I think it is terribly important they raise the Titanic... er... AF447

As in the case of the Titanic, there is an experienced crew, following SOP, and then Bam!

The tendering process for the 3rd search is in the closing stages with an extensive team also working on a refined search area. Not much else to report I suspect until the contract is awarded and the vessels etc are underway.

Just the trace of an idea...

CVR/FDR, all well until they are located, recovered and in readable condition.
What we are looking essentially at is the location of the frame.

Relying on HF or satellite-based comms has too many limitations and drawbacks.

So, what about transmitting/broadcasting the information simply to other crafts in the "vicinity" ?
Vicinity has to be understood as 400 to 850km, being the respective line of sight distances from one plane at 30k ft to another at sea level (worst case), and two planes at 35k ft (best case).

Every craft (flying out of radar coverage that is) would have a simple and inexpensive transceiver and related antenna, VHF or UHF (the lower the best) with data storage capability. That memory would be fed in real time with position data, possibly also with some other critical data.
Transmission, continuous until "manual reset" by the cockpit, would be triggered (automatically) only in case of "abnormal/emergency" situation.

It would be received by all aircraft in the said vicinity, from where it either could be forwarded to their ACARS transmitter for forwarding, or simply stored and read upon arrival. Many scenarii are possible.
H/W cost per craft: 4 cifers.

@jakobos
Excuse me, but this suggestion in many forms has been raised and debated in this and other AF447 threads for some time.

It is doomed to fail, for one the infrastructure doesn't exist, and secondly there are some very lonely Oceanic routes out there where the chances of having other aircraft within the 'so-called' range would be minimal. The Buenos Aries (EZE) to Auckland (AKL) route is one that comes to mind - 5,600NM, and for 5,000NM of the track, the chances of having reciprocal or same direction traffic in range is basically zip/zero, i.e. the sole westbound aircraft becomes the sole eastbound service on the return leg.

mm43

The boxes would have to only listen say every 15 mins for a few seconds as the search vessel can carry a high powered transmitter and sensitive receiver which is operating continuously with a ping/listen cycle. if the CVR/FDR hears the ping during its listening period it immediately responds with its reply ping which is repeated for say a few minutes.

In this way, power consumption during idle periods would be minute; probably in the order of microamps, just powering a timer.

James

The CVR/FDR is a fortified box inside the frangible orange box you see on an intact airplane. The pinger, an afterthought, is bolted to the outside of the frangible box. There is no electrical nor direct mechanical connection between the pinger and the fortified box. Any improvement to the pinger would likely have to be done inside the fortified pinger.

GB

JamesCam,

I read you, but I'd almost say... don't bother.
Most "passive" equipment now lasts longer than the shelf life of the battery.
Look at your kitchen timer, or your watch.
The only time they drain the battery is when they go "beep"" for some reason, which uses a few hundred milliwatts rather than microwatts.

With current technology, a receiver that listens and only answers to an interrogator (rather than to every whale passing by) will, as I said, die only when the battery dies. Always assuming the battery is designed to continue functioning at the temperatures 4000m down.

Just thought of this while typing, actually :ugh:
What is the temperature 4000m down? And what does that do to the currently used batteries?

CJ

@ChristiaanJ
Around +1 °C
Operating temperature of Lithium batteries -55 to +130 °C (depending on what designed for), but suspect lower temperature will result in slightly lower voltage and current output.

mm43

Microphones are delicate things.
Would the proponents of such a system kindly propose a design for a suitably small, light and low-powered receiver transducer that could function reliably under a seabed pressure of a few tons per square inch?

Captains And Co Pilots
 

Can anyone tell me Air France's history with regard to reducing the number of captains on a long haul flight from two to one? Is this the case? And what about US carriers? BA?

For those who aren't up with underwater recovery ability, the recovery of the remains of AF-447, is most certainly within the realms of possibility.
Bluewater Recoveries have an outstanding record of shipwreck and treasure recovery - aircraft wreckage recovery is only a slight shift in their capabilities.
These people have engineered recovery vessels capable of locating and lifting 200 tons from 6000 metres .. and they have carried out projects whereby long-lost wrecks have been found, and large tonnages have been lifted from great depths in the ocean.
All the initial indications are, that the greatest depth that the remains of AF-447 are at, is around 3850 metres. It's more likely that the actual position is around 3250-3500 metres - quite within the abilities of the BR Company.

Admittedly, many shipwrecks left a decent paper trail to allow some narrowing of the search. A lot didn't, and they were still found by David Mearns and his skilled helpers (HMAS Sydney comes to mind).
AF-447 left some surface wreckage that helps pinpoint the area - Mearns and his associates have all the necessary equipment, to allow further target area narrowing, and searching with robot submarine vehicles at vast depths. All that's needed is the money.

This should be a French-Govt-initiated search, with additional financial assistance from other nations involved in pax losses. The amount required to find the important larger remnants of AF-447 appears to possibly be in the order of US$5-10M. This is piggy-bank money to Govts and nations, particularly when you see what they waste on other fruitless projects.

