List of unrecovered and unusable flight recorders
Appearance
![]() |
Flight data recorders (FDRs) and cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) in commercial airplanes continuously record information and can be immensely helpful to determine the cause of a crash. The deepest a flight recorder has been recovered was the case of South African Airways Flight 295, where the cockpit voice recorder was recovered 16,000 feet (4,900 m) under the ocean.[1] However, there are many cases where recovered recorders did not definitively identify the cause of a crash. Recorders may be recovered, but too damaged to read or have blanks, like in TWA Flight 800 or Swissair Flight 111, after power is cut off.
List of unrecovered flight recorders
Date of crash | Flight No. | Airline | Plane type | Presumed location | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1965-08-16 | 389 | United Airlines | Boeing 727-22 | Lake Michigan, off Chicago, Illinois | Resting in 76 metres (249 ft) of water; FDR recording media never found[2] |
1973-07-22 | 816 | Pan American World Airways | Boeing 707-321B | Pacific Ocean, off Papeete, Tahiti | Resting in 700 metres (2,300 ft) of water; neither recorder found[3] |
1975-09-30 | 240 | Malév | Tupolev Tu-154 | near the Lebanese shoreline | Resting in between 600 metres (2,000 ft) and 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) of water[4] |
1979-01-30 | cargo | Varig aircraft PP-VLU | Boeing 707-323C | in the Pacific Ocean, around 200 kilometers East Northeast from Tokyo, Japan | The aircraft debris were never located and thus, neither the CVR and FDR was found and the cause of the crash was never determined.[5] |
1985-01-01 | 980 | Eastern Air Lines | Boeing 727-225 | 25 NM (46 km) from La Paz at the 19,600-ft (5975 m) level of Andean peak Mt. Illimani. | Due to the extreme high altitude and inaccessibility of the accident location, the FDR and CVR were never recovered.[6] |
1987-11-28 | 295 | South African Airways | Boeing 747-244B Combi | Indian Ocean, near Mauritius | CVR located at 4,900 metres (16,100 ft); FDR not found. |
1987-11-29 | 858 | Korean Air | Boeing 707-3B5C | Andaman Sea | Neither flight recorder was ever found. [7] |
1992-10-04 | 1862 | El Al Israel Airlines | Boeing 747-258F | Groeneveen and Klein-Kruitberg flats in the Bijlmermeer, Amsterdam Zuidoost | One Black Box was found. The tape was broken in 4 pieces. The last 2:45 minutes where unreadable.[8] |
2001-09-11 | 11 | American Airlines | Boeing 767-223ER | North World Trade Center, New York City | Neither flight recorder found, destroyed in the building.[9] Two recovery workers stated that they observed FBI agents recovering flight recorders at the WTC site.[10] |
2001-09-11 | 175 | United Airlines | Boeing 767-222 | South World Trade Center, New York City | Neither flight recorder found, destroyed in the building.[9] See above. |
2001-10-04 | 1812 | Siberia Airlines | Tupolev Tu-154 | Black Sea | Neither flight recorder found. |
2009-06-01 | 447 | Air France | Airbus A330-200 | Atlantic Ocean near the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago | Neither flight recorder found.[1] |
See also
References
- ^ a b "No sign of Air France flight recorders as search ends". CNN. 20 August 2009. Retrieved 20 August 2009.
- ^ NTSB Aircraft Accident Report, United Airlines N7036U in Lake Michigan
- ^ Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
- ^ The Lost Flight - Malév 240 | Airliners.net
- ^ "Varig accident description". Aviation Safety Network. 30 January 1979. Retrieved 20 October 2009.
- ^ Investigation of Controlled Flight into Terrain. Descriptions of Flight Paths for Selected Controlled Flight into Terrain (CFIT) Aircraft Accidents, 1985-1997. by Robert O. Phillips. Federal Aviation Administration, U. S. Department Of Transportation, Project Memorandum DOT-TSC-FA9D1-99-01, March 1999.
- ^ Los Angeles Times. 13 April 1990 http://articles.latimes.com/1990-04-13/news/mn-1259_1_north-korean-bombed.
{{cite news}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help) - ^ [1],
- ^ a b 9/11 Commission Report, Notes to Chapter 1, note 76, page 456 (PDF page 474),
- ^ Bunch, William (28 October 2004). "2 say they found 9/11 'black boxes'". Philadelphia Daily News. p. 07. Retrieved 26 June 2010.