EgyptAir flight MS804 disappears from radar between Paris and Cairo

[casper]

Closing in on Egypt Air 'black boxes'
"French investigators think they have heard locator-beacon signals from at least one of the "black box" flight recorders, and now salvage experts are heading to the site to take a closer look."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36481749

 

[Eulenspiegel]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36543969

Apparently, the wreckage has been found. Although, given the history of various contradictory claims given until now, it remains it be seen if this wreckage actually belongs to the Flight MS804...

 

[angelburst29]

Search vessel John Lethbridge of the Deep Ocean Search company has found and recovered a voice recorder from the EgyptAir A320 Plane, that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea in May, Egyptian aircraft accident investigation committee said Thursday.

Search Vessel Finds Voice Recorder From Crashed EgyptAir Plane
http://sputniknews.com/world/20160616/1041455696/crash-egyptair-recorder.html

According to the statement, the voice recorder was delivered to Alexandria, where it will be examined by investigation committee's members.

"The recorder was recovered at several stages, as it has been damaged and broken up into several parts. Using the ship's equipment, the part, that contained the device's hard drive, which is the most important part in the recorder, was recovered," the statement said.

On May 19, the EgyptAir Airbus A320 plane disappeared from radar screens over the Mediterranean Sea, 10 miles into Egyptian airspace. The plane was headed from Paris to Cairo.

Egyptian Minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathi later confirmed that some debris from the plane and remains had been recovered. The search operation is still underway and involves the naval and air forces of Egypt, France, Greece and the United States.

 

[latulipenoire]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36543969

Apparently, the wreckage has been found. Although, given the history of various contradictory claims given until now, it remains it be seen if this wreckage actually belongs to the Flight MS804...

Yes, after all those claims it's difficult to take the news at face value, though it now seems that they really found the wreckage, plus one of the plane recorders.

Search vessel John Lethbridge of the Deep Ocean Search company has found and recovered a voice recorder from the EgyptAir A320 Plane, that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea in May, Egyptian aircraft accident investigation committee said Thursday.

Search Vessel Finds Voice Recorder From Crashed EgyptAir Plane
http://sputniknews.com/world/20160616/1041455696/crash-egyptair-recorder.html

According to the statement, the voice recorder was delivered to Alexandria, where it will be examined by investigation committee's members.

"The recorder was recovered at several stages, as it has been damaged and broken up into several parts. Using the ship's equipment, the part, that contained the device's hard drive, which is the most important part in the recorder, was recovered," the statement said.

On May 19, the EgyptAir Airbus A320 plane disappeared from radar screens over the Mediterranean Sea, 10 miles into Egyptian airspace. The plane was headed from Paris to Cairo.

Egyptian Minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathi later confirmed that some debris from the plane and remains had been recovered. The search operation is still underway and involves the naval and air forces of Egypt, France, Greece and the United States.

After reading the news coverage by BBC (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36551464), I discovered that there are two types of recorders carried by airplanes:

The cockpit voice recorder should allow investigators to hear what the pilot and co-pilot were saying to each other, plus any alarms in the background.
If the flight data recorder is recovered, it should show what the plane's computers were recording at the time.
Experts have warned that signals emitted by the data recorder are expected to expire by 24 June.

They haven't yet disclosed which of the two was found.

 

[angelburst29]

Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said that flight data recorder from EgyptAir's flight MS804, which crashed en route from Paris to Cairo on May 19, has been recovered.

Investigators Find Flight Data Recorder From EgyptAir Flight MS804
http://sputniknews.com/world/20160617/1041502563/egyptair-ms804-flight-data-recorder.html

The flight data recorder from EgyptAir's flight MS804, which crashed en route from Paris to Cairo on May 19, has been recovered, the Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said Friday.

"After the success in retrieving the cockpit voice recorder of the doomed A320; John Lethbridge, the vessel contracted by the Egyptian Government; has managed to retrieve the second black box which is the flight data recorder," the committee said in a progress report.

