Ethiopian airliner down in Africa

[Ian W]

Originally Posted by J J Carter

It's absurd that flight telemetry and data is not transmitted in real time to satellites and sent back to the aircraft manufacturer.rather than being recorded on FDRs that are lost at sea or destroyed

It is and with modern antennas and bandwidth and auto-sharing between VDL and SATCOM it would be easily done (see for example INMARSAT Iris ). Future aircraft can be expected in any case to have 'always on' broadband IP communications for other operational reasons, adding continual background recording would not be an issue. The days of hugely expensive 1200Bd intermittent SATCOM are well over bandwidths today are huge and continually increasing. However, there are those that do not want the recorder information, particularly the CVR information, 'shared' due to distrust in their operator's management. Yes in a completely unstabilized state after a loss of control some connection could be lost but the lead up to the LOC would all be there. Within a few hours the recorder information of initial lead up to an incident could be in investigator's hands. For example all of AF447 information could have been available at the time of the crash instead of a 2 year wait.

[Ian W]

Originally Posted by Ganzic

I thinks it's an expensive option...

​​​​​​To have telemetry data streamed live via satcom.

Not when you have an 'always on' link you have the bandwidth and then you have to compare it to the cost of retrieval of an often damaged DFDR/CVR. I have always thought that if these costs were levied on the aircraft operators then streaming DVDR/CVR would be operational now. The costs of search and retrieval of the recorders would bankrupt most airlines. Why should tax payers in a foreign country be liable to pay the sometimes huge costs for recovery of your airline's DFDR/CVR?


Late addition: DFDR data rates are 'up to 256 12bit words per second' - or around 3K bps. That is one '10 millionth' of the potential bandwidth of a connection on INMARSAT's new Global Express SATCOM just tested at 330Mbps.

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by nojwod

Ethiopian has always been a very professional airline with an excellent safety record and mostly excellent service and reliability..

I realise you may have interests in them, but the fact is this is their third major high fatality jet accident in my recollection, these having been in 1996, 2010 and now 2019, for what is in all truth a relatively small fleet. I don't believe any other African carrier has this record. The previous two went into the sea. I can't reconcile that with stating their record is "excellent".

The notably high foreign passenger count is due to their extensive marketing of 5th Freedom tickets through their hub, from all of North America, Europe and Asia to Addis, and onward to all across Africa, as well as some Europe-Asia traffic. They are of course known in the industry for having achieved this by offering some of the most competitive fares.

[SOPS]

Umm .. did not one of the aircraft that went into the sea was being piloted by a person who was being attacked with an axe by an hijacket?

[CaptainProp]

”And colleagues who fly for them have privately expressed concern about many safety-related issues at the airline.”

And they are still there?

If I had real safety concerns about the airline I worked for I would leave, with immediate effect.

CP

[QDM360]

Originally Posted by Ian W

... around 3K bps. That is one '10 millionth' of the potential bandwidth of a connection on INMARSAT's new Global Express SATCOM just tested at 330Mbps.

Math isn't one of your strengths, right?

[klintE]

Originally Posted by JCviggen

If that earlier picture shows the main crash site I wonder if there is anything left of the FDRs.

I think both recorders should be fine.
Required impact tolerance is above 3400G.
Almost impossible to exceed (930km/h to 0km in 1 meter)
More dangerous is high temperature and here think it's very unlikely boxes were exposed to fire - since probably both plunged into the soil.

[Seat4A]

Global News (Canada) has video showing locals walking on the site of the wreckage.

Not enough posts to add the link here.

[caulfield]

Is this the same Ethiopian Airlines that only pays 8000USD to its 737 Captains and doesnt pay until Final Line Check and keeps extending that FLC so that payment can be delayed?Actions have consequences.
Treat your crews and passengers well.Or pay the price.

[JamesT73J]

Originally Posted by bunk exceeder

So they never got to 10,500, hence no turn. Where FR shows the flight ending and Bishoftu are NOT the same place. It has a “density altitude” feel to it. You know, the guy who shoots a moose and loads it into his Piper Cub, grossly overloading it, on a hot and high day. He gets just enough juice to lift off in ground effect but is never able to climb out of it. Trees getting bigger....

Was the correct Perf data entered into the FMC? As trees get bigger, the temptation to pull back more, despite insufficient power, becomes enormous, hence many of these things ending in a stall/spin situation. Then there’s that MCAS “unpublicized” feature. This explains it well:

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-s...em-mcas-jt610/

If, meaning IF, they had insufficient power and pulled back a bit too much, right into the MCAS zone of operation, which would definitely not help right then, well, there are a couple of potential links in the old chain. Or Swiss cheese holes. I’m surprised that a thing that moves your trim around when you’re in a bad corner of the envelope could
be deemed as too much information for the pilots, hence not make it into the manual.