The Australian Federal Govt, in combination with Australian State Govts, easily found AU$4M to pay Mearns' company to find the Australian WW2 Hospital ship, the Centaur.
Mearns found the wreckage of the Centaur with ease - just as he found the wreck of the HMAS Sydney - a vessel whose location was argued and tossed about, for nearly 67 years. Many wild theories were bandied about as regards the loss and location of the HMAS Sydney, too.
I think I'd be pretty safe in saying, that if the funding was found for Mr Mearns and his operatives, they would relish the chance to find the remains of AF-447 and raise it.

This needs to be done, to put to bed, once and for all, the endless pontification, the endless rumours and finger pointing, and to define the precise reasons for the loss of AF-447. These Govts of the nations involved, as well as Air France, owe this much to those unfortunates who perished in what appears to have been believed to be (by aircraft design people) a nearly impossible event.

Bluewater Recoveries - Blue Water Recoveries are a deep sea shipwreck recovery company

Thanks, onetrack.

My first question would be "IS there a wreck"?

BWR has been working on shipwrecks. Now those are usually largely in one or two pieces, even if they're associated with a debris field - I expect all of us here are familiar with the Titanic as the classic and most-often described example.

What if there IS NO wreck, but only a widely dispersed debris field?

CJ

If there's no actual "wreck" as such, just a debris field, it might make things easier to find as a debris field is considerably larger than the craft. :ok:

Where it gives you problems is that you have more individual pieces to pick up and re-assemble to get to the initial cause.:(

I guess tha main thing is to have an active search under way, rather than sit on shore and speculate.

Flight data recovery working group
 

The BEA has formed an international working group to explore all kinds of ideas which would ensure better recovery of recorders and/or data during and after accident events. Most of what has been suggested here is being discussed.
There´s quite a lot more to read here in this technical report dated Dec 22:

http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flig...nal.report.pdf

Large masses of ferrous metal may be easier to detect than large masses of composites. But, if they detected wooden vessels with few if any cannons, the picture for AF447 looks nicer.

{^_^}

Thanks for the citation, Finn 47.

Impressive for their empirical approach, methodology and processes for evaluating technical feasibility, cost and applicability, as cited in the body of the document and the appendices. Also that this was accomplished in a couple month period.

Yes, there are eerie similarities between the two tragedy's. Captain Smith and crew were arrogant, speeding ahead into an ice field. They were overly reliant on modern technology and considered thier vessel unsinkable......and Captain Smith was asleep far below decks when the plane....er.....Titanic hit the ice berg....

:suspect:

...90 day FDR recommendation is confusing to me. If an A/C goes down in very deep water, would this increase the odds of retrival? On the other hand, it is probably a "cheap" mod that could be done "fast" on existing units.

I'm I correct in assuming that no one has ever tested FDR at the depth where AF447 is suspected to have gone down? ...pressures at those depths must be enormous.

@robertbartsch
Nearly 1 atmosphere for every 10 meters, e.g. 4,000m = 397.815atm

mm43

One one thing I've often wondered is why the various navies didn't get involved,
using their antisubmarine technology to triangulate the wreckage before the pinger stopped.

grumpyoldgeek:
Maybe they did . . .

@grumpyoldgeek / grizzled

The French Nuclear Attack Submarine "L'Emeraude" (Emerald) was involved in the Phase 1 search using its sophisticated acoustic detection system, which was fine tuned during the search for maximum gain at 37.5kHz using test data developed by retuning a similar detector fitted to another Rubic class sub in the Mediterranean. The detection range was then over 3,000m, but the depth that the sub operated at is not known - "classified?"

The US Navy, US Coastguard and Brazilian Navy were also involved using hardware deployed from the surface. This consequently involved the setting up of UTC (Underwater Traffic Control) to avoid any conflict, particularly with the sub.

mm43

Location of wreckage
 

Would it not be possible to add the GPS coordinates to the ACARS data stream?

It wouldn't appear to take up too much bandwidth.

mm43,
If your "3000m range" figures are roughly in the right ballpark, we're still knee-deep in the soft brown matter.

Add slant range.
Add the fact that the pinger may be over 3000m down, in silt.
Add the directional characteristics of the "acoustic detection system".
You could pass right "overhead", and still not hear it.

CJ

ChristiaanJ

Quote:

---

If your "3000m range" figures are roughly in the right ballpark, we're still knee-deep in the soft brown matter.

---

Agreed, except as has been pointed out previously, ducting is also possible due to inversions caused by salinity/temperature. Hence the call for the lower pinger frequency to mitigate some of the potential signal loss.

The BEA report,
When it comes to the directional characteristics of the acoustic detection system, I would be surprised if an x/y axial scanning method was not employed by the sub. Would leave it rather vulnerable, if that wasn't the case.

I don't think that a fuselage containing lots of composites within it is going to go to the bottom at such a speed that it is going to dig a hole and bury itself. No, more likely a very gentle bottom landing.

