[.sushilkumar]

Not to speculate but things are not going good for Boeing's off lately. This happened 2 days back in San Jose. A 757 freighter suffered a runway excursion & ended up in 2 pieces.

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/d...breaks-in-two/

Thankfully there is no loss of life but plane is a write off.

Air traffic control audio indicates the pilots chose to return to San Jose due to an issue with one of the aircraft’s hydraulic systems. The flight departed San Jose at 15:36 UTC. The pilots declared Mayday shortly after takeoff and entered a hold to work the relevant checklists. The aircraft touched down 48 minutes after take off at 16:24 UTC.

Source - https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/10537450

[SnS_12]

China says, black boxes of the Boeing 737-800 jet damaged, no clues left to explain crash. Or maybe they don't want to disclose the truth to the world?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPuFyuewook

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by SnS_12

China says, black boxes of the Boeing 737-800 jet damaged, no clues left to explain crash. Or maybe they don't want to disclose the truth to the world?

https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=GPuFyuewook

Thank you for sharing. This sounds strange. Typical PRC obfuscation perhaps. They probably told a frightened Boeing, 'one word out of you and all future orders will be cancelled'. A black box is made of titanium. It has special insulation to protect it from an intense heat fire. It can survive for 30 days and more at a depth of 6000 meters under the sea coping with 600 atmospheres of pressure. It can be dropped in free fall from 40,000 feet and still be recoverable. As you can see their claim that it is damaged such that data cannot be retrieved seems rather hard to digest.

[Rodie09]

I always wonder that in this day and age of seamless connectivity, why the black boxes have to be physically onboard the planes? Or at least as a back up there should be something sent to remote location/cloud as much as possible.

[SnS_12]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Thank you for sharing. This sounds strange. Typical PRC obfuscation perhaps. They probably told a frightened Boeing, 'one word out of you and all future orders will be cancelled'.

This could be the case as this info has been given out by the Chinese and not Boeing directly. But, then why would China want to hide anything unless the fault was not with the aircraft and the pilot or maybe some issue with maintenance? China, surely wouldn’t give up an opportunity to pounce on Boeing if its their fault.

Also, for Boeing China is by far the largest and most important market for aircraft purchases. As per media reports it is estimated the country will account for a quarter of commercial aircraft sales globally over the next 10 years. But in an age of US-Chinese trade tensions only 1% of Boeing's orders since 2017 have been reported as going directly to Chinese buyers. Aircraft deliveries to China, which happen years after plane orders are placed, were stronger, accounting for nearly 20% of Boeing's total since 2017 but have reduced to 5% post 2020.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

They probably told a frightened Boeing, 'one word out of you and all future orders will be cancelled'.

I don't suppose Boeing will have a problem with this. They kept their mouths shut for the Max series anyway.

One month on and we know nothing about this crash. This is starting to feel a bit like how the virus started. Over two years and nobody knows the origins of the virus. Was it a bat or an infected pig from the market. Camp PRC were smart at keeping WHO out of their labs for long enough to cover up anything, if there was.

I hope better sense prevails. That's a father, mother, son, daughter, sibling who were all lost on that plane.

As FM SnS_12 says, the time has come to synchronize the data from these black boxes in real time. We have hundreds of satellites to help achieve this.

[fhdowntheline]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

As FM SnS_12 says, the time has come to synchronize the data from these black boxes in real time. We have hundreds of satellites to help achieve this.

I think in this case the CVR seems to be more important. Not sure how that can be uplinked digitally with good signal strength, on a real time basis.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

I think in this case the CVR seems to be more important. Not sure how that can be uplinked digitally with good signal strength, on a real time basis.

I assume the phone you get to use while on a plane works off a satellite link, which means there is some form of minimal data transfer taking place. Flight Radar pings are also some for of signal transmission. I don't suppose it would be too much trouble to get the CVR hooked up. At the rate these ultra modern planes are falling out of the sky, its about time we did this.

