Tag Archives: Black Boxes

Philippines seeks U.S. help on data recorders for plane crash probe

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines will send black boxes of a Lockheed C-130 aircraft that crashed at the weekend to the United States to seek expert help in opening and analyzing them, the military chief said on Wednesday.

The United States has committed to help extract information from the flight data and cockpit voice recorders that could shed light on the tragic incident that killed 53 people in the southern province of Jolo, Cirilito Sobejana said in a local television interview.

Sobejana said the Philippines has no such capability. He gave no timetable for when the U.S. experts could complete data extraction.

The aircraft was carrying troops bound for counter-insurgency operations when it crashed with 96 aboard, killing 53 in the country’s worst military air accident in nearly three decades. Among the dead were three civilians on the ground and the rest of the crew were injured.

Asked if bad weather or human error could be the reason for the incident, Sobejana said he would await the investigators’ official report.

“I told them to do it as fast as we can, but this should be deliberate,” he said. “We wanted to get the accurate information or the facts.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin offered additional support to Philippines counterpart Delfin Lorenzana when they spoke by phone on Tuesday to discuss the crash.

They also discussed critical medical evacuation support provided by U.S. personnel and other possible assistance, including victim identification, according to a statement released in Washington.

Sobejana said 16 of the casualties have been identified.

Some victims were burned beyond recognition, and authorities would rely on the dental records and forensic testing to identify them, he said.

(Reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz in Manila; Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Martin Petty)

Ethiopia black boxes bound for Europe, crash pilot had in-plane issues

American civil aviation and Boeing investigators search through the debris at the scene of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash, near the town of Bishoftu, southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

By Duncan Miriri

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The Ethiopian Airlines pilot whose jet crashed killing 157 people had reported flight-control problems, the company said on Wednesday, as it prepared to send the black boxes to Europe from a disaster that has rocked the global aviation industry.

The still unexplained crash, which happened just after take-off from Addis Ababa, followed another disaster involving a Boeing 737 MAX in Indonesia five months ago that killed 189 people.

Though there is no proof of links, the twin disasters have spooked passengers, led to the grounding of most of Boeing’s 737 MAX fleet and hammered shares in the world’s biggest planemaker.

Since the Indonesia crash, there has been attention on an automated anti-stall system that dips the aircraft’s nose down.

Ethiopia Airlines spokesman Asrat Begashaw told Reuters it was still unclear what happened on Sunday, but its pilot had reported control issues – as opposed to external factors such as birds.

“The pilot reported flight control problems and requested to turn back. In fact he was allowed to turn back,” he said.

A decision where in Europe to send the black boxes would be taken by Thursday, the airline said.

Multiple nations, including the European Union, have suspended the 737 MAX, grounding about two-thirds of the 371 jets of that make in operation around the world, according to Reuters calculations.

Many airlines were managing to keep to schedule by using other jets while economic woes meant some may be grateful for a pause. The biggest impact could be on future deliveries given Boeing has nearly 5,000 more 737 MAXs on order.

India said it would not take any deliveries until safety concerns were cleared and Ethiopian Airlines said it would decide whether to cancel orders after a preliminary probe.

Passengers were fretting too, with many seeking reassurances they would not be flying on a 737 MAX. Kayak.com was the first big site to say it would modify filters to allow customers to exclude particular types of planes from queries.

 

U.S. OUTLIER

Nevertheless, the United States held out against suspension and Boeing affirmed its “full confidence” in the model.

U.S. President Donald Trump, an aviation enthusiast whose ties with Boeing run deep, received safety assurances personally from its chief executive Dennis Muilenburg.

Still, Boeing shares have fallen some 11 percent since the crash, losing $26.65 billion of market value.

Possibly presaging a raft of claims, Norwegian Air said it would seek recompense for lost revenue and extra costs after grounding its 737 MAX aircraft.

“We expect Boeing to take this bill,” it said.

More than a dozen relatives of those who perished paid their respects on Wednesday at the rural site where Flight ET 302 came down in a fireball. Workers set up tents decorated with white roses.

Given problems of identification of charred remains, it will take days to start returning them to families, probably weeks for some which will require dental or DNA testing.

The victims came from more than 30 nations.

Of the top 10 nations by air passenger travel, all but the United States and Japan halted the 737 MAX. Egypt, Thailand, Lebanon, Serbia, Kosovo and Uzbekistan joined them on Wednesday.

Resisting pressure, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) acting administrator Dan Elwel said its review had shown “no systemic performance issues.”

The three U.S. airlines using the 737 MAX – Southwest Airlines Co, American Airlines Group Inc and United Airlines – stood by the aircraft.

