Page 38 - Data Recorders News Today

26 nations are now hunting for flight 370 along the search curve that extends as far north as central asia and as far south as the deepest part of the indian ocean where the sea floor drops more than two miles below the surface. key to the sprawling hunt could be detecting ping from the flights data recorders. talk about this, im joined by chuck scofield. welcome, sir. >> good morning. >> you know, you make equipment to make sure scenarios like this dont happen. as you sit back and watch this wh...

>> they are certified to survive up to 20,000 feet. as far as locating the device, that two miles is good for any direction. >> what are the chances, though, of the beacons failing? woe look at recent airline tragedies or missing airplanes and it has taken up to two years in some instances to find the data recorders. >> actually, each unit is tested in water prior to shipping to its destination. so, the likelihood of the pinger failing is very slim. it is a very reliable device. it has been used...

Was straight politics, they got him out of the way because he was proving to be a problem for the ruling party. but this country -- its political like every country. he is seen as irrelevant and well regarded voice of opposition here. nothing more. >> good to hear that, because so many stories circulating here and lots of speculation. so its good to distinguish the ones that have substance from the ones that do not. thanks very much to andrew stevens in kuala lumpur. there are now 25 countries...

If the intent was to actually hit a target along the coastline of india, for example, then the presumption that the radar is there is actually irrelevant as being a cause for this not being a likely route. >> so weve got about 90 seconds. i want to ask each of you if you could have one piece of information now that could tell you something important, what is it that you would first want to know that would lead you down the right path? >> i would want the flight data voice reporters. >> what we u...

Voices in the cockpit, as well as some other things. it seems to me that whoever did this, if it was done deliberately, tried very hard to get rid of any data that would tell you what happened. is it possible to make those black boxes, those data recorders, not work if we were to find them? >> it is possible to make them not work. and a knowledgeable crew could interrupt the electrical power to the circuitry and cause the box to stop. they would have to know the location of that circuit breaker ...

Interest of the u.s. in this, obviously you want to be helpful in any kind of aviation accident because we have obviously had planes -- 777s and all that. but in terms of just what we would want to explore going forward -- >> we have multiple interests in this. first of all, aircraft safety. airline safety. is there some flaw in the maintenance of that airplane. is there something wrong with the procedures at the kuala lumpur airport. secondly, the issue of terrorism. was there a terrorist act? ...

Damaged if it did actually crash on impact, it would really just break apart. but this would be very different. this sort of search would be very different than that 2009 crash of air france off the coast of brazil. in that case, the plane disintegrated and it settled some 12,000 feet deep. that required specialized equipment to go and recover the so-called black boxes. were talking about the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. now, in this case, at depths of about 300 feet or s...

Or if it was man made, terrorist, hijackers, pilot suicide? do we have any better sense on that? >> no. i think its just the opposite. it puts everything back on the table, whereas if you had this 90-degree turn youd say, all right, somebody was in control of this aircraft and then they took it someplace it shouldnt have gone. in this case were back at square one. structural, terrorism, are on the table. as soon as we get a look at the wreckage and start to zero in on the data recorder and voice...

Vietnam reports its scaling back because of conflicting claims from malaysian officials. so right now the search area is about 35,000 square miles. in other words, about the size of a state of indiana and theyre doing that with fewer than 40 planes and 40 boats. so far the search turned up nothing, no wreckage, no debris, no black boxes, no soil slioil leaving nothing but questions. i guess we could get some answers at some point if they could just find the black backes. >> all commercial airlin...

To be okay. >> one of the good reasons to have those dam -- cameras up there. lets get back to the top story this morning. how does a 600,000 pound jet liner just vanish without a trace. lets turn to renee marsh for possible answers. >> three words, aifuate, navigate and communicate. it appears whatever happened, it was so fast, the pilots never got to that last step. until they find the data recorders, ail possible theories are on the table. there no shortage of ex-plan sagss. >> you just hav...