still no news on the CVR search?

Dear EXCRABgg
Experience - oh dear. What a misused word I find. I knew a man who retired from the civil service and he was described as a man who had 35 years experience. A soft voice at the back said " He came to work on the first day, and repeated it 10,000 times but never improved." That is the case in so may reports on pilot experience levels. USA 1500 hours experience before CPL. Europe 180. But if the 1500 was crop spraying or "hour building" the 180 at Oxford/Jerez ATO would be more valuable. "The captain had 10k hours before the crash. " Then we find he was in the Soviet Air Force for much of that time doing great things with solo fighter jets which hardly equips you to fly a civil airliner with much use of a level CRM playing field. And so on......... Just at thought that is often missed.

Since the ULB ( of the CVR ) was found, one would guess that the CVR must be around the same area from where the ULB was found.

retired guy

Well said. Could not agree more. :D

It will be in the last place they look ...

The crash site is open ocean and not that shallow, so it may be challenging just to relocate the exact spot where the other bits were recovered. Plus it is a costly exercise, which is surely orphaned in the system.
One wonders whether a reward, say $1MM, would encourage the searchers.

Many a plane parked on a remote tarmac will then be missing its CVR

Hahahaha! Yes indeed. One of the first lessons I learned as a naive newcomer to accident investigation in the developing world: Don't offer a reward. For anything. I won't tell the tale here -- and lomapaseo, you likely know the story anyway.

Sigh... I think I understand exactly what you mean.
Even though faking the cockpit audio would not be easy, any such 'discovery' would certainly throw another spanner into the process.
Probably best to keep on searching.

"The crash site is open ocean"

I'd say open sea rather than ocean and not that far from either land or islands. It isn't that deep. I know the area reasonably well and have dived on some of the islands nearby. The big problem is that the whole area is covered in recently laid down mud from all the rivers in N Java - no hard bottom. Probably the best way would be a very high-res magnetometer survey - but the CVR is tiny in proportion to the volume of the area it could be in

Hi Asturias. I think we are talking about the CVR memory card - the box was found - is that correct? If its a memory card buried in deep mud it going to be some challenge all right.

retired guy

"I think we are talking about the CVR memory card - the box was found - is that correct? If its a memory card buried in deep mud it going to be some challenge all right."

If by "the box" you mean the stainless steel/titanium container that protects the memory modules, then I haven't seen any reports saying that has been found.

Can you post a pic with a relative scale of what they are looking for?

This is the FA2100 recorder family (CVR is the one in the background):

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....608e9ba914.jpg

Width of the FDR and CVR is 5.0 inches, so the diameter of the cylindrical memory module shell is just a tad less than that.

DaveReidUK posted an image of an intact CVR (& FDR) in P#696

From the following article:Below is an image of one of two CVR sub-components that have been recovered to date. The other piece recovered is the ULB - the polished horizontal cylindrical object mounted in brackets projecting from the side of the Crash Survivable Memory Unit in DaveReidUK's post.

As can been seen below, the CSMU (which in P#681 I suggested is slightly smaller than a stainless steel 1L mini sauce pan that you can probably find any reasonably discerning cook's kitchen cupboard) has been sheared off the top of the CVR housing.

Photo credit: Antara/Muhammad Adimaja

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f9618c645a.jpg

Sorry I'm still confused by the great pix. I don't want to know what has been found I would like a scaled view of what they are still looking for. An artist rendition or photoshop overlay would help

I've never watched one being opened up, all I did was listen to the recordings

If it helps, this is my attempt at a not-actually-Photoshop overlay:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....03a0d13471.jpg

For rough scale use the hand, or other posters' suggestions of !L saucepan or just under 5in diameter.

There are repeated posts about looking for "memory card" (or similar) - those are just misleading. If the CSMU has worked as designed then the memory cards will still be sealed inside it, it is finding the unit now it is separated from the chassis and ULB that is the problem. I've never handled one either, so I don't know how much they weigh, but given what they are specified to withstand they won't be exactly light (1kg or slightly more maybe?) - gut feeling says a 1kg round projectile may penetrate whatever it lands on a lot further than that flat chassis.

It seems like a reasonably safe assumption that whatever force ripped the CSMU off the chassis didn't drop to zero at the moment of separation.

Many Thanks !!! .

being circular in shape helps even if torn off the base. It is probable that a major impact was against the round secion and reacted by the base which was recovered. I would consider it likely that a major aircraft structure hit it when it entered the water and that the cylinder and major aircraft structure were in close proximity together on the bottom. Might even be embedded into each other.

More likely that its tangled in something than buried in mud

Did they bring up all the big pieces that could be wrapped around this cylinder? How about clothing and carpets as well?

grizz I spent sometime going through stuff like this looking for a missing scavenge pump about half its size

Here is a link to a document with photos: pgs 3-4 show extraction of circuit boards containing memory chips from the CMSU of a Honeywell 6022 CVR.

The physical outer shape of the 6022's CMSU is somewhat different, but it has similar "circuit boards encapsulated within a thermal barrier substance housed inside a strong enclosure" construction.