A plea to potential journalists who seek yummy stories out there.
ELT's do not always work. That's a fact. They are NOT 100% reliable, not even on land. Many fatal accidents have happened without ELT even whispering about it. On land.
In water and especially in the ocean they do not work at all (ELT is radiowaves = EMwaves) unless someone survived a ditching and managed to activate an ELT in a life raft.
Absence of ELT activity means diddly squat. You can draw zero conclusions on this. So PLEASE stop reporting about magical scenarios. Do some research. And please for once, ask some insightful follow up questions next time.
And for all of you prunes who want real time streaming of FDR data, please look up what "data congestion" means in networking terms before even attempt to bore me again, please.
(Yes, I come across as somewhat annoyed in this post. That's because I am. I like to think that I know enough to know I know nothing, but I do know when I see someone who thinks he knows everything but really hasn't got a clue.)