PILOTS’ CONCERNS

The new variant of the world’s most-sold modern passenger aircraft was viewed as the likely workhorse for airlines for decades. But October’s Lion Air crash in Indonesia sparked a debate on automation, particularly over a software system designed to push the plane down to stop a stall during flight.

Boeing says it plans to update the software in coming weeks.

Though there are no proven links between the two recent 737 MAX crashes, the United Arab Emirates’ aviation regulator said on Tuesday there were “marked similarities” and China’s regulator noted both occurred shortly after take-off.

In November, two incidents were reported to the NASA-run Aviation Safety Reporting Database that involved problems in controlling the 737 MAX at low altitude just after take-off with autopilot engaged, according to documents first published by the Dallas Morning News and verified by Reuters.

“We discussed the departure at length and I reviewed in my mind our automation setup and flight profile but can’t think of any reason the aircraft would pitch nose down so aggressively,” one pilot said.

In another case, the pilot said: “With the concerns with the MAX 8 nose down stuff, we thought it appropriate to bring it to your attention.”

Boeing did not respond immediately to a request for comment, but it has previously said it provided appropriate information to pilots to use an existing procedure to handle the issue of erroneous data affecting the anti-stall system.

(Additional reporting by Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; Kumerra Gemechu in Gora-Bokka, Ethiopia; Omar Mohammed and Maggie Fick in Nairobi; Tim Hepher in Paris; David Shepardson in Washington; Jamie Freed in Singapore; Terje Solsvik in Oslo; Aditi Shah in Mumbai; Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Indonesia extends search for victims of jet crash

An Indonesian National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT) official examines a turbine engine from the Lion Air flight JT610 at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta, Indonesia, November 4, 2018. Picture taken November 4, 2018. REUTERS/Beawiharta

By Agustins Beo Da Costa and Cindy Silviana

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia authorities extended on Wednesday a search for victims of a plane crash last week, when all 189 on board a Lion Air flight were killed, and for the aircraft’s second black box, the cockpit voice recorder.

The nearly new Boeing Co. 737 MAX passenger plane slammed into the sea on Oct. 29, only minutes after takeoff from Jakarta en route to Bangka island near Sumatra.

“We have extended the operation for three more days,” Muhammad Syaugi, the head of the national search and rescue agency (Basarnas), told Reuters.

It was the second time the search has been extended.

But he said search teams from the military, police and others would stand down, leaving just his agency to press on.

“This operation has been running for 10 days and the results from combing the sea surface and the seabed are declining, therefore the resources of Basarnas should be sufficient,” Syaugi told a news conference.

Basarnas had 220 personnel, including 60 divers, as well as four ships involved in the search and were focusing on an area with a radius of 250 meters (273 yards), he said.

A police official said 186 body bags containing human remains had been retrieved and 44 victims identified after forensic examination.

Authorities have downloaded data from one of the black boxes found last week, the flight data recorder, but are still looking for the cockpit voice recorder

A “ping” has been detected from the second black box but the signal was very weak, possibly because it was encased in mud,” said Nurcahyo Utomo, an air accident official at the transportation safety committee (KNKT).

A vessel capable of sucking up mud was likely to be brought in to help, he told a news conference.

Boeing said on Wednesday it had issued a safety bulletin reminding pilots how to handle erroneous data from a sensor in the wake of the Lion Air crash.

The U.S. planemaker said investigators looking into the Lion Air crash had found that one of the “angle of attack” sensors on the aircraft had provided erroneous data.

Experts say the angle of attack is a crucial parameter that helps the aircraft’s systems understand whether its nose is too high relative to the current of air – a phenomenon that can throw the plane into an aerodynamic stall and make it fall.

KNKT said that there was a problem with the sensor on the last flight taken by the doomed plane, from the island of Bali to Jakarta, even though one sensor had been replaced in Bali.

The KNKT has interviewed crew and technicians on duty for two previous flights, while also retrieving the faulty sensor from Bali for inspection.

KNKT is planning to simulate a flight to assess the impact of sensor damage at Boeing’s engineering simulator facility in Seattle.

(Additional reporting by Tabita Diela in JAKARTA, Tim Hepher in ZHUHAI and David Shepardson in WASHINGTON; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Russia finds main black box from Black Sea crash jet

Flowers in memory of passengers and crew members of Russian military Tu-154, which crashed into the Black Sea on its way to Syria on Sunday, are placed at an embankment in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, Russia

By Andrew Osborn and Peter Hobson

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has found the main flight recorder from a military plane that crashed into the Black Sea killing all 92 on board, the Defence Ministry said on Tuesday, amid unconfirmed reports that authorities had grounded all aircraft of the same type.

