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Air France 447 Black Boxes Readable
An anonymous reader writes "It's not a lengthy press release, but it's good news: the memory cards for the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the Air France 447 crash in 2009, recently recovered from the sea floor almost two years later, are readable. The data was recovered over the weekend and includes the full two hours of cockpit recording. Apparently it will take weeks for analysis of the data, but it looks like the challenging recovery effort is paying off in a big way. Hopefully detailed answers about the cause of the crash will follow."
Two hours voice recording, data logs from a few hundred sensors, it all has to be done meticulously and perfectly in accordance with aviation authorities from Brazil, the UK, France, Germany and the United States. And lawyers, alot of lawyers.
"The download was completed in the presence of two Brazilian investigators of the Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center (CENIPA), two British investigators of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), two German investigators of the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation (BFU), one American investigator of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), an officer of the French judicial police, and a court expert. The entire download was filmed and recorded."
http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/info16may2011.en.php