Air France Jet Disappears in Radar Wasteland
Search for ‘Black Boxes’
One of the priorities now is the search for the two “black boxes” – the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder – that were on the plane.
Flight data recorders are very sophisticated and rugged. More than 400 functions of the plane are monitored from the strength of turbulence and what’s going on in the cockpit. The black boxes, which are really orange, usually survive even the most severe crashes.
If Flight 447’s data recorder is recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, it could tell specialists exactly what the plane and its systems were doing at the time it went down.
The problem is finding it.
Once a black box hits water, it is engineered to transmit an audio signal called a ping, to help lead investigators to it. The beacon lasts about 30 days. But an audio receiver has to be within about 5,000 feet of the box to pick up the signals.
The part of the ocean where the plane is believed to have crashed is miles deep and “mountainous.” The box could be more than 20,000 feet below the surface on the ocean floor. And currents in the area are very strong.
It’s technologically possible – via real-time GPS tracking – for at least some of the data recorded by black boxes to be downloaded and stored, direct to servers on the ground.
GPS tracking in commercial aviation is necessary to keep pace with current technologies, Moehling said. It will take the cooperation of governing agencies across the globe to make trans-Atlantic travel safer.
It might happen sooner now. Unfortunately, it took a tragedy to bring the issue to forum.
Tags: Air France, Black Boxes, GPS Tracking
No related posts.
June 12th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
While it is true that GPS data would include a speed reading, it would be in terms of speed over the earth’s surface rather than airspeed. Pilots are mainly concerned with their speed through the air, i.e. their airspeed, that must be controlled within lower and upper limits, etc. In the stormy conditions that have been reported in connection with this event, updrafts of up to 100 miles per hour have been speculated by some. Winds of this magnitude would diminish the value to the pilot of a surface speed reading obtained from GPS data, as there would be a significant difference between that and the jet’s actual airspeed.
Other GPS data would be very useful for tracking and navigation purposes for example, and in this case would have been a key factor enabling the pinpointing of the crash location.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:41 am
Maybe this is a dumb question….but I’m just really curious to know why the black boxes don’t have GPS tracking devices installed as well as the “ping” signal devices. It seems like that would make them easier to locate.
June 24th, 2009 at 9:42 am
C Foster,
The black boxes were desgined before the implementation and increased engineering design of GPS tracking devices in the market. Intially, GPS tracking systems had many hurdles to over come from size, antenna design, satellite uplinking, and battery support. However, as time has progressed, along with technological advancements, the GPS tracking systems have become common in everyday applications from teen tracking, emplyee monitoring, law enforcement tracking, to even pet tracking. Hopefully, authorities can uncover the black box so we can discover the exact cause of the tragic accident and learn from the incident,preventing another such ocurance from happening. Regardless, the technology will hopefully be implemented on all commercial airlines at some point in the very near future.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Thank you for the response. Sadly the black boxes from this tragedy haven’t been found, so I really hope the GPS technology will be implemented from now on.
February 7th, 2010 at 10:41 am
You can even track your commercial flight yourself, and see it in Google Earth afterwards…
Backed by a transmission system that would be perfect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgt6j1nbyuU