The recorder, one of several reported to be on board, contains information that could help investigators identify the cause of Sunday’s crash, which killed dozens of Red Army Choir singers and dancers en route to Syria to entertain Russian troops in the run-up to the New Year.

Investigators have so far said that pilot error or a technical fault, rather than terrorism, are most likely to have caused the Defence Ministry’s Tupolev-154 to crash into the sea.

The black box, which was found by a remote-controlled underwater vehicle at a depth of around 55ft (17 metres) and 1 mile (1,600 metres) from the resort of Sochi, has been sent to a Defence Ministry facility in Moscow for analysis.

“The casing holding the flight recorder is in a satisfactory condition,” the ministry said in a statement.

“After it is technically cleaned in distilled water we will start transcribing it.”

The ministry said numerous fragments of the plane had been found, including the engine, the landing gear and pieces of the fuselage.

The Interfax news agency cited an unnamed source as saying Russia had grounded all TU-154 planes until the cause of Sunday’s crash became clear. There was no official confirmation of that.

The Defence Ministry says the downed jet, a Soviet-era plane built in 1983, had last been serviced in September and underwent more major repairs in December 2014.

Russian pilots say the TU-154 is still flight worthy, though major Russian commercial airlines have long since replaced it with Western-built planes. Experts say only two are registered with Russian passenger airlines with the rest registered to various government ministries.

The last big TU-154 crash was in 2010 when a Polish jet carrying then-president Lech Kaczynski and much of Poland’s political elite went down in western Russia killing everyone on board.

The Interfax news agency, citing a law enforcement source, said a second flight recorder had also been found in the wreckage of Sunday’s crash, but not yet raised to the surface.

The Defence Ministry said that search and rescue teams have so far recovered 12 bodies and 156 body fragments.

(Editing by John Stonestreet and Raissa Kasolowsky)

French, Italian firms to help search for EgyptAir black boxes

Recovered debris of the EgyptAir jet that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea are seen in this still image taken from video

By Ahmed Aboulenein

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt is taking on two companies, one French and one Italian, to help search for the black boxes of an EgyptAir plane that crashed in deep water in the Mediterranean Sea, the airline’s chairman said on Wednesday

EgyptAir flight 804 crashed on May 19 with 66 people on board including 30 Egyptians and 15 from France, and nearly a week later investigators have no clear picture of the plane’s final moments.

EgyptAir chairman Safwat Musallam did not name the companies involved, but he told a news conference they were able to carry out searches at a depth of 3,000 meters.

The plane and its black box recorders, which could explain what brought down the Paris-to-Cairo flight as it entered Egyptian air space, have not been located.

The black boxes are believed to be lying in up to 3,000 meters of water, on the edge of the range for hearing and locating signals emitted by the boxes.

Maritime search experts say this means acoustic hydrophones must be towed in the water at depths of up to 2,000 meters in order to have the best chance of picking up the signals.

Until recently, aviation sources say, the US Navy or its private contractor Phoenix International were considered among the only sources for equipment needed to search on the correct frequency for black box pingers at such depths.

The US Navy said on Tuesday it had not been asked for help.

Batteries powering the signals sent from the black boxes typically last only 30 days, but the airline’s deputy chairman Ahmed Adel said the search would continue beyond then if necessary, using other means to locate the recorders.

“There are many examples in similar air accidents when 30 days passed without finding the box yet … these planes’ black boxes were found,” he said.

‘PLANE’S MACHINES WERE SAFE’

Musallam reiterated earlier comments from sources within the Egyptian investigation committee who said that the jet had shown no sign of technical problems before taking off from Paris.

He said the Airbus 320 was given a regular check by an Egyptian engineer and two Egyptian technicians at Paris airport.

“The engineer and the pilot both signed the Aircraft Technical Log which stated that the check found that all the plane’s machines were safe,” he said.

The investigation sources said the plane disappeared off radar screens less than a minute after entering Egyptian airspace and – contrary to reports from Greece – there was no sign that it had swerved sharply before crashing.

The crew did not make contact with Egyptian air traffic control, they said.

With no flight recorders to check and only fragmentary data from a handful of fault messages registering smoke in the plane in the minutes before it crashed, investigators are also looking to debris and body parts for clues.

One Egyptian forensics official said the small amount of human remains recovered pointed to an explosion on board though no trace of explosives had been detected.

But Hisham Abdelhamid, head of Egypt’s forensics authority, said this assessment was “mere assumptions” and that it was too early to draw conclusions.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Dominic Evans and Richard Balmforth)