It would an incridible strike of luck and a more than welcome one.
Perhaps. Finding the recorders would certainly be welcome in many areas, but should they provide "ugly" information, not so much in other quarters.
Who is paying the cost of the extended (new) search?
Rumor has it, the NTSB has kicked in a few bucks as well. Many US airlines have a vested interest in this, as it will help them assure that many of the AB-I planes in their fleets are, in fact, safe.
The prototype Concordes (well at least G-AXDN) had a jettesonable flight recorder. Why hasn't that idea been developed?
There are several problems with the recorder leaving the frame - not the least of which is finding it after it has. Some military airframes have a "deploy" switch for recorder and "pinger" packs, but these are used mostly in the hopes of retrieving crew, not flight data. And, they're not 100% reliable, as even a crew-triggered device can land far away from the actual site.
It's still an elaborate solution for an extremely rare problem.
Most assuredly - most flights don't crash. The sticky wicket is determining why those which do did so.
Here's a thought - the pilot community considers downloading of FDR data to be some sort of invasion of their right to privacy while carrying forth the duties which they have agreed to discharge, and unions argue that the information could be used to "rate" pilots at their "desks."
However, a running "concordia" of a plane's performance and how it has been flown might be very helpful in the event recorders cannot be recovered, or recovered in a timely fashion.
Do we know for sure that pitot changes have fixed the problem?
Sort of, but not really.
Were any specific problems with the airframe responsible?
Don't know.
Seems to me that one could "sequester" FDR data for an indefinite period of time, unless the data was needed for the investigation regarding an incident or an accident.
But having the last few flights' worth of data could prove valuable.
At this point, who's to say that particular tail number didn't experience an odd combination of rougher-than-normal landings, well-meaning but less than mfg maintenance on a few items, and rougher than normal handling of cargo hatches, et cetera?
We've been looking for a way for all the "holes" to line up, but, perhaps, we haven't been looking far enough back into the frame's history - and there is nothing to clue us in.
A bump here, a scratch there, throw it all into a magnificent storm, and see what happens...