are adopting new technologies now including upgrading the batteries in the locator beacon to last 90 days, and real time communication via satellite, and deployment of floating locator device, when crash in water is imminent....

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/business/international/outside-the-us-steps-to-track-planes-better.html

cannot think of any reason why MAL or the Malaysian Gov't would do that.

Easy...Loss of face, pure and simple. Went missing on their watch and flew right over their heads without them even knowing it. It made them look severely challenged.

Everybody knows that the loss of life on this scale will be investigated until everything that can be known, will be known......Anybody in a position to try to cover up information would certainly be aware that this was/is the case, and would eventually be exposed and become the target of every news agency in the world, lawsuit from everybody connected in any way, and prosecuted and persecuted beyond what could be imagined....Trying to deal with something by covering it up, just makes it worse...The suggestion that this is the case, is an insult to the intelligence and courage of those involved, and is inappropriate based on the information we have.....

That looks roughly like a bolide I once saw from Yakima, WA, USA in 1971 or 1972. Those of us looking guessed it was a plane from the Yakima Firing Center (as it was known then) flaming out. The actual object was approximately over Yellowstone.

With ships and boats we use AIS reporting transponders and anyone in the world can log-in to a website and follow the reported positions (and other info) of any ship that is transmitting.

http://www.marinetraffic.com/

Admittedly there are more aircraft and everything moves a great deal faster, but it would surprise me to be informed that aircraft do not have similar reporting and monitoring.

This technology is mature and not terribly expensive.

The raw data could easily reveal the last known position of a missing client vessel or aircraft.

See link Mystery deepens over contents of missing MH370 plane's cargo

https://in.news.yahoo.com/mystery-deepens-over-contents-missing-mh370-planes-cargo-062231090.html

Just a few days after the Malaysian Airline vanished a friend of mine sent me a mail- which said - that Chinese Scientists were carrying a UAV shot down or fell into hands of Iranians- as cargo on this airline. US intelligence came to know and put a trained pilot on this airline. He entered cockpit, dis-abled the communication system and by remote means the airline was diverted to M--- islands in Indian Ocean. Indian news paper also carried a report that local residents had seen an aircraft fly so low in their area. The airline landed there- cargo was removed and may be the pilot disembarked and was black box removed? To maintain secrecy- all passengers were killed (how), airline was flown again and dumped in deep sea!!!! Mystery will remain- you can keep debating.