Originally Posted by CONF iture
ChristiaanJ, I take your point.
Nevertheless, it was not a big deal to get those data, Seattle got them in a few days.
Well, yes.
From snippets here and there, it would seem the memory
boards were still intact. Since it was Honeywell who manufactured them, they would be the people with all the breakouts and test equipment right there on the lab shelves, to test and read out those exact boards.
So in my opinion, the BEA made the right decision not to barge in where even engineers fear to tread (to coin a phrase...).
Now, who is going to believe that Airbus has been patiently waiting for the French criminal investigation to give their OK to have a chance to know what happened ?
Patiently, probably not....
But they have enough unforunate experiences with French "criminal investigations" (judicial enquiries) involving flight recorders (with Habsheim and St. Odile at the head of the list), that they'd rather wait a few days until heads had cleared after the Xmas and New Year holidays, instead of trying to apply pressure, which wouldn't have solved anything anyway.
"The mills of French judicial enquiries (not necessarily criminal) tend to grind extremely slowly".
I don't know if you follow French news, but Sarkozy has just announced he wants to get rid of the "juge d'instruction", and replace her/him by a "juge de l'instruction". You have to know French to get the point, but the essential difference is that the "juge" will no longer be the "omnipotent pacha" during the enquiry ("instruction") but simply one of the representatives of the judicial system.
CJ