Page 38 - Black Boxes News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Developments in the certain, i want to bring in former federal aviation administration official chief of staff, michael goldfarb. good to see you. >> afternoon, alex. >> now that the ships have recovered some objects from the indian ocean from the new search area, what's the next step in determining whether or not they're related to flight 370? >> i tell you, we still have a long shot here. they talked about the needle in the haystack. we had to find the haystack, the haystack being the debris field, the needle being the so-called black boxes. given this amount of time and the spread of the de...

Information from the all-important black boxes. this is what the pinging of one of the data recorders sounds like once its made contact with water. even after a prolonged period in assetwater, data is still retrievable. >> a good success rate with recovery. all of the recorders go through different stresses and -- but overall, we've had a very good success rate with water recovery. >> have you ever not gotten data in a water recovery? >> i can't think of one. >> reporter: recorders found in saltwater are first bathed in freshwater and later carefully dried and taken apart to reveal this -- the...

Just a matter of a couple of days athena, what are you learning? >> there are only a few laboratories in the world that are capable of retrieving data from a black box that's been damaged. here's a look inside one of those laboratories. >> this is one of the more advanced labs in the world. and for that reason that's why we tend to help other countries. >> reporter: here at the national transportation safety board state of the art laboratory, a demonstration of what it takes to get vital information from the all-important black boxes. this is what the pinging of one of the data recorders sound...

Based on what you know about the way planes break up in a situation like this, clive, what are your thoughts on the size of the objects the satellites are actually picking up? >> well, i would be looking for most importantly i think i would be looking for two things, i would be looking for parts of the tail system, the vertical stabilizer, and the horizontal stabilizer, buzz they do break up. and normally they float. and i would hope to see also because we keep talking about this 70-foot-plus piece of debris, that's come up several times. that would match the one-half of the wing, left or righ...

Particular trash can or a particular person or a particular car, something relatively small. that's essentially what they're trying to do. in most cases they're only going to have two or three hours over the city to look before they have to fly all the way back to refuel and start again the next day. so wolf, that gives you a sense of why this is so difficult even with all these great tools out there. something spotted in the water, finding it is a big, big challenge and will remain so. >> a huge shot, especially when the water is choppy, dangerous weather, not easy to fly around there, certai...