Germanwings A320 Crash

tharmor

knucklehead6 wrote:

Thew rest is just a (relatively light) metal shell. try driving a car into a wall at 300MPH, see what happens

knucklehead6 wrote:

the only really solid parts of an airplane are the engines and wheels.

So impact on land is worse than on sea obviously.,. The java tragedy had debris bigger than this....i feel sad to imagine how will they find bodies !!

Cookiemunster

tharmor wrote: »

So impact on land is worse than on sea obviously.,. The java tragedy had debris bigger than this....i feel sad to imagine how will they find bodies !!

It doesn't really make a difference. Hitting water at 500mph can be just as bad as hitting a mountain. It's massively easier however for recovery ops to find the wreckage and unfortunately the bodies when a crash occurs over land.

knucklehead6

tharmor wrote: »

So impact on land is worse than on sea obviously.,. The java tragedy had debris bigger than this....i feel sad to imagine how will they find bodies !!

They haven't determined what caused Air Asia 8501 to go down. But hitting the sea at 60 mph is much like hitting a wall at 60mph, there isn't a huge degree of difference.

But it appears this plane was in powered flight when it went in, so the engines would have been providing thrust

sully2010

tharmor wrote: »

No debris bigger than size of a car door !! Can a plane get this much battered on impact ?? Any views ?

Look what happens to a car in a head on collision at 60mph, in some cases it barely looks like a car anymore. This aircraft hit a mountain at 400mph

ProfessorPlum

smurfjed wrote: »

Yep, we have to do it annually to test the devices or after any event. The actual process and reconstruction doesn't take that long with modern software if the data is uncorrupted. But while it may be in the interest of the industry to have rapid responses in order to avoid a reoccurrence, it is in everyone else's interest to have a slow methodical investigation into all of the aspects affecting the flight prior the incident, that part becomes very time consuming.

Just to add to this point re information gathering (and speed of) in general. It's worth mentioning that many airlines fit their aircraft with QARs - Quick Access Recorders. They're mainly used for routine monitoring of both tech aspects and operational aspects but they can also be quickly accessed after an incident or accident. They're not, however crash proof or fireproof, so unlikely to survive an accident such as this.

irishgeo

Cookiemunster wrote: »

https://twitter.com/AviationSafety/status/580696877806551041/photo/1

The CVR looks quite battered.

Its doesn't look too bad. The right side is damaged but that is the interface with the plane. The dome bit contains memory modules. The left side is the underwater pinger/beacon.

wretcheddomain

irishgeo wrote: »

Its doesn't look too bad. The right side is damaged but that is the interface with the plane. The dome bit contains memory modules. The left side is the underwater pinger/beacon.

If the impact could do that to something as robust as the black box, imagine what the impact would do to human people.

kippy

wretcheddomain wrote: »

If the impact could do that to something as robust as the black box, imagine what the impact would do to human people.

In fairness, it's not worth thinking about.

fits

FDR found but severely damaged and memory chip missing. Doesnt sound like they will get anything from it. Highlights once again that this needs to be rethought.

kippy

fits wrote: »

FDR found but severely damaged and memory chip missing. Doesnt sound like they will get anything from it. Highlights once again that this needs to be rethought.

You mean you think the data should be live streamed and stored off of the Airplane and this should be done for all airplanes?

Until a final report is issued it would be difficult to say whether the potential lack of data recovery from one of the black boxes would significantly impact on making a determination as to what caused the crash.

Calina

fits wrote: »

FDR found but severely damaged and memory chip missing. Doesnt sound like they will get anything from it. Highlights once again that this needs to be rethought.

I'd really like to see a source for this because nothing I found on twitter is pointing back to an original source and I'd be surprised that it could be confirmed what internal parts are missing as quickly as this.

fits

Calina wrote: »

I'd really like to see a source for this because nothing I found on twitter is pointing back to an original source and I'd be surprised that it could be confirmed what internal parts are missing as quickly as this.

Saw it on guardian live blog who hopefully verified through storyful or similar.
Edit: Doesnt appear to be verified.

