Flight Radar shows around 13,000 tops at any one time, and that would reduce if only airline flights were included.

Odd that the airlines can offer internet to all on board (free in some cases) but there isn't enough economical bandwidth for streaming FDR...

Cap Bloggs, my figure of 100,000 refers the number of flights each day and was a bit misleading in context. Cost of Internet over SATCOM was covered, however.

The important figure is of course the number of qualifying airframes and the length of time each of those qualifying airframes are airborne outside of line-of-sight of VHF/VDL receivers. So if only airframes capable of carrying more than say 30 pax that were outside line-of-sight of VDL receivers were included the required bandwidth would be a lot less. This is still possibly too expensive with the current bandwidths and comms, but I suspect that within a few years that will no longer be the case as bandwidths and capacity are increasing all the time.
A more difficult engineering issue is how to maintain a satcom link from an aircraft that has electrics problems or is in unusual positions due to loss of control. Those requirements would seem to rule out use of geostationary satellites and indicate what would be needed would be a connection oriented 'always on' link with low power requirements with one or more omnidirectional antennae on the aircraft.

EgyptAir wreckage found in Mediterranean
 

The official Egyptian announcement - from around 2055 hrs Pprune time:

John Lethbridge; the vessel contracted by the Egyptian government to join the search efforts for the data recorders and the wreckage of the doomed A320; had identified several main locations of the wreckage, accordingly the first images of the wreckage were provided to the investigation committee. Based on the wreckage locations; The search team and investigators onboard of the vessel will draw a map for the wreckage distribution spots. Immediately a meeting was held between the investigation committee members to study thoroughly the progressive actions taken during the past period and in order to plan how to best handle the wreckage in the coming period. It is worth mentioning that the debris retrieved earlier are still in possession of the forensic evidences under supervision of the criminal prosecution; to carry out standard procedures then it will be handed to the technical investigation committee after concluding such procedures.

Crete is 160ml long by 38ml wide so that debris patch centre looks to ey approximatley 55ml from LKP and in a direction that gives credence to the Greek radar report diag in post 133

After earlier Egyptian denial, Greek (and British, from Cyprus) radar corroborated
 

Egyptian Civil Aviation authorities' statement:

"The Egyptian Armed Forces Investigation Committee received Radar images of the A320 route before its crash; which identified that the aircraft swerved to the left then turned right for a full circle. This comes in accordance with the British and Greek radar images"

http://www.civilaviation.gov.eg/News...s_14_6_16.html

Just to put a dot on an 'i' and for future discussions and calculations :-)

The find of the wreck was published yesterday. Which was June 15th and Day 28. Close to the 30 days.
Suitably equipped detection ships sail at approximately 10-12 knots and may require a port visit before proceeding to the area.
The BBC quotes 'experts' who say that the box pingers were expected to stop at the 24th of June. Which would have been Day 37.

I am a little uncertain about the details. Did the location come from the reception of the FDR signal, or from other search/detection means?

The link from Dr Bru is dated 13 Jun, but maybe that is Google translate having trouble with Arabic, since search is rendered suche and it was really 15 June.

Well done to those folks for their efforts! :ok:

I second Lonewolf's comment.


Am I correct in thinking no terrorist organisation has so far claimed responsibility for the crash

Cockpit voice recorder found, reports the BBC.

No details, but this link should update as more information emerges.

EgyptAir plane's voice recorder found - BBC News

CVR Found - Damaged
 

From CNN:

Seems like some quick work.

InvestigationProgress Report (9) by the Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee

Cairo,16th of June 2016

John Lethbridge, the vessel contracted by the Egyptian Govt; to join the search for the wreckage of the A320 that was downed in the Mediterranean last month; had found the CVR. The CVR was retrieved in several stages as it was damaged but the vessel equipment managed to pick up the memory unit; which is considered as the most important part of the above-mentioned recorder. The General Prosecution was then notified and accordingly issued its decision to hand it over to the technical investigation committee to carry out analysis and unload the voice conversations. Transfer process of the CVR from the vessel to Alexandria is under process then it will be received by members from the general prosecution and the investigation committee.

(Note: A0283 - text unchanged apart from shortening to CVR - what they probably mean is that the CVR was in 3-4 pieces ('tray', 'power', memory module component, 'pinger') and that they have recovered the component containing the memory module. If the damage is not too much then they will read it in Cairo, if too much then the module will be sent to the manufacturer of the CVR.)

