Search teams find second black box from China Airlines jet

Associated Press ^ | 18 June 2002 | Associated Press

[Asmodeus]

TAIPEI, Taiwan - Investigators have recovered both of the "black boxes" from a China Airlines jet that split apart over the Taiwan Strait last month, killing 225 passengers and crew, a Taiwanese crash investigator said Wednesday.

The Boeing 747-200's flight data recorder was pulled out of the water Wednesday morning, one day after crews recovered the plane's cockpit voice recorder, said Tracy Jen, spokeswoman for Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council.

Investigators hope the devices will provide clues to why the jetliner broke up 20 minutes into a flight from Taipei to Hong Kong on May 25. The pilots reported no trouble before the plane suddenly went down near the Penghu island chain, off Taiwan's western coast.

Strong currents and low underwater visibility frustrated efforts to recover the black boxes, which usually stop sending out beacon signals after about 30 days.

[CARTOUCHE]

I read in last week's Aviation Week and Space Technology that radar indications of the break-up showed an unusual trajectory of some of the aircraft, in that, an object or a part of the plane was travelling at high speed in a direction opposite that of the plane's heading. Missile perhaps? Speculative, but in light of the China/Taiwan tensions, as plausible a cause as metal fatigue in an older model 747?

[capitan_refugio]

I saw a similar report. I'm not sure what force could cause a part of a plane to travel rapidly backwards, other than a massive explosion. Of course, there is an assumption that the tail section (or whatever) was moving away from the rest of the plane. It is quite possible that it was decelerating suddenly after detaching, while the main part of the plane continued on at its cruising velocity. Explosive decompression too, could be responsible. We should know more when they analyze the plane remains for explosive residue and interpret how it came apart.

[Voronin]

I found this:

JAL 747 JA8119, 12 August 1985 crashed in to Mt. Osutaka, Japan.

"The aircraft suffered an explosive decompression while climbing through 23,000 feet. The failure of the rear pressure bulkhead caused a portion of the vertical stabilizer to be blown away, rupturing all four main hydraulic fluid lines. Controlling the aircraft solely by engine thrust, the crew was attempting to return to Tokyo when the aircraft clipped one mountain ridge, flew across a valley, and impacted a second mountain approximately 400 feet from the summit. This accident remains the deadliest single-airplane accident in aviation history."

http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi _bin/view_details.cgi?date=081 21985&airline=Japan+Air+Li nes

"There was no sign of an explosion on the recovered debris, and no distress call was received from the flight crew. Weather around the time of the accident was clear."

http://www.airdisaster.com/pho tos/ci611/photo.shtml

VRN

[UCANSEE2]

At least in that country, they actually find the "black boxes" from their planes.

[capitan_refugio]

I remember the Japanese 747 incident. It was a version of the plane designed to hold a bunch more people. If I am not mistaken, it was determined that the craft had suffered damage once before (hard landing?) and had been improperly repaired. Basically, the tail fell off in flight. I also think (in the distant cobwebs of my memory) that there were one or two survivors.

[capitan_refugio]

I should have read yoour link first ... there were four survivors out of over 520 on board

[Voronin]

Further to the '85 crash where they tried to land only on engine power, there was a story a few months ago that NASA has embarked on a program to be able to control an aircraft solely by engine power and also another program to make a self-programmable FCS, as in it would be able to recognized that damage/something missing had occured and automatically compensate.

From what I remember about Japanese requirements, they use a 'high density' layout, simply because they are smaller than on average than 'Westerners' on account (apparently) of their different diet. There was also a linked story that Japanese airline are having to increase the leg space between seats as Japanese are getting taller exactly because they are eating more fatty foods!

I'm always amazed about why aircraft 'fall out of the sky', especially the cases due to bad maintenance or just bad workers. In Chuck Yeager's autobiography, he recounts a tail of F-86s suddenly starting to crash in to the ground for no apparent reason. He himself goes to check it out. The test flight was uneventful and at the end of it he went to buzz some friend by a lake. He rolled his F-86 inverted over the lake, but then for some reason he could not reverse the roll. The ailerons locked. He, of course, managed to roll out of it.

Back at Muroc, they took the wings apart and found that the bolts holding the ailerons had been put in upsidedown. The 'error' was traced to a single worker on an F-86 production line. When he was questioned about this malpractice, he replied 'what does it matter which way the bolts go in?'.

VRN

[capitan_refugio]

Amazing! I had not heard or read the F-86 story. It is going to be interesting what the black boxes show in the recent China Airlines 747 crash. As old as that plane was, I'm going to guess that it was not an on board explosive.

[Voronin]

I'll go with that!

VRN

[_Jim]

Missile perhaps?

A 'missile' has a lot smaller cross-section area than a 747 - and the cross-section at that is rather round/tubular in nature making it more difficult for a RADAR to detect at greater range. More likely this could have been one of the control surfaces - and I would expect that it's speed, after departing the 747 airframe, would decrease significantly in a short period of time.

Maybe the article was referring to the difference in speed between the two (the 747 and the 'object') as determined by two different RADAR sweeps, say, 8 or 10 seconds apart. This would be how either an ASR or ARSR in the US would clock the 'speed' of an object ...

[CARTOUCHE]

You are correct in cross-sectional terms, however, if the radar was painting shrapnel post missile strike, the signature would be broader than any control surface feature leaving the aircraft wouldn't you think? I'm not sold on a missile strike but it seems more plausible than a reoccurrence of the TWA-800 scenario with an overheated fuel tank. But, we should know something soon with the recovery of the black boxes.