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Mystery Air Crash Black Box Found Sans Memory Part
coondoggie writes "The ongoing undersea search of the Air France Flight 447 wreckage had yielded one of the key items investigators were looking for this week: the flight data recorder. Unfortunately, their hopes for more information about the crash were set back, as the robot subs scouring the ocean floor retrieved the box only to find its memory part missing."
Sorry i need to upgrade for Diablo 3 coming out soon
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
Memory Part? Is that a technical term? Also is a missing 'memory part' all that common or uncommon? Could there have been any sort of sabotage?
Oh, no! They forgot to pay the 20$ extra fee to install memory card in the flight data recorder? Bummer!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Widmore knows!! They're alive!! Linus told me!
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong."
H. L. Mencken
Looks like someone forgot to post anonymously. Given your low UID, is it possible that you are the Methusalah of trolls? Traveling from one era to the next, trusty bag of tired memes in one hand, bucket of spam in the other?
I'm sure damaged blackboxes happen all the time—for those who don't feel like RTFAing, it looks pretty beaten up in the photo, and they've got submersibles scouring a rather large region for more pieces still. (The summary's habit of using the word "part" is kind of adorable, in a Simple English Wikipedia sort of way. What is a memory part, anyway? Is this specialized manufacturing jargon (i.e. part numbers) or just weird writing?)
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Obviously, Barack Obama's birth certificate stating he was born in Kenya was on this plane. When the Jooz realized this, they called up the Illuminati and had them have Gaddafi plant a bomb on the plane. This was a Majestic-12 orchestrated conspiracy to get us involved with Libya to protect our rebellious young people interest, something which has been declining in the past decades because of rainbows in sprinklers and the chem-trails in the sky.
The missing memory chip only confirms that the Greys were there to teleport the chip to their holographic dimension before the passengers disappeared in the Bermuda triangle, only to be transported to Layer-7 in Dulce.
This then confirms that Kennedy was shot by the mafia to protect the Illuminati-Majestic-12 conspiracy. Also, the chip had the location of the nuclear weapons in Iraq.
Obviously.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
If you want to troll, it is style-less to do so under a secondary pseudonym.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
the jews got there first.
Good sir, I believe you intended to say: "derp DA jOOZ did 911 da mOOn LAnding was a Soundstage on marz"
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Surely they refer to a SSD, which would then be "storage", not "memory". But it's usually the OEM at fault for this sort of silliness. "Storage" and "memory" get used interchangeably in a surprising amount of ads and brichures.
Caveat Utilitor
Oh man, don't get me started, last time I was diving one of them Deep Sea Jews shot me in the leg with a head-mounted laser.
Is this a job for Mulder and Scully?
In either case, here at Microsoft, we feel standards are important. And we have fun, too. Doug Mahugh, Microsoft
Pull my finger...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
But that all went away when it the article made it clear that all that found was the chasis for the data recorder, and none of the actual black boxes, i.e. crash survivable memory units, have in fact been seen or recovered.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I'm confused. Was the flight data recorder was found, brought to the surface, opened and the memory module was missing (ie not installed), or was the memory module a separate piece of equipment that connects to the flight data recorder and could simply be covered up by other wreckage in the debris field. If the memory module is contained within the flight data recorder, how is this not flagged by the avionics as a problem? If it is a separate piece of equipment, then what is the point of the flight data recorder. It's obviously not recording any flight data.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The fact that "style" can be elevated to the level of having "principles" is exactly what's wrong in the world.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The space aliens that shot it down got to it first.
I've wondered for some time why planes don't decentralise this a bit.
For example, stick a 1cc little cube with an accelerometer, gyro, and some flash memory into all of the electrically operated emergency lights.
All it does issit there and log accelleration, gyro readings, and temperature to flash, and rewrites after a few weeks.
This nowadays takes truly modest amounts of power and volume.
Engines generally survive - stick a few dozen in there.
Looks like someone forgot to post anonymously. Given your low UID, is it possible that you are the Methusalah of trolls? Traveling from one era to the next, trusty bag of tired memes in one hand, bucket of spam in the other?