From that article:


This is highly unusual, right? Aviators have been expected and encouraged to learn such things.

[Silver Pegasus]

Originally Posted by NAROBS

You're having a giraffe ? Presumably crashed fully fuelled. Locals said they couldn't get near it for some time because of the conflagration. And the fire appears to have been hot enough to disappear any vestige of the alu/mag structure of the aircraft. What chance any plastic and resin parts in the digital recorders e.g. circuit boards and components.

N

They are designed to survive high energy fuel fires... Aircraft structures and skins are not.

[SigWit]

Originally Posted by JamesT73J

From that article:


This is highly unusual, right? Aviators have been expected and encouraged to learn such things.

No, this is actually the modus operandi for all modern jets. Give the pilots basic background knowledge about the plane and an QRH that covers most failures.
Giving pilots to much information can lead to over-analysis and wrong decisionmaking.

[763 jock]

The first thing I thought when I saw the photo of the CEO in the crater was what was he doing there? Can you imagine that being allowed in the UK? This is quite possibly a crime scene and yet evidence is being handled by people who have no right (by our standards) being there.

Cordon it off, move everyone well away and let the proper authorities deal with it.

[QDM360]

Originally Posted by NAROBS

What chance any plastic and resin parts in the digital recorders e.g. circuit boards and components.

The "crash recorders" aren't just crash-proof, they are also protected against fire and heat. Minimum ICAO requirement is to withstand 260°C for 10 hours, and an direct exposure to a 1100°C flame for 30 minutes. So, yes, FDR/CVR can fail when exposed to fire - but it's not likely.

[b1lanc]

Crew hours

Just as a point of reference and not pointing any fingers at quals, the Capt is reported to have 8,000+ hours and attained capt on 737 type in November (source CEO on WSJ). AVH reporting FO as having 200 flight hours. The average fleet age is 5.4 years according to airfleet - on the youngish side and mostly wide-body.
Regardless, Boeing has some serious soul-searching to do no matter the ultimate cause and IMHO crew/maintenance training, experience, procedure blame will not be sufficient.

[dsky]

Regarding Satcom links and bandwidth discussion ...

Discussion out of topic and out of knowledge.

Can you imagine keeping an active sat link from a plane experiencing bad attitudes?

Satcom is not magic.

[klintE]

Originally Posted by NAROBS

You're having a giraffe ? Presumably crashed fully fuelled. Locals said they couldn't get near it for some time because of the conflagration. And the fire appears to have been hot enough to disappear any vestige of the alu/mag structure of the aircraft. What chance any plastic and resin parts in the digital recorders e.g. circuit boards and components.
More PR comfort food ?

But do you know BBoxes are certificated to withstand at least 1100 C deg over 30 minutes?
And as I mentioned boxes probably are buried (that's why they are not found yet) underground. It makes additional isolation layer.
Anyway, there is nothing to worry about a prori.
Almost every serious accident is with fire and boxes are unusable very rarely.

[dsky]

Originally Posted by ajamieson

Recorders were recovered from the Germanwings Airbus that was all but vapourised on a French mountainside.

Recovering the whole FDR/CVR is not important. What it is important is to recover the crash survivable memory units, which are on separate boxes, very resistant to shock, vibration, high temperatures (i.e. flames). They are based on solid state memory components. Even if these very sturdy units are damaged there is the option to open up the very chips and recover the silicon die that can be probed for data using special tools.

[PAXboy]

Global News (Canada) has video showing locals walking on the site of the wreckage.

This is Africa. You may ask them to work to Western rules but they will do what they feel is right. Also, the emergency staff who are first on site - what chance they will have been fully trained in protection of the scene? Not going to happen.

[Indelible Spirit]

“One high-ranking Boeing official said the company had decided against disclosing more details to cockpit crews due to concerns about inundating average pilots with too much information — and significantly more technical data — than they needed or could digest.”

So they:
1) Design an aircraft that has an inherent tendency to pitch up
2) Impliment an a system to persistently add control inputs during critical phases of flight
3) Do NOT disclose system description to pilots in FCOM

How about fundamental rules:
Understanding what automation systems do.
Control the automated systems according to strong pilot skills.

* MCAS may or may not have been a contributing factor in this tragedy