The two black boxes are being transported to Alexandria, where they will be handed over to the investigation committee and the general prosecution.

 

[angelburst29]

Egypt has asked France to assist in the repair of memory units from black boxes retrieved after EgyptAir’s A320 crashed en route to Cairo in May.

France to Attempt Repair of Damaged EgyptAir Flight Recorders
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160624/1041852734/france-repair-egyptair-black-boxes.html

On Thursday an Egyptian investigation committee announced that experts from the French air safety agency will clean the memory cards from the Airbus’s flight recorders of salt deposits that are impeding the extraction of data. The chips will be delivered to France next week.

Once the flight recorders are repaired they will be returned to Cairo for analysis, which, the committee estimates, could take several weeks.

The two black boxes were retrieved from the bottom of the Mediterranean on June 17, at a depth of some 9000 feet. Despite that they were heavily damaged, experts believe they can be repaired and provide critical information on the last minutes of the flight.

Initially, the Egyptian investigators attempted to copy data from the devices, removing the memory chips from the black boxes and drying them at the Egypt Armed Forces Technical Research Center. That process was unsuccessful.

Very little debris from the crash has been found. The Egyptian team said that a specialist ship is now trying to map the wreckage of the jet, which is believed to have crashed in one of the deepest areas of the Mediterranean.

Once the crash site is determined, Egyptian investigators state, French forensics experts will be brought in to help retrieve the bodies of passengers and crew. Currently, only a few body parts have been found.

The EgyptAir Airbus A320 passenger jet, en route from Paris to Cairo, disappeared from radar on May 19. Later, debris from the plane was found off the Greek island of Crete, in the Mediterranean. All 66 people on board are presumed dead. The search operation is ongoing.

 

[Joe]

Egypt has asked France to assist in the repair of memory units from black boxes retrieved after EgyptAir’s A320 crashed en route to Cairo in May.

France to Attempt Repair of Damaged EgyptAir Flight Recorders
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160624/1041852734/france-repair-egyptair-black-boxes.html

Yep, the whole thing stinks

Initial attempts to download information from the flight data and voice recorders of an EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean last month have failed, and key parts of the recorders are being sent to France for repairs, according to Egyptian and US officials.

The “electronic boards” of the recorders will be flown next week to the offices of the French aviation accident investigation bureau near Paris, authorities said. After the boards are repaired and salt removed, they will be sent back to Cairo for data analysis, Egypt’s investigation committee said in a statement late on Thursday.

And still, not a single body, not a single decent size piece of the fuselage.

 

[Joe]

And now...when enough time has passed and the story has slipped off the headlines...they finally admit

EgyptAir flight MS804: manslaughter inquiry opens

The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a manslaughter inquiry into the crash in May of an EgyptAir plane that killed 66 people, saying there is no evidence so far to link it to terrorism.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, said the inquiry was launched on Monday as an accident investigation, not a terrorism investigation. She said authorities were not favouring the theory that the plane had been brought down deliberately.

The decision to open the investigation was based on evidence gathered so far, she said, without elaborating.

So what's it gonna be this time? Another suicidal pilot with a bottle of laxatives?

 

[angelburst29]

Amazingly - quick service, if you rely on this statement,"The black boxes were recovered on June 17 and sent to Paris on Monday, June 28." June 28th must be a typo - for it's a Tuesday?

French specialists have successfully repaired and accessed the flight recorder memory chip from the EgyptAir A320 that plunged into the Mediterranean Sea.

One EgyptAir Flight Recorder Memory Card Repaired in France
http://sputniknews.com/world/20160628/1042051019/EgyptAir-Flight-Recorder-Repaired-France.html

According to the investigation committee report, French tech specialists managed to restore and access the chip of one of the black boxes. Read tests confirmed that the chip contains flight parameters data.

Another black box, believed to contain conversations from the cockpit, is scheduled for repairs on Tuesday.

The two black boxes will be sent back to Cairo for data retrieval once repaired.

