Malaysia Airlines ‘black box’ recordings lost
As the search for missing Malasyia Airlines flight MH370 continues, UK air accident investigators have revealed how "unrobust procedures" meant all relevant ‘black box’ voice recorder data was lost in an earlier serious incident involving the same airline.
One of its Boeing 747s was forced to return to Heathrow shortly after take-off due to significant vibration in one of the engines, said a report by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). During the approach to land back at Heathrow, all three autopilots disengaged, the cockpit displays and lights flickered and a series of fault messages were displayed.
There was a subsequent loss of power to some systems but the captain managed to land the 747, with more than 300 passengers and crew onboard, safely.
The AAIB, which classed the incident in 2011 as "serious" in its report today, said the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) continued to run for some time after the aircraft landed "and as a result all relevant CVR recordings were lost".
CVRs can only retain two hours of data, so if they continue to record after a flight has landed crucial recordings could be over-written.
The AAIB said: "The investigation determined that the operator’s procedures for the preservation of flight recording was not sufficiently robust to ensure that recordings would be preserved in a timely manner following an incident or accident."
The report said that Malaysia Airlines had "expressed willingness to address this issue" and updated its procedures.
Air crash investigators are hoping that if they find the voice recorders from flight MH370 they could explain why it veered suddenly of course as it travelled from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, but experts have already suggested that the pilots’ final words might have been over-written if it continued to fly for hours after the crew became unconscious.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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