Re: auto-jettison of black box: How does the aircraft predict when it's going to crash and let the black box go? Interesting idea.
As to other comments, it took time to mobilise the submarines, ships with ROVs etc and send them to the suspected crash site. We had the RovHomer ready in a day or two and despatched it in collaboration with the BEA by air to Africa where it had to be transported to a vessel with a ROV on it, which had to steam to the site etc etc.
Detection relies on "line of sight" to the black box signal emitter, so if box is in a ravine etc, the sound cannot get out and hence you cannot detect it.
Last edited by HamishMcBush; 10th Nov 2009 at 19:36.