What the black boxes will tell us

UK air accident investigators will examine data from the black boxes of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

The black box ... analysts have warned that they may not reveal all we would like to know about the final moments of MH17. Picture: Damien Simonart Source: AFP

ANYONE expecting the so-called "black boxes" from MH-17 to provide the 'smoking gun' on the tragedy — and who to blame — will be bitterly disappointed, according to experts.

But the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) will reveal vital clues such as the sound of impact and extent of damage.

Former senior air force officer and pilot John Oddie said the most important development that could come from the FDR and CVR, which are actually orange in colour, was the precise time that the missile struck the Boeing 777 aircraft.

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"That will line up with other events such as the firing of a missile to determine exactly when it was fired," the former Air Commodore said.

Mr Oddie said the FDR would not provide conclusive evidence about course deviations such as the 14km alteration that Russia says the aircraft undertook.

In a case such as MH17, where the crash scene had been severely contaminated, the flight data instruments would be even more important, but it is likely that other clues such as missile fragments embedded in the wreckage will ultimately sheet home blame.

The FDