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Where is the black box?


idun
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After the terrible loss of life in the crash near Digne les Bains, has the second black box been found yet? I thought that these things beeped or some such thing, don't they?

I start to get distrustful when things appear not to be where they should be. All John LeCarre's fault, Absolute Friends made me very very distrustful of anything that is reported, or not reported.

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I haven't heard that it's been found yet - really difficult search area.

I've heard that a film of the last few minutes/seconds on the plane has apparently been seen by some journalists; that somebody found the memory stick or whatever it was on and then concealed it and contacted journalists is unforgivable in my eyes. Those poor people, and it must be unbearable for the families.

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[quote user="gardengirl "]I haven't heard that it's been found yet - really difficult search area.

I've heard that a film of the last few minutes/seconds on the plane has apparently been seen by some journalists; that somebody found the memory stick or whatever it was on and then concealed it and contacted journalists is unforgivable in my eyes. Those poor people, and it must be unbearable for the families.

[/quote]

To put this at its most banal, this appears to have been a high-speed impact into a very solid object.According to reports, the cockpit voice recorder was quite damaged and most of the aircraft was utterly destroyed into small pieces. The flight data recorder is very tough but this is an extreme accident.

Regarding the film of the last few seconds: we need to beware: within minutes of the announcement that the plane had gone missing, there were fake pictures of the crash site circulating the Internet. It is possible that this film is real but unfortunately just as likely to be a fake.

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I'd much prefer to think that those poor people weren't filmed. Also that nobody who was out searching amongst plane and body parts would pass it on if they did find film of any sort. I would hope they would be the sort of people who wouldn't take advantage of the circumstances. Maybe I'm just too naive.
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The black boxes are located in the tail.

Already stated how devastating the crash was to the structure.

Wonder if there is security at the site when it is dark - the rescuers do not work after dark but there are trophy hunters out there.
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Well despite the difficult access, I would be amazed if there was not security at night. It is after all a crime scene.

But on the one hand it is a huge area to secure and 100% coverage would be difficult, while on the other hand at night you would need some form of lighting (a wrong step would probably take you several hundred metres) which is easily visible.
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Having just seen Channel 4's program on the crash and seen for the first time the wreckage, I can fully understand why the black box has not been found. Most of the solid pieces of wreckage seemed to be very small and I could well imagine the black box and its beeper are in several or many pieces.
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Even when I had to look after the 'black boxes' on the R.A.F.transport aircraft in the 60/70s they were extremely tough. Probably more so now, but the reports have said that the aircraft was flying at about 500 mph at the time of impact. 500 to nought in a few milli seconds is going to destroy almost anything. Solid state electronics can be toughened, but there are limits and as far as I can make out the black boxes of today are fitted with radio and sonar trackers. But at this kind of impact who knows what could have happened to it?

The colour of it amy be the only way it's found and over that kind of area and terrain that could take a while?

Why black box? Because when they first came out they were black. That changed when some bright spark discovered that it was a hopeless task to find it in a crash. hey also used stainless steel wire to record the few channels of data on to. They used a multiplex system where a channel would record a few seconds of date followed by channel 2 and 3 and 4, etc until all wee recorded and it would record channel 1 again, etc. Now they use electronic memory chips and get hundreds of channels..

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[quote user="idun"]After the terrible loss of life in the crash near Digne les Bains, has the second black box been found yet? I thought that these things beeped or some such thing, don't they?

I start to get distrustful when things appear not to be where they should be. All John LeCarre's fault, Absolute Friends made me very very distrustful of anything that is reported, or not reported.

[/quote]

Just reading ABSOLUTE FRIENDS at the moment - rather a bizarre book and not up to JleC's normal standard we feel. Lots and lots of gratuitous F words which is unlike him...... perhaps he's moving with the times.

But otherwise, the dreadful disaster of the Germanwings flight is just too horrible to contemplate. Let's hope this is a "one off" and never, ever happens again. Terrible for the families.

Bet Lufthansa are bracing themselves for the flood of insurance claims.

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Evianers, stick with the book, I think it is worth it, though, I agree, far from JLC's best, but as he often uses his books to make one think on the way society and governments act.

I hope that they have found the other box, no matter the state it is in.

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