CVR Damaged?

Will not be known until unit examined, unless there is obvious visual damage such as protective case disintegration or crushing beyond tolerances.

Here are the crashworthiness standards required, may be old but any revisions would be of higher tolerances.

» an impact producing a 3,400-g deceleration for 6.5 milliseconds (equivalent to an impact velocity of 270 knots and a deceleration or crushing distance of 45 cm)
» a penetration force produced by a 227 kilograms (500 pounds) weight which is dropped from a height of 3 metres (10 feet)
» a static crush force of 22.25 kN (5,000 pounds) applied continuously for five minutes
» a fire of 1,100 degrees Celsius for 60 minutes.

The Germanwings A320 hit mountainous terrain at 370 kts and the CVR, despite sustaining damage was still readable.

French BEA communiqué today: CVR retrieved, BEA inspector dispatched to Cairo
 

BEA is announcing that one of their inspectors is moving to Cairo on 17 June to bring in BEA's expertise in the reading out of the CVR.

"Accident de l'Airbus A320, immatriculé SU-GCC et exploité par Egyptair, survenu le 19/05/2016 au large des côtes égyptiennes [Enquête menée par AIB / Egypte] - information du 16/06/2016 16H30

Les autorités égyptiennes ont publié le 16/06/16 un point de situation indiquant la découverte et la remontée de l'enregistreur de vol phonique (CVR - Cockpit Voice Recorder). Un enquêteur du BEA se rendra au Caire le 17/06/16 afin d'apporter notre expertise technique à la lecture de l'enregistreur.

Point de situation n° 9 publié par les autorités égyptiennes :

"Cairo, 16th of June 2016

John Lethbridge, the vessel contracted by the Egyptian Government; to join the search for the wreckage of the A320 that was downed in the Mediterranean last month; had found the Cockpit voice recorder.

The Cockpit voice recorder was retrieved in several stages as it was damaged but the vessel equipment managed to pick up the memory unit; which is considered as the most important part of the above-mentioned recorder.

The General prosecution was then notified and accordingly issued its decision to hand it over to the technical investigation committee to carry out analysis and unload the voice conversations.

Transfer process of the Cockpit voice recorder from the vessel to Alexandria is under process then it will be received by members from the general prosecution and the investigation committee.""

https://www.bea.aero/index.php?id=11...communique=278

Astronautics EFB
 

Does anyone know if this particular aircraft was modified for the L2 Astronautics EFB?

What relevance would it have here?

EFB fire in the flightdeck?

FDR now found also, according to BBC

link: EgyptAir crash: Second black box 'recovered' - BBC News

Official Egyptian update (10)
Cairo,17th of June 2016

After the sucess in retrieving the CVR of the doomed A320; John Lethbridge, the vessel contracted by the Egyptian Government; has managed to retrieve the second black box which is the FDR. The FDR was also retrieved in several stages but the vessel equipment managed to pick up the memory unit; which is considered as the most important part of the above-mentioned recorder. Immediately the General Prosecution was notified that the second data recorder was also found and accordingly issued its decision to hand over the 2 data recorders to the technical investigation committee to carry out analysis and unload the voice conversations. Transfer process of the 2 data recorders from the vessel to Alexandria is under process; which will be received by members from the General Prosecution and the Investigation Committee.17/06/2016

Astronautics
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Almostfamous
Does anyone know if this particular aircraft was modified for the L2 Astronautics EFB?

What relevance would it have here?

A WAG of sorts:

https://www.federalregister.gov/arti...ctronic-flight

"These special conditions are issued for the Airbus A318, A319, A320, and A321 series airplanes. These airplanes, as modified by L2 Consulting Services, will have a novel or unusual design feature associated with Astronautics electronic flight bags which use lithium battery technology. The applicable airworthiness regulations do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards for this design feature. These special conditions contain the additional safety standards that the Administrator considers necessary to establish a level of safety equivalent to that established by the existing airworthiness standards."

What is the significance of the CVR and FDR being recovered in parts, rather than whole?
Is this an artifact of extracting it from a deformed structure?
Is it a byproduct of the difficulty of retrieving things in 10K feet of water?
Does it suggest a design limit being overcome?
Does it point to a very high speed impact?
These are fairly rugged pieces of equipment meant to withstand a crash intact. As a point of comparison, the AF 447 CVR was more or less intact, albeit somewhat bent, when recovered.

