Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 Missing after take off

[PNGMK]

I'd just like to point out that the FDR and CVR are Australian inventions... that the NTSB took 15 years to accept.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Yer Fair Dinkum's showin'!

[Strong Eagle]

I'd just like to point out that the FDR and CVR are Australian inventions... that the NTSB took 15 years to accept.

And in this day and age of GPS, global communications and cloud storage, obsolete devices. Kind of like doing backups to your own laptop in case it gets stolen.

I am sure this incident will force major changes in both how aircraft are tracked and how voice and data are recorded and stored.

The amazing thing is that IMARSAT offers their tracking services for free to the airlines.

[Max Headroom]

Indeed SE. The mind baffles.

[Max Headroom]

You forgot the cat photos.

Ugh.

[Max Headroom]

I did some searching online and found that the minimum requirements are 25 hrs for the flight data recorder (FDR) and 2 hrs for the cockpit voice recorder (CVR). ( link1 , link2 )

My question is do these boxes detect failures or accidents and stop overwriting data after a crash ?

I don't think the reason black boxes stop recording in a crash is due to a built-in feature so much as the fact that they're ripped from the plane.

[BillyB]

I'd just like to point out that the FDR and CVR are Australian inventions... that the NTSB took 15 years to accept.

And in this day and age of GPS, global communications and cloud storage, obsolete devices. Kind of like doing backups to your own laptop in case it gets stolen.

I am sure this incident will force major changes in both how aircraft are tracked and how voice and data are recorded and stored.

The amazing thing is that IMARSAT offers their tracking services for free to the airlines.

Agree; but it's sad that it takes a catastrophic event to act as the catalyst for an industry to change.

These planes were originally designed 20ish years ago and despite technology progressing i suspect that taking aircraft out of service to retrofit technology, despite the clear benefits, is something that is met with resistance.

[x9200]

Unfortunately it almost always needs to be preceded by a catastrophic event. More-over some aircraft companies could not learn the lesson form single disaster and disappeared eventually. This was the story of McDonnell Douglas with their faulty cargo doors if I remember correctly.

[Beeroclock]

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

[Strong Eagle]

I'd just like to point out that the FDR and CVR are Australian inventions... that the NTSB took 15 years to accept.

And in this day and age of GPS, global communications and cloud storage, obsolete devices. Kind of like doing backups to your own laptop in case it gets stolen.

I am sure this incident will force major changes in both how aircraft are tracked and how voice and data are recorded and stored.

The amazing thing is that IMARSAT offers their tracking services for free to the airlines.

Agree; but it's sad that it takes a catastrophic event to act as the catalyst for an industry to change.

These planes were originally designed 20ish years ago and despite technology progressing i suspect that taking aircraft out of service to retrofit technology, despite the clear benefits, is something that is met with resistance.

True - there are commercial issues to be dealt with, as well as issues of confidentiality of pilot communications in routine flights.

Here is a pretty cool pic of the avionics bay in a 777. This room is under the floor right about where the front passenger door is.

http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp

[zzm9980]

These planes were originally designed 20ish years ago and despite technology progressing i suspect that taking aircraft out of service to retrofit technology, despite the clear benefits, is something that is met with resistance.

Cost vs benefit. How many planes just "get lost" to warrant the billions of dollars globally this retrofit would cost?

[x9200]

These planes were originally designed 20ish years ago and despite technology progressing i suspect that taking aircraft out of service to retrofit technology, despite the clear benefits, is something that is met with resistance.

Cost vs benefit. How many planes just "get lost" to warrant the billions of dollars globally this retrofit would cost?

Costs of fitting or retrofitting can be relatively small comparing to the compensation costs ruled legally to be paid to the families. Probably not in this case, but for ignoring an obvious construction problem (as for example concluded by NTSB or other similar body) a company can pay really a lot.

Even for the case of MH370, if something like this would happen for the 2nd time to the same company and it was like small - middle size company, I bet it would be pretty lethal for its existence.

[rajagainstthemachine]

Here is another article outlining a possible pilot suicide.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/t ... elatedNews

[rdueej]

These planes were originally designed 20ish years ago and despite technology progressing i suspect that taking aircraft out of service to retrofit technology, despite the clear benefits, is something that is met with resistance.

Cost vs benefit. How many planes just "get lost" to warrant the billions of dollars globally this retrofit would cost?

Most probably, they did make a cost vs. benefit analysis at some point and decided to not invest. What such analyses fail to incorporate is the huge PR fallout that may arise from these rare/uncommon events.

Another standard case study for most engineering ethics students is the Ford Pinto case: Ford after considering a cost vs. benefit analysis had decided to not recall their car despite knowing that it had a manufacturing defect. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pint ... ank_defect ]

On second reading, appears Ford might have been in the right, but it was an interesting case anyway.

[Beeroclock]

These planes were originally designed 20ish years ago and despite technology progressing i suspect that taking aircraft out of service to retrofit technology, despite the clear benefits, is something that is met with resistance.

Cost vs benefit. How many planes just "get lost" to warrant the billions of dollars globally this retrofit would cost?

Most probably, they did make a cost vs. benefit analysis at some point and decided to not invest. What such analyses fail to incorporate is the huge PR fallout that may arise from these rare/uncommon events.

Another standard case study for most engineering ethics students is the Ford Pinto case: Ford after considering a cost vs. benefit analysis had decided to not recall their car despite knowing that it had a manufacturing defect. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pint ... ank_defect ]

On second reading, appears Ford might have been in the right, but it was an interesting case anyway.

If there is an industry wide response to this incident and $X millions to be spent, I guess it will wait for root causes to be understood and agreed, and then prioritise the spend. Obviously this will include cost v benefit of different options, but also hopefully a balance between measures to prevent vs measures to aid search/recovery/post-investigation. (E.g. IF it turns out to be pilot suicide or pilot mental illness, the industry may need to step up policies on psychological screening, monitoring and wellbeing of pilots.... I'm not sure if there was any industry change after the SilkAir MI 185 pilot suicide 17 years earlier as mentioned in the article recently posted by Raj) ... Anyway it's likely to take a long while before we get a proper understanding of the incident, but I hope the eventual response is multifaceted and not just focus on the black box / radar aspects.