Jun 5, 2009 1:04pm
Air France Mystery Deepens: ‘Hunter-Killer’ Sub Searches For Clues
EmailABC's Christophe Schpoliansky reports from Paris:
The French Defense Ministry announced today that France is sending one of its nuclear “hunter-killer” submarines to the presumed crash location of the A330 to help locate the black boxes. The “Emeraude” is expected on location next week.
This type of submarine does not transport nuclear missiles. Its mission is intelligence, intervention against sea attacks and protection of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier and other submarines transporting nuclear missiles.
The 240-feet “Emeraude” can travel at a speed of 25 knots while underwater and can reach a maximum depth of “over a 1000 feet”, according to the French defense ministry.
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Air France 447
Its great that we have data recorders (Black Boxes) to record all this data that can be used to help determine why an aircraft accident occurred. I guess I’m wondering why we still put them on the plane itself though. Surely, if the Airbus A330 was capable of sending a dozen messages back to Air France headquarters about problems it was having, it could also transmit a large quantity of technical data about different settings of the plane as it flew. Or maybe the plane could transmit a sampling of the data as a synopsis of the state of the aircraft, say at 5 second intervals. This way if the plane crashes we already have at least some data, which could really help out if a plane crashes in a place as inhospitable as the mid-atlantic. As we all know, if they don’t find those recorders, the odds of us every really knowing what happened are very much lower.
Posted by: Christopher | June 6, 2009, 5:41 pm 5:41 pm