@ Lonewolf_50 In recent times i have not seen an accident where there was so little information in the public domain.

Keeping that in mind - we have read that a US vessel has recovered '100' small pieces. What the Egyptian authorities have shown was all 'light stuff' which was seriously bent and torn. The same impression exists about parts we usually not post about.

There is not a single report or remark about larger components having been recovered, like the 'usual' vertical tail and some larger flight control surface parts.

Surface vessels have been involved only a very short time. There is no evidence in the public domain showing many vessels searching on the surface. The surface ships that stayed longer hardly moved about. Which suggests a rather complete plane going down.

Authorities have reported multiple debris area's subsea. Which means the plane has at least broken up after impacting the surface.We have no numbers of the dimensions of the area, but know depth is around 2,500 m so about 7,500ft. That can explain part of the spread.

Based on this scant information you would expect a high speed and rather vertical final impact. The speed complying with the fpm estimates based on Greek information. But does not immediately explain a vertical impact.

CVFDR recovery

I don't have all the details about the location of the CVFDR, and water depth. Seems to be quite a challenge to recover this equipment in a wide area! I heard the recovery was due to a smart technology using 4 buoys deployed in the search area.
Video on the recovery process:
Video - Egyptair black box: signal detected by French Navy - Aviation events - Aeronewstv
Video - Egyptair black box: signal detected by French Navy - Aviation events - Aeronewstv
And the company who designed this unique technology
Underwater Detection Systems DETECTOR | ALSEAMAR

Congratulations to the teams who did a great job!

Precision of the next steps in the investigation
 

The French BEA update, quoting the Egypt Civil Aviation authority, following the recovery of both CVR and FDR:

"Accident de l'Airbus A320, immatriculé SU-GCC et exploité par Egyptair, survenu le 19/05/2016 au large des côtes égyptiennes [Enquête menée par AIB / Egypte] - information du 17/06/16 16H30
Les autorités égyptiennes ont publié le 17/06/16 à 16H30 un nouveau point de situation précisant les prochaines étapes de l'enquête de sécurité suite à la récupération des deux enregistreurs de vols (FDR & CVR).

Point de situation n° 11 publié par les autorités égyptiennes :


"Cairo, 17th of June 2016

The Technical Investigation committee for the A320 downed in the Mediterranean mid of last month; has received the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) from the general prosecution; after being retrieved from the aircraft wreckage location.
The two data recorders will be handed over to the Central Department for Aircraft Accident at the Ministry of Civil Aviation to start analysing them in order to unload their data.
The analysis of data may take several weeks; if the memory units at both recorders are in good condition; then the unloading process will start right away at the labs of the Central Department for Aircraft Investigation. Whereas if there is a minor damage at both or either of them; the damage will be repaired locally; but if the damage is major ; then the repair process will be conducted abroad under the supervision of the Investigation Committee.
It is worth mentioning that the technical investigation for the accident does not end by extracting data from the retrieved recorders; which is considered of a major importance but still act as part of the exclusive investigation process.""

I'd be very surprised if the recorders don't end up being taken to Paris (or even Farnborough) for analysis.

Photos of both recorders containers of memory units
 

http://www.civilaviation.gov.eg/News...r/pic%2012.jpg
http://www.civilaviation.gov.eg/News...r/pic%2011.jpg

Photos are low quality... But seems there is no visible deformation. Which, together with the little information we have, suggests the containers were ripped partially or whole from their mountings.

But were they ripped from structure to recover them instead of during the crash ??

Very very little to go on. But what is reported is that they had to do a recovery in steps. And as the result of the steps could only recover the memory module containers. And we see that the containers are not really deformed. And have examples of failure mechanisms of earlier deep water crashes.

My impression, no more than that, is that at the time of the crash the containers came loose partial or whole from their mounting on the ' tray' of the recorders. And that they were partially connected and covered to and by other debris. Other debris being the mounting frame of the recorders and surrounding structure. Which required cutting that loose and away. Which may have caused part of the seemingly superficial scraping on the containers. This might suggest a fast entry.

If the containers had remained attached, you would expect more denting.

Honeywell CVR in front of the FDR.


http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...r_2864202k.jpg

Does anyone know whether the Egyptians have the equipment to read out the recorders or do they have to send them to France?

From the last Egyptian press release (see above)

"In recent times i have not seen an accident where there was so little information in the public domain"

yeah - it's marvellous - it's cut the insane rumours by a factor of 100 - including on here

Scenario option without CVR and FDR data
 

An accident is a chain of events. The recorders may or may not be readable, or readable but not useful. Use Occam to reduce the number of assumptions based on information provided by the various authorities and confirmed by the Egyptian lead.

A. Plane in normal cruise on normal full auto.
B. There may or may not have been events causing smell, smoke, or even fire.
C. But alarms are activated, messages generated, and messages buffered and then transmitted over Acars.
D. The pilots follow procedure and turn off the airway and start a descent. They dial this in on the autopilot. And select a heading easterly because traffic is allways no or low on that side of the airway.
E. To prevent going away too far from the airway, and following procedure, they decide to go on manual. They then start turning. Why they turned in the selected direction is not known.
F. It is not clear of the local significant headwind/tailwind plays a role, but,
G. They quickly lose control and enter a downward spiral.
H. Passing around the expected 10,000 ft the plane disappears from radar.
I. And probably impacts at a relatively steep angle.

@aterp... The Egyptians have a lab that can read the memories. But significantly damaged recorders will go the manufacturers as usual. And third parties, like BEA, will be present as usual during the reading.

@heathrow... In a number of accident cases the reports provided very little. The first to suffer is factual data (like CVR data in the AirAsia case recently and proper FDR data in another case). The second is the extent and quality of the analysis.
It is all about publicly sharing data and lessons learned that improves safety. That some parts of the public may have 'sensational' interests is the price you have to pay.

Suggest you add a caveat to clearly identify what is speculation, since some of your steps are based on inference / deduction from the sparse facts available. At least the parts I marked in red, perhaps more.

Lonewolf 50

Agree with your sentiment.

I don't see the value in guessing at possible links in a causal chain unless one is prepared to suggest a viable action to prevent future accidents. In the proposed chain by A0283 there is nothing offered to be actioned against and we are still awaiting such facts.

The media are reporting an unnamed Egyptian source as saying that the FDR and CVR have suffered unspecified but "extensive" damage which will hamper the analysis process. It's not clear whether that's just a reference to their physical state, as per the previously published photos, or to the results of initial efforts to retrieve the data.

Crashed Egyptair plane's black boxes 'extensively damaged' - ITV News

Such news is probably PR, as in Egypt paving the way to a "politically acceptable reason" to send the recorders abroad for reading.

@Lonewolf50 - To try to answer your question.

I agree with 'sparse'. The title of my post is ‘a possible scenario’, which means there are more. We do not know which one fits best. And in some cases we will never know. Never know because the investigation does not provide a conclusive answer. Or never know because the answers (facts, analysis, CVR transcript, etc) are not made available to the public and professional domains.
It surprises me that a number of people keep repeating that 'the investigation will provide 'all' the answers', experience shows that this is not true, not all investigations deliver a "US NTSB Docket", and a report is only the start of a change process.

People have different opinions on the value of discussing scenario’s. Might require another thread to discuss that properly.

On the ‘{lines marked red}’ by Lonewolf 50:

{They dial this in on the autopilot} ... Greek authorities published a summary of the flightpath. Later confirmed by the Egyptians. From cruise, started with turn left.Suggesting a 90 degrees and then straight eastward. My impression, indicating a change over from “A/P Managed” to “A/P Selected HDG ”. Not clear to me from the Greek text if this was accompanied by an immediate descent. If so, there may have been added an “A/P Selected ALT ”.

{They decide to go on manual} ... Same source, which describes the turns and fast descent.And the absence of a ‘managed spiral function’ . Which means a pilot (or aircraft) induced start of manual operation.

{They quickly lose control and enter a downward spiral} ... Same source. And a rate of descent that we find in other LOC accidents.

{And probably impacts at a relatively steep angle} ... Circumstantial. No information on the last 10,000ft. The lightweight items that were recovered were all torn and ripped. Which was different from other accidents where there were similar rates of descent but with a rather ‘flat’ impact. No mention of larger parts that could have indicated a late recovery.

Sorry for the long post.