What is missing, is where the fuselage or parts of it landed on the surface before commencing their passage to the bottom!

mm43

mm43,
Apologies, I hadn't yet read the full BEA report.

Any news on the resume of the search?

It was scheduled to February.

An association representing families of victims of the crash of the Air France A330 from Paris and Rio has again denounced on Wednesday a "crisis of confidence" with the BEA deploring in particular the "lack of transparency."

A Vice-President of the association, John Clemens, lamented about the lack of information on the third phase of research at sea which was to begin in early February. "mid-December, the BEA had promised he would get the families to explain the startup of this new phase. Since, there is no news, radio silence.''

Keep in mind Lebanon
 

For those who may wonder how hard it is, keep in mind how long its taken to find the Ethiopon CVR's off Lebanon, and they had half an idea where that went down.

It seems the search will resume at the end of february:

Transport aérien - Reprise prochaine des recherches de l'épave du vol AF447 ::: AEROCONTACT

Here is an English translation of the story linked above:
PARIS, Feb 5 (Reuters) - The search for the wreckage of Air France Flight 447, which was 228 dead in sinking down into the Atlantic on 1 June 2009, will resume in the coming weeks with an international team.

Three vessels specialized in research into shallows very uneven, ranging up to 8,000 meters deep, will be sent on an area of about 1,500 km2 located offshore Brazil, at least ten times larger than that explored in June, at we learned a judicial source.

"Our goal is that research start at the end of February, confirmed on Friday a spokesman for the Office of Investigations and Analysis (BEA), the French agency in charge of administrative investigation, which n has still not made any final conclusions on the causes of the disaster.

The tender is not finalized and the final device is not official yet, "she said.

This will be an operation almost unprecedented in the history of aviation, "very heavy and very complex to rise," said the spokesman.

A working group composed of international experts was formed in October. Air France and Airbus have a budget of ten million euros but it could be far exceeded.

A police officer will be integrated into the device to ensure that the parts that are found are placed under seal.

Two investigating judges in Paris, Sylvie and Yann Zimmermann Daurelle, are charged with a criminal investigation into the accident for "involuntary homicide and injuries".

NOT YET CONCLUSION

Associations of families of victims, which include 72 French, have instituted civil and say they fear that they hide the truth if it proves troublesome for the French aircraft.

They bring into question the independence of BEA and feel uninformed.

Until now, only pieces of the aircraft, including its tail, were rescued at sea, and about fifty bodies. The remains were stored in a research center in Toulouse.

The BEA said in its interim reports that these factors do not suggest the cause of the collapse of the device.

However, Air France was replaced after the accident probes measure pitot speed produced by the French group Thales at the request of the pilots' unions.

The latter believe that freezing at high altitude, the pitot probes can transmit false information to the computer system of the aircraft.

However, the court considers any conclusion impossible without the discovery of new elements, particularly the "black boxes" of AF447, the recording flight data and cockpit voice drivers.

"Without the black boxes, all conclusions on the probes remain in the literature," said a judicial source interviewed by Reuters.

I suppose most people will get the essential from that computer translation.

One detail: "The remains were stored in a research center in Toulouse." The french word "débris" in the original just refers to the debris, or fragments, that have been recovered, not to human remains.

CJ

Reuters has an english short version for the same news:

Air France crash search to resume end February | Reuters

Crashed Ethiopian
 

They've got the FDR.

Black box from crashed Ethiopian jet is found 150ft under the sea - The Scotsman

Please see Ethiopian thread.

I know i'm not really supposed to be in this area as i'm not a professional but could someone tell me what the chances are of data being able to be recovered from the recorders if they have been in the sea that long, or is this irrelevant?

Also, what are the chances do you think as a Pilot or an Aviation Expert, Engineer, etc. of the recorders actually being found by search teams?

Modern flight data recorders use solid state storage for the data - think 'flash memory' chips.
Those are pretty sturdy, and will probably have survived even at the depths we're talking about, even if the "black box" itself is crushed or otherwise damaged.
It's been done, and there are a few specialised labs that can take this on.

Speaking as an engineer, I think all bets are off. It's still worth a try, in case some of the wreckage is still in one place. Otherwise, with the 'pingers' now silent, it'll be the proverbial needle in a haystack, or worse.

CJ

Black boxes may be superseded:
Aero-News Network: The Aviation and Aerospace World's Daily/Real-Time News and Information Service

Quote from the article linked in the previous post...
"Wi-SKY Inflight is engaged in deploying ground stations throughout North America and Europe to support the first phases of their air-to-ground network. Base stations are needed every 200 miles, which is about 125 to 150 stations in both North America and Europe".

Could somebody remind me how wide the Atlantic is, or how far AF447 was from land?

CJ

Not again, please! :ugh:
It's pointless putting substitute data provision where is not needed (FDR lands on the ground), instead of where it is needed (FDR falls into the ocean).