You know, I don't get many opportunities on this site to do this, but.... NERD!!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
On a more serious note, though, recall that it was malware which brought down a Spanish airliner around that same timeframe. The malware interfered with the diagostic warning systems of the avionics systems (occupired same memory vectors, disrupting warning signals from emitting).
I always thought it was an anagram of Corum Jhaelen Irsei.
What about them?
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, both black boxes from Flight 77 and both black boxes from Flight 93 were recovered. However, the CVR from Flight 77 was said to be too damaged to yield any data. On April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings. In April 2006, a transcript of the CVR was released as part of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial.
http://articles.cnn.com/2002-04-18/us/rec.flight.93_1_family-members-deena-burnett-flight-attendants?_s=PM:US
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/apr/13/usa.september11
As for Kapparot and Brit milah, they are legal because its a damned religious issue.
The First Amendment prohibits the federal government from making a law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" This provision was later expanded to state and local governments, through the Incorporation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Outlaw Brit milah and Mohels and you violate the First Amendment.
I get that all the time. Compare this SGU episode with this DS9 episode.
To be fair, though, TOS was in the business of ripping off things already. Consider Balance of Terror, which proudly combines a classic WW2 U-boat terror movie with the Roman Empire... IN SPACE!
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
To answer everyone's question, all they found is the chassis housing the FDR. It connects to the plane's avionics and does the actual flight data recording, which it then writes to flash memory in a separate memory module. It is only important before the crash. The memory module plugs into this chassis and screws on (you can see the 4 screws on the chassis and the screw holes on the memory module's feet if you click on the pic in the link). During the crash, the two got separated. The memory module itself is the part that's designed to be crash/fire/water-proof, and the locater beacon they were listening for immediately after the crash is attached to the memory module.
All flight data should be backed up on Cloud Storage.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
With a UID that low, if he was going to Troll, you'd be left wondering what the hell hominy porridge has to do with ex-vegan stars of melodramatic ballet movies...
I can see the fnords!
So some sea critter ate the memory chips, specifically? This reminds me of a story about the fish kids in ocean schools: "I can't turn in my homework... I put it on a memory stick and the octopus ate it!"
Were you trolling, or making fun of conspiracy nutters? Making fun of those wackos was my first assumption.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Logically: ignorant african immigrants should also be allowed to mutilate their daughters. Same shit, really.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Or... a pathology.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Making fun!
Just because they control the world's reserve currencies through banking, forced income taxes on the people of all developed nations and manipulate the markets of the world, doesn't mean they lurk behind every unexplained phenomenon!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
This post provides some interesting information:
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5129859/1/#2
Because the FDR is just part of the unit:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45996000/gif/_45996239_black_box_loc_v2_466_v2.gif
Also, a floating FDR would be a nightmare. In the event of an ocean crash do you *really* want the FDR to drift off on the currents? It could end up anywhere - oceans are vast, even with a locator beacon broadcasting its position it's hard enough to find in a reasonably well defined debris field on the seabed.
I dislike the Israel thing as much as anyone, but that's like equating Christians with the USA. The USA is not a Christian nation and not all of the USA is Christian. While that is less true of Israel, it is certainly true that all Jews are not Israeli and don't all necessarily approve of their actions. I know you're trolling, but perhaps someone else hasn't thought this through also.
an acceleration of 3400 g (33 km/s) for 6.5 milliseconds. This is roughly equivalent to an impact velocity of 270 knots (310 mph) and a deceleration or crushing distance of 450 cm. Additionally, there are requirements for penetration resistance, static crush, high and low temperature fires, deep sea pressure, sea water immersion, and fluid immersion. [...] big enough to show up on sonar and have an acoustic and visual beacon for 30 days.
This is why the system is so bulky/heavy/expensive that it wasn't practical to embed one in every major aircraft component. The vertical tail piece was found days after the crash, floating on the ocean, but didn't contain any data. FAIL. We've now found the a main landing gear part, big enough to hold data in the support tube and very likely to be separated from any fire, but again it doesn't contain anything.
If the FAA was designing Google's datacenter, they'd use one supercomputer. They'd load it up with expensive components in a futile attempt to prevent it from ever failing. They'd have just one data center, under a concrete dome designed to stop an M-9 earthquake.