Initially, the Egyptian investigators attempted to copy data from the devices, removing the memory chips and drying them at the Egypt Armed Forces Technical Research Center. That process proved unsuccessful.

Last week the investigation committee announced that experts from the French air safety agency will clean the memory cards of salt deposits that are impeding the extraction of data.

EgyptAir flight MS804 was en route from Paris to Cairo on May 19 when it crashed in the Mediterranean. Forty Egyptians were on board, as well as two Iraqis, two Canadians, and one each from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.

The black boxes were recovered on June 17 and sent to Paris on Monday, June 28.

 

[c.a.]

Amazingly - quick service, if you rely on this statement,"The black boxes were recovered on June 17 and sent to Paris on Monday, June 28." June 28th must be a typo - for it's a Tuesday?
The black boxes were recovered on June 17 and sent to Paris on Monday, June 28.

CNN
EgyptAir Flight 804: Second black box found
Updated 0128 GMT (0928 HKT) June 21, 2016
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/17/middleeast/egyptair-wreckage-found/

(CNN)Searchers have recovered the flight data recorder from EgyptAir Flight 804, Egypt's Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Committee said Friday, potentially a key step in helping unravel the mystery of what caused the plane to plunge into the Mediterranean Sea nearly a month ago.
The discovery of the recorder follows the discovery of wreckage from the flight and the recovery of the cockpit voice recorder this week, according to Egyptian officials.
Like the cockpit voice recorder, the flight data recorder was damaged, but searchers were able to recover the crucial memory unit from the device, the committee said.
The flight data recorder gathers 25 hours of technical data from the airplane's sensors, recording several thousand distinct pieces of information, including air speed, altitude, engine performance and wing positions.
Fast Facts: Commercial passenger airplane crashes

The cockpit voice recorder captures sounds from the flight deck, including flight crew conversation, alarms and background noise that can help investigators understand what the flight crew was doing.
Both were recovered by the crew of the John Lethbridge, a privately owned deep-sea survey and recovery vehicle contracted by Egypt's government to aid in the search.
A French naval vessel helping in the search picked up a signal from one of the devices two weeks ago, helping narrow the search area.
The devices are now on their way back to Alexandria, Egypt, for evaluation, the accident investigation committee said.
While important, the discoveries do not necessarily mean a breakthrough is at hand.
In several previous plane crashes -- such as the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 or the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 on September 11, 2001 -- authorities had hoped to find clues in the recorders only to discover that the data had been damaged or the recordings had stopped suddenly.
What caused the flight to suddenly disappear from radar as it cruised over the Mediterranean with 66 people aboard has been the subject of intense speculation.
Theories have ranged from mechanical failure to terrorism.

https://youtu.be/PtVy8Pmrb9w

http://www.francetvinfo.fr/crash-egyptair-une-boite-noire-reparee_1521197.html#xtor=EPR-2-

Intact but separated from the base.............Hmmmm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_recorder

Interesting the current comments:
from www.avherald.com

http://avherald.com/h?article=4987fb09&opt=0
FDR/CVR
By Jetman on Monday, Jun 27th 2016 18:10Z

2 examples among many, 1987 heldelberg box recovery at 4900 ft after 14 month in the sea, 2009 AF447 recovered AT 3900 FT after 2 years in the ocean....any questions beside Bod concerns about BEA integrity or ability to issue comprehensive report ???
My question, how long are we going to see and support those naive and ignorant comments ??

JP: FDR/CVR
By Mike on Monday, Jun 27th 2016 16:52Z

JP posed a great question about the survivability of the FDR/CVR in severe depths. Never really dawned on me but is there a certain depth at which the PSI will crush the recorders? I'm sure aircraft manufactures engineer these to survive such an event but wasn't sure if there was a point where these would be destroyed.
Thanks for everyone's input

Data from Flt Recorders
By Bob on Monday, Jun 27th 2016 13:05Z

What scares me is that the BEA now has control of the data on those black boxes. If the data reveals technical issues with the aircraft design will BEA fully disclose the data? Or will they protect their vested interest in airbus, and say they could not retrieve the data.
Looking at the pictures above, the flight recorders appear to be intact with little deformation to the housings.

