Automated messages sent from the aircraft suggest that some type of fire had broken out prior to the crash. Whether this fire was caused by a bomb or other incendiary device, or by hazardous cargo, or by a malfunction in one of the plane’s systems, is unknown.
Meanwhile, some in the media have been making an issue over the lack of a distress call from the crew. This isn’t something to focus on, and is most likely meaningless. Communicating with air traffic control is not a priority when dealing with an onboard emergency. The task hierarchy calls first for dealing with the emergency itself: keeping the aircraft under control, troubleshooting the problem, running the checklists and so on. If and when time permits, ATC is brought into the loop. This is especially true if something happens during the cruise portion of flight — as it did in EgyptAir’s case — when communication matters are less urgent than they’d be during landing or departure.
May 20, 2016
This again. David Soucie was on CNN this afternoon asking why we don’t have live streaming video from the cockpit of all commercial flights — something that CNN regular (and airline-hater) Miles O’Brien often advocates as well. Let me get this straight: you want to install live video feed, in real time, from each of the thirty thousand or so commercial airline flights that operate every day of the week. This data would be banked where, and by whom? And in the aftermath of a disaster, what would it show us? We’d see grainy footage of pilots dealing with something that the voice and data recorders (CVR and FDR) will tell us about in much greater detail later on. Even most serious malfunctions wouldn’t appear particularly dramatic, revealing themselves through system failures and whatnot depicted on the various cockpit screens and dials — data that would be difficult for cameras to record, and that, in any case, is already being recorded by the FDR. And in the event of something catastrophic, like a bomb, all you’re likely to see is the screen instantly going black. Or, if something nefarious is going on, like a hijacking or other intentional act, the cameras could easily be disabled or covered over. To the media it’s a fantastic idea, because the cable channels would quickly have more pictures to tantalize us with. From an investigative point, however, this would be a gigantically expensive and complex investment for something that’d be of marginal help, and only in those exceptionally rare instances when the black boxes can’t be recovered.