BTW, deep sea pressure is no big deal for a silicon chip. As long as the surrounding stuff doesn't cause bending that leads to a crack, silicon will laugh at the Marinaras trench. It's crystal, similar to diamond.
I like this guy.
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
Shame about SGU, I liked this particular two parter, even with its kludges.
Jonathanjk.com
I wonder if the memory module by itself floats. The chassis sank (because its a metal box that can fill with water). But if the module remains watertight, it could be washing up on a New Jersey beach as we speak.
No Snookie. Its not a bottle of booze. Please don't open it.
Have gnu, will travel.
It seems the Airbus A330 uses either a SSD or tape for storage. They also have a "Quick Access Recorder".
I only found this, because I was under the impression that most aircraft used two FDRs, once in the front, one in the rear, to help assure survival of the data in the event of a nasty catastrophic incident (i.e., very hot fire on part of an aircraft that has broken up upon intersection of the flight path and the surrounding terrain). It appears that is a mistaken belief.
Now all I can say is the missing data is a conspiracy. It must be the undersea aliens. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
a large part is a bit like big portion, well that's what she said.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Oh come on man, everyone know that the Egyptians infiltrated the Jewish 'escape' from tyranny with one of their own who runs all the scams.
I got there first and he approved.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Given your low UID
#35980182 is considered a low UID these days?
Ugh, strike that, read message threads as UID
Genius. I feel like we could be witnessing the return of Meept here.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Nope. Two, yes, but one is the CVR and one is the FDR. Both are at the rear if I'm not mistaken. That is ordinarily the best place for them. Fire does not appear to ordinarily be that big of a problem. The QAR I believe is optional -- don't really know -- but I do know that it is not crash proof.
Say, how many petrodollars did the 137 Slashdot ID cost?
Same shit, really.
No it's not.
While probably meant as a joke, this is a work in progress and this flight in fact as far as I know did send some messages home before the crash.
But we are forgetting that aircraft are VERY old things. Some of the aircraft you fly in are themselves older then the modern internet and might well have been designed before even the foundations of the internet were laid down.
Even so called modern aircraft are quite old and the aviation industry is not for one for rapid chance. See McDonald Douglas building the DC-10 with OUTWARD opening doors, an aircraft almost crashing because of it, then the same thing happening again because the aircraft company preferred profits over peoples lives. Boeing and Airbus are exactly the same. All aircraft companies have ignored safety advice from air crashes for the sake of more crash.
So, while an aircraft could nowaways be in constant communication with the ground entirely independent from the rest of the aircraft, it won't happen for a long time because they just don't care. Each safety feature introduced requires state intervention and you know how Americans hate that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I see your appreciation of UID 137 and raise you that I personally know the guy who has UID 42! (btw people trade low UID's on Ebay, so don't always assume you know who's behind them.)
Can I light a sig ?
So for those of us who are not aircraft crash investigators wtf does that mean?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
It differs on the (usual) extent of the damage. Otherwise, yes it is.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Damn! The old 'eaten by a shark' trick.. Should've known The locator beacon probably acted like a dog whistle to them
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
They didn't found the 'black box', they found its interface to the plane.
Long story short: At first it was an entire block. An it was not solid state memory, but tape recorders for voice (or worse).
Plane crashed, forces distorted the black box and with it the fire/water/etc protection became innefective.
Then they had an idea, let's put the memory in a SOLID CYLINDER of thick metal and with a very thick thermal and shock insulation. Upon impact, that cylinder 'pops off' if the chassis is subject to forces that cause it to distort (really, the cylinder is attached by 4 bolts, it has to be a big shock for it to come off)
Problem is, a cylinder is much easier to get missing, bury itself, and more difficult to recognize among debris, etc, then a big L shaped piece of metal (the chassis)
Personally, mabe it's time for them to get back to the drawing bord. Maybe attach the cylinder t to the chassis using a flexible material as well (so that it stays attached even if it pops off and slow its separation)
how long until
And Rastafarians should be allowed to use Cannabis as they see fit...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
The USA is not a Christian nation
God's on our money. And pretty much everywhere else. This country is about as secular as it is communist.