I hope China hands over whatever it has to NTSB. With increasing tensions between the two countries, its starting to feel like they can show the finger to the USA and nobody can't do a thing about it.

[fhdowntheline]

I think the problem is with the data volume as well. Recording approximately 120 min of voice/noise and transmitting it real-time could be a challenge.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

Recording approximately 120 min of voice/noise and transmitting it real-time could be a challenge.

Using a basic example of the ever popular mp3 format, even if you push it up to 320 kbps, which is usually seen in higher quality audio recordings (We do not need it in this case), 2 hours worth of a recording should work out to <300mb of data transmission. Lets make that 2x, worse case. Using modern data transmission systems, that's a spec in term so size.

Considering Musk's StarLink moves terabytes of data quite easily, it should be possible to do this.

[SnS_12]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

the time has come to synchronize the data from these black boxes in real time. We have hundreds of satellites to help achieve this.

Some one had posted on Quora the below response he received some 7 years back when he had written to FAA and NTSB

While the technology exists to stream flight data, currently the infrastructure does not support the concept. If all commercial transport aircraft were constantly streaming a full set of flight data, current capacity would be quickly overwhelmed. Bandwidth to receive, process, and store that magnitude of data simply does not exist at present. That does not, however, imply that industry is not working on potential solutions. Ideas such as compression of data, streaming of subsets of data, and streaming data only when an aircraft enters a distress phase are being investigated.


Streaming of flight data also comes with a different set of concerns that must be addressed. Transmitted signals in open space can, and are, received by anyone with the technical means of doing so. As such, concerns such as ownership of flight data, confidentiality of the data, and other related topics must be addressed before such a system is put in widespread use.

Link: https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-fligh...ing-it-locally

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by SnS_12

This could be the case as this info has been given out by the Chinese and not Boeing directly. But, then why would China want to hide anything unless the fault was not with the aircraft and the pilot or maybe some issue with maintenance? China, surely wouldn’t give up an opportunity to pounce on Boeing if its their fault.

My thoughts exactly. But if the PRC or any national aviation regulator is able to blackmail a plane manufacturer like this, I would be very much concerned as a frequent traveler.

Had this been a 737 MAX, the Chinese would've probably ruled this as another case of MCAS activating but the 737 NG is too common and has flown for far too long to make any such claims about the design. That said, I've read that the Chinese generally have a decent flight safety record as most of their planes are relatively new like in India, so it seems counter-intuitive that they aren't being transparent about this - it will only make their skies safer (but then again, the Chinese haven't acted rationally since 2020).

[StarrySky]

Originally Posted by SnS_12

China says, black boxes of the Boeing 737-800 jet damaged, no clues left to explain crash. Or maybe they don't want to disclose the truth to the world?

I think the title/description of the video and the whole video itself do not match entirely. The news report indeed says that the black boxes were heavily damaged and also that it will therefore take much more time to recover and analyze the data. In the meantime, they have not found any clues to explain the crash or do not want to speculate. I guess that is understandable in a crash like this where the aircraft is in a thousands, if not tens of thousands of pieces. There is no indication that they have abandoned efforts to recover the data from the black boxes.

[vharihar]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

They probably told a frightened Boeing, 'one word out of you and all future orders will be cancelled'

Not following your logic. If the threat "one word out of you ..." is China threatening Boeing, then why would China try to hide anything that damages Boeing?

Or did I misunderstand?

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by vharihar

Not following your logic. If the threat "one word out of you ..." is China threatening Boeing, then why would China try to hide anything that damages Boeing?

Or did I misunderstand?

The analysis of the recordings of the black box is being done by Boeing. China may be scared that the data will reveal either a serious mistake of the pilot or maintenance or worse a fight in the cockpit and wants to control the public narrative on this. Hope this helps. It is quite likely China, as its largest customer has asked Boeing not to divulge details publicly till the Chinese Govt has decided what they wish to share to the public at large.