By Andy Pasztor, Jon Ostrower and Robert Wall
With lack of security seriously compromising the on-site probe
into Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, hopes of getting clear-cut
answers from its "black box" recorders also may end up a major
disappointment.
The devices are older versions likely to provide only limited
information regarding the sequence of events following the presumed
missile strike on the plane, according to air-safety experts.
Both the flight-data and cockpit-voice recorder were
manufactured in the mid-1990s, years before regulators mandated
that such devices on new jetliners include larger memories, faster
recording speeds and backup battery power in case onboard
electrical systems suddenly fail. The U.S. Federal Aviation
Administration didn't mandate retrofits of backup power.
The result, these experts said, is that investigators are likely
to end up with sketchy data about the seconds immediately after the
ground-to-air missile hit. The cockpit-voice recorder may not have
much beyond the sounds of the impact, they said.
The age of the recorders combined with the extent of damage to
the plane, according to outside experts, also means that
investigators may not get a clear-cut pattern of cascading
equipment failures as the fuselage of the Boeing 777 is assumed to
have ruptured, with parts breaking off and the aircraft
subsequently plummeting to the ground, killing all 298 people
aboard.
Malaysia Airlines and Honeywell International Inc., which made
the recorders, said the devices didn't have any backup electrical
power. If the initial impact of the missile severed critical
electrical and computer connections to the front of the plane, the
cockpit-voice recorder would have stopped working within
one-quarter of a second, according to industry officials.
"The plane probably lost much of its electrical power almost
immediately, " according to Alan Diehl, a former Pentagon and U.S.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator. "Unlike most
accidents, I don't think the recorders are going to help explain
very much" about pilot reactions or the plane's disintegration.
Amid the escalating public focus on what the black boxes may
reveal, British investigators analyzing them said over the weekend
that "we don't comment on operational matters."
The Dutch Safety Board, which is in charge of the overall probe,
previously said it successfully downloaded information from both
recorders. But it didn't elaborate on how much of the recovered
data originally were recorded before the presumed missile strike.
Boeing didn't immediately respond to questions.
Over the weekend, Dutch investigators said they weren't ready to
discuss details of the probe. The entire international team of
investigators working on Flight 17 has had to promise to refrain
from prematurely divulging details. Regulators and industry
officials from several countries, however, project that some
preliminary findings could be made public around the end of the
month.
Ukrainian, U.S. and U.K. authorities have said they believe a
sophisticated surface-to-air missile, fired from an area controlled
by pro-Russian separatists, brought down the plane. They also said
there isn't any credible evidence indicating another cause. With
international investigators largely kept from the site, safety
experts emphasized the challenge of collecting remnants of the
plane for detailed chemical and metallurgical analyses seeking
residue from a missile.
Experts said a fuselage break would have sent hurricane-force
winds of about 300 miles an hour through the interior, breaking
electrical conduits, smashing remnants of the cabin and other parts
into some passengers. Debris spotted on the ground appears to be
spread over at least 6 miles and across three Ukrainian villages,
suggesting an in-flight breakup that may have severed the plane's
forward section from its electricity-generating engines.
From sounds likely captured in the cockpit, "the best you may
get is the pilots saying what the hell is that,'" said John Cox, a
former airline pilot and air-accident investigator for a pilot
union who now runs a consulting firm in Washington.
At best, "the sequence of system failures might give
investigators a better handle on what part of the plane received
the initial impact," Mr. Cox said.
Major portions of the front of the jet, including the
electronics bay that distributes power to aircraft systems, landed
in a sunflower field around 4 miles from the largest concentration
of debris containing the jet's engines and wings.
The flight-data recorder presumably will provide definitive
altitude, speed, heading and location information before impact, as
well as whether engines or other onboard equipment were operating
normally. But unless that device continued to receive full power
and uninterrupted data during the jet's breakup--something many
experts consider unlikely--downloading its contents probably won't
yield all of the answers investigators seek.
"Once the plane starts falling apart, a lot of things get
disconnected and you lose" vital information from system sensors as
well as what was occurring on the flight deck, said Dick Healing, a
former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
Ten days after Flight 17 went down, the precise capabilities of
its cockpit recorder remained unclear. A Honeywell spokesman said
the device, manufactured in December 1996, has a 30-minute memory
and keeps recording over older audio recorded in the cockpit. In
response to questions, Malaysia Airlines said the device records
the last two hours of sounds in the cockpit, which is today's
standard.
Jason Ng contributed to this article.
Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com, Jon Ostrower at
jon.ostrower@wsj.com and Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com
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