ProfessorPlum

kippy wrote: »

You mean you think the data should be live streamed and stored off of the Airplane and this should be done for all airplanes?

Yeah. So long as people only want to pay bus fare equivalent for their flights, this isn't going to happen anytime soon.

tharmor

fits wrote:

Saw it on guardian live blog who hopefully verified through storyful or similar.

Its there on nytimes as well...memory chip missing in FDR....voice recorder they are still trying....

skallywag

Calina wrote: »

...and I'd be surprised that it could be confirmed what internal parts are missing as quickly as this.

If something physical i.e. an actual component is indeed missing then it would become apparent very quickly.

fits

New York Times also reporting that they are unable to retrieve data from the cockpit voice recorder.

Bob24

Looks like the French Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses (BEA), which is working on the flight recorder, is about to give a press conference. We should know more shortly.

kona

fits wrote: »

FDR found but severely damaged and memory chip missing. Doesnt sound like they will get anything from it. Highlights once again that this needs to be rethought.

Astonishing that they Havnt gone one step further and do this, even if the FDR is kept as the prime source , having a secondary back up transmitted wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Obviously there are limitations to it but where there's comms I can't see why not.

They already use it for engine monitoring for reliability.

irishgeo

They might ship the flight recorders to the NTSB who have experts who might be able to get more off them.

Bob24

irishgeo wrote: »

They might ship the flight recorders to the NTSB who have experts who might be able to get more off them.

Aren't the French also considered to have some of the best expertise to inquire about plane crashes?

skallywag

kona wrote: »

Astonishing that they Havnt gone one step further and do this, even if the FDR is kept as the prime source , having a secondary back up transmitted wouldn't be such a bad idea.

I would imagine that the primary detractor here may be the cost overhead that such a system would add to ticket prices, and whether or not the flying public would accept this.

knucklehead6

irishgeo wrote: »

They might ship the flight recorders to the NTSB who have experts who might be able to get more off them.

I don't see why. firstly, the NTSB has no jurisdiction here, the aircraft wasn't made in the US, the airline isn't a US flag carrier and the crash was not in the US.

Secondly the experts in the NTSB would routinely share their data mining tools with all other investigators. It's not as if there would be anything to gain from them keeping any particular tool secret

skallywag

irishgeo wrote: »

They might ship the flight recorders to the NTSB who have experts who might be able to get more off them.

Probably more likely that they get sent back to the manufacturer.

Bob24

Hollande just confirmed the enclosure of second flight recorder was found, but the inside parts are missing.

RecordStraight

fits wrote: »

FDR found but severely damaged and memory chip missing. Doesnt sound like they will get anything from it. Highlights once again that this needs to be rethought.

It's amazing how often these devices which are of no use outside a crash situation fail to survive a crash. :mad:

Calina

RecordStraight wrote: »

It's amazing how often these devices which are of no use outside a crash situation fail to survive a crash. :mad:

I don't think that's fair. Mostly they do survive and contribute significantly to post-accident investigations.

Bob24

Calina wrote: »

I don't think that's fair. Mostly they do survive and contribute significantly to post-accident investigations.

Having said that, for various reasons (unable to find them in the ocean, stolen during civil war, and here potentially destroyed) it is true that flight recorders haven't necessarily been very helpful to explain a lot of the recent incidents.

Re-thinking the system wouldn't seem like a bad idea (either remote transmission of the data to a control center on the ground, or finding a way tome make them even more robust and easier to locate).

Bob24

BEA are saying "useable date has been extracted from the first flight recorder", but also "we are not in a position to provide any explanation for the crash at this stage".

pfurey101

RecordStraight wrote: »

It's amazing how often these devices which are of no use outside a crash situation fail to survive a crash. :mad:

I'd say this statement is incorrect.

These boxes are already built to an incredibly high specification and survive nearly all disasters, which is the opposite to what you are saying. This A320 hit the mountain at a very high speed and the destruction is horrendous. This disaster is an exception when it comes to air crashes.

And besides it has not yet been confirmed that all data cannot be retrieved. So maybe you are assuming too much.

RecordStraight

cml387 wrote: »

How often has this happened

Lots.