You're missing a blindingly obvious point.
FDRs, QARs and CVRs are basically ARINC standard, so as long as they are intact, there are no major problems in connecting to them and doing a read-out.

But once the box is smashed up sufficiently for one to have to go inside, "all bets are off".

I take it you've never seen what avionics boxes look like after a crash.... I have.

CJ

ChristiaanJ, I suggest you have a closer look to the BEA website where they are proud to announce their capabilities

The Wall Street Journal is reporting 'good news' in recovering information . . .


Air NZ black boxes uncover 'useful info'

Two black boxes from the Air New Zealand Airbus which crashed off the French coast in November have given investigators some useful information.

The Wall Street Journal reported investigators got some good news this week when the manufacturer of the aircraft's data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, known as the black boxes, retrieved useful data.

Until now investigators had been stymied in their search for clues to what made the three-year-old, 150-seat Airbus A320 crash into the sea near Perpignan, off the southern coast of France on November 28.

There was no mayday call from the two German pilots doing the assessment flight before the aircraft was returned to Air New Zealand after being leased to the German company XL Airways.

Both pilots and five New Zealanders on board were killed. The bodies of six victims had been recovered but one was still missing.

Most of the wreckage still lay in about 40 metres of water and New Zealand authorities said earlier this week if enough useful information was retrieved from the black boxes to determine the cause of the crash, French authorities may leave most of the wreckage where it lay.

The Wall Street Journal said the crash inquiry was being closely watched by the global aviation community because the twin-engine A320 was a workhorse of airlines around the globe.

ChristiaanJ, my apologies if I wasn't clear. By posting the link I was not implying that something nefarious is occurring regarding this accident.
Only was trying to dispel the myth that accessing and working with these recorders is a daily occurrence, and not really a black art performed by a small handful of scientists. :)

Due to extensive damage to the boxes, the only way to gain access to the data on the recorders in this case was to download it from the individual memory chips. That is a process that no investigating body, including the mighty NTSB, can do on their own. That is the one and only reason that the recorders were sent to Honeywell, where they have the necessary tools and expertise.

Do you have any source for this ? As far I have been reading various official accounts there was never a mention as of why the recorders where not readable (although there was report that the actual casing of the FDR and CVR was recovered fairly intact).

There are generally two reasons for recorders to be damaged; severe inertial/impact forces or post crash fire. I'm pretty sure that we can rule out fire here.

Last atakcs' post reminds me of "enlightened" passengers' question: "If the black boxes are made of crash-proof material, why then the all aeroplane is made of the same material to make the crashes survivable?" This (and number of people killed in road accidents) shows that there are a lot of folks out there unable to grasp folowing concepts: 1) inertia 2) kinetic energy effects (e.g. damage to property and bodily harm) are not proportional to speed but to speed squared.

Ever since two days after the crash, there was not one new bit of reliable and useful information about the accident. However, the little that is known makes simple crosswired stick extremely unlikely because 1) it is mandatory to check that ECAM indication of the movement of the flight controls corresponds with sidestick deflection before every normal flight, let alone post-maintenance test flight 2) it is unlikely that handling of the aeroplane would be checked from one side only during test flight 3) even if at 3500 ft there was first handover of the controls, crosswired sidestick doesn't make A320 leave normal law, there would be plenty of altitude to recover, even if pitch/bank limits were reached.

New theory, ore even better, new facts, please.

Glad to hear :) it but I did not hint to anything except that I find odd that at no point there was any mention as of the actual difficulty presented with those data recorders. The only information we had is that they where recovered fairly intact. I would add that from my uninformed position this accident did not present exceptional circumstances that would obviously imply potential problems with the FDR/CVR survivability. But at this stage anything is possible... let's wait !

Could the following be of interest? :
FR Doc E8-29182

You did not read my precedent post J.O., BEA has all that expertise.