@Mark Lincoln on Monday, Jun 27th 2016 12:13Z

Strange how people always try to make a caricature of an idea they don't want to accept!
Did I write the pilots would run screaming along the aisle to get cabin crew assistance? No.
What you are talking about (don oxygen mask, stay on the seat to pilot, take the fire extinguisher...) is basic ops for cockpit smoke like an Ipad overheating. And even in this case, what is the procedure? Get the burning/smoking device out of the cockpit as quick as possible and rely on... Cabin crew to finish the job. So you will open the door fast, YES.
Then imagine a real blaze in the cockpit, 300°C flames in a 6 sq meters place, you can remain seated? Super...man!

 

[angelburst29]

Egypt's Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said that investigators of the crash of EgyptAir Flight MS804 in the Mediterranean have successfully recovered data from flight recorder in a special lab in Cairo.

Egyptian Investigators Extract Data from Crashed MS804 Flight Recorder
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160629/1042191409/egyptair-flight-data-extracted.html

Investigators of the crash of EgyptAir Flight MS804 in the Mediterranean have successfully recovered data from flight recorder in a special lab in Cairo, Egypt's Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said in a statement Wednesday.

"Preparation and check-up of 1,200 in-flight parameters for further analysis is underway," the statement says.

According to the statement, "the entire flight is recorded" and "data is showing consistency with ACARS messages of lavatory and avionics smoke."

 

[Voyageur]

Egypt's Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said that investigators of the crash of EgyptAir Flight MS804 in the Mediterranean have successfully recovered data from flight recorder in a special lab in Cairo.

Egyptian Investigators Extract Data from Crashed MS804 Flight Recorder
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160629/1042191409/egyptair-flight-data-extracted.html

[...]

According to the statement, "the entire flight is recorded" and "data is showing consistency with ACARS messages of lavatory and avionics smoke."

Whenever "lavatory" is mentioned in conjunction with aircraft fire, there is usually only one finger that points out the cause...

Will have to wait and see.

 

[Windmill knight]

Egypt's Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said that investigators of the crash of EgyptAir Flight MS804 in the Mediterranean have successfully recovered data from flight recorder in a special lab in Cairo.

Egyptian Investigators Extract Data from Crashed MS804 Flight Recorder
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160629/1042191409/egyptair-flight-data-extracted.html

[...]

According to the statement, "the entire flight is recorded" and "data is showing consistency with ACARS messages of lavatory and avionics smoke."

Whenever "lavatory" is mentioned in conjunction with aircraft fire, there is usually only one finger that points out the cause...

What do you mean voyageur? Sabotage/terrorism? What's the significance of the lavatory?

 

[Beau]

Whenever "lavatory" is mentioned in conjunction with aircraft fire, there is usually only one finger that points out the cause...

What do you mean voyageur? Sabotage/terrorism? What's the significance of the lavatory?

I thought he was referring to smoking in the bathroom. Which would be a convenient excuse for the authorities to hang their hat on.

 

[Voyageur]

Egypt's Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said that investigators of the crash of EgyptAir Flight MS804 in the Mediterranean have successfully recovered data from flight recorder in a special lab in Cairo.

Egyptian Investigators Extract Data from Crashed MS804 Flight Recorder
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160629/1042191409/egyptair-flight-data-extracted.html

[...]

According to the statement, "the entire flight is recorded" and "data is showing consistency with ACARS messages of lavatory and avionics smoke."

Whenever "lavatory" is mentioned in conjunction with aircraft fire, there is usually only one finger that points out the cause...

What do you mean voyageur? Sabotage/terrorism? What's the significance of the lavatory?

This is open, yet the significant aspect of the word lavatory with fire is to ascribe it to someone smoking. It is pointed out on flights by flight attendants not to smoke in the lavatory, they usually say there is an alarm, it's alarmed, however, they are known to be tampered with.