To make it simple for the rest of them - Michael Moorcock is a prolific English author of SF and Fantasy, creator of such classic characters as Elric of Melnebone. While much of his fantasy and SF is intended to be adventure oriented works and relies on a formula of having something exciting hapen every six pages like clockwork, He wrote a litterarily more ambitious work titled "Behold the Man", about a time traveller substituting for Jesus at the crucifixion so history would come out right, and uses characters with the initials J.C. frequently, some would say constantly, in his works. Jeremiah Cornelius is a character from a series of works set in the modern era, and is the sole character Moorcock actually loaned out with his blessing to any other artist that wanted to use him, so there are works by at least a dozen other well established authors featuring him, including a comic strip in Heavy Metal (The Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius), and even a film (The Final Programme - AKA The Last Days of Man on Earth)),
Who is John Cabal?
Believe it or not, there are other religions that have a god, and it is perfectly possible to live your life here in a secular fashion.
If I remember right, my mistaken belief on the location of the FDR(s) was from a few 1980's news reports... So, a bit dated. Back then, the news was filled with them, and they always had "experts" who would babble on about anything, to fill the airtime.
When I fly, I remember the statistics that I have gathered from flights I've been on. 75% take off on time. 98% have the expected flight duration, and 100% have landed in one piece. Screw the FDR, I want the plane to land in one piece (*AND* get to the gate in one piece). I was just flying a couple days ago. We were at the gate, but the jet bridge had not bee completely put in place. I thought about the above video, as I reached for my seatbelt. "Hmmmm, maybe I should leave my seatbelt on."
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Exactly! And that's one of the reasons that it bothers me so much when I see people bitching and moaning about the rules on the aircraft. Some of them (the electronic devices thing) don't really make much sense, and some of them only make sense in the context of an emergency (which is something no one can predict and no one wants to spend much time talking about on board). One example is making sure all of your stuff fits under your seat -- that's so when everyone is trying to escape the burning plane, your shoulder strap doesn't trip and kill someone who then takes 5 more seconds to get out. Instead though, you see all of these big-balls types that say "I'm not going to follow their stupid rule" and then end up causing problems. Some of these types end up passing through the ceiling panels when they refuse to wear a seatbelt while seated at cruise with the fasten seat-belt sign on.
Ah well, that's people for you!
No, it won't
The memory chipas are surrounded with a large chunk thermal mass insulator and a thick steel outer covering for imapact & pressure resistance
The whole thing will sink like a brick
One of my favorite quotes is...
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."
- Robert A. Heinlein
When flying, I do pay attention to where the exits are. I also go beyond that, and look at where my "assets" are in the event of an emergency. Who looks strong and can follow instructions. It doesn't matter if it's a hijacking, or a plane crash, you will likely need those assets. And ya, the guy who feels it's appropriate to put his laptop on his lap, and bag at his feet, it's still wrong.
I was berated by a flight attendant for having "luggage" on my feet. Turned out it was just my jacket, while I was buckling my seatbelt. Once she saw that's all it was, she was fine with it. I was in snow country, so if we had a failed aborted takeoff (i.e., plane runs off the runway), having my jacket in hand would be nice. I learned in boot camp, sleeping in your underwear may be comfortable until they call a fire drill in the middle of the night when it's around freezing outside. I fell for it once. From then on, I slept dressed. Oddly enough, I was one of few who figured it out. About 2% of the platoon prepared. The rest froze their asses off.
My seatbelt stays buckled from before we push off, until after the jet bridge is in place. My cell is firmly on my hip, and my ID is in my pocket. The only time it comes off is if I have to use the restroom, which I usually take care of before boarding.
I plan ahead. Most don't. Oddly enough, in a disaster, people look to a leader, and in something like an aircraft incident, the implied leaders (flight crew) may not be available. The front of an aircraft may be the least survivable location, depending on the incident. I don't want to be the leader, but a group of survivors will need one or there will be chaos.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I have "always" been 137. Was also 167 on Technocrat.
I used to reload /. many times a day - before the introduction of a commenting system - just to see what had been released for Windowmaker and Enlightenment DR09.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
They've now found and recovered the missing memory unit:
http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/info01may2011.en.php