And a black box can take a LOT !

http://i65.servimg.com/u/f65/11/75/17/84/nz_01710.gif
http://i65.servimg.com/u/f65/11/75/17/84/nz_01810.gif

"BEA has all that expertise"
 

Not according to the BEA, they don't. They're saying that only Honeywell has the means to extract the data:

"Après la récupération des enregistreurs de vol, il était apparu que les données susceptibles d'avoir été enregistrées ne pourraient être extraites qu'en utilisant des moyens disponibles uniquement chez Honeywell, constructeur de ces enregistreurs, à Seattle (Etats-Unis)."
(BEA statement, 8 January)

That's what they write on January 8, but then how do we call what's on their website ... publicité mensongère ?

If you read the BEA website a bit more carefully, you'll see the article mostly deals with non-FDR type avionics, which nowadays often also contains non-volatile memory (minor bludner in the article which mention "mémoire volatile").
They have equipment that can get at the contents of individual chips. (the manufacturer would not have such equipment, since they would have no need for it).
Once they actually get the raw bits and bytes, they work very closely with the manufacturer to actually decode and analyse the data.

md80fanatic posted a link to the Honeywell "Recorder Test and Ground Support Equipment (GSE)" and said "This device reads all Honeywell solid state recorders. I would bet other manufacturers offer similar data access devices for airlines to use."
Sure. It's a big laptop with extra interface boards.
It's made to talk to an intact FDR.....
I've designed and developed very similar equipment (used for FDR development and acceptance testing), so I know what's in it.

CJ

meanwhile the delayed preliminary is due out today or so, no?

ChristiaanJ, I take your point.

Nevertheless, it was not a big deal to get those data, Seattle got them in a few days.

Now, who is going to believe that Airbus has been patiently waiting for the French criminal investigation to give their OK to have a chance to know what happened ?
Do you imagine if tomorrow morning, a NWA 320 crash out of Minneapolis ... ?

Things don't add up here, but as seen on other threads, people don't question.

Well, yes.
From snippets here and there, it would seem the memory boards were still intact. Since it was Honeywell who manufactured them, they would be the people with all the breakouts and test equipment right there on the lab shelves, to test and read out those exact boards.
So in my opinion, the BEA made the right decision not to barge in where even engineers fear to tread (to coin a phrase...).

Patiently, probably not....
But they have enough unforunate experiences with French "criminal investigations" (judicial enquiries) involving flight recorders (with Habsheim and St. Odile at the head of the list), that they'd rather wait a few days until heads had cleared after the Xmas and New Year holidays, instead of trying to apply pressure, which wouldn't have solved anything anyway.

"The mills of French judicial enquiries (not necessarily criminal) tend to grind extremely slowly".

I don't know if you follow French news, but Sarkozy has just announced he wants to get rid of the "juge d'instruction", and replace her/him by a "juge de l'instruction". You have to know French to get the point, but the essential difference is that the "juge" will no longer be the "omnipotent pacha" during the enquiry ("instruction") but simply one of the representatives of the judicial system.

CJ

It's all well and good to say that but when it comes to retrieving data it should be done as expeditiously as possible. If a system, like this French criminal investigation one, slows that process up, then we should demand that the system is changed. I know that is a bit idealistic but as confiture said then we would all be crying out how silly it was to let the system muck around with such valuable information. To delay the extraction of potentially life saving data is bordering on criminal itself.

Sometimes a CVR has to be taken to the manufacturer to get the data as in this case.

"While attempting to download the information from the CVR, it was found that the recorded
data had been erased. The CVR was taken to the manufacturer’s facility in Seattle and the data
was successfully recovered. The CVR showed that 31 seconds before the end of the recording
the CVR was powered down; the time recorded on the CVR from the aircraft UTC clock was
21:33:39. The CVR was then powered up again at 21:49:36, erased twice and then powered down
six seconds after the second erase command was completed."

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-re...8/a04o0188.pdf

So for anyone who thinks erasing a CVR might get rid of the evidence, it is still retrievable.

I thought that the discussion in this thread was about the DFDR and not the CVR.

Also I would rather work on recovering an erased CVR than one that has been written over with conversations.

CJ:

You need to make up your mind. In post # 403, you said, Then in post # 406, you said, So, which is it? Do Honeywell have the expertise, or don't they? You just can't help looking for conspiracies where none exist. After dozens of posts with nothing even remotely proved, don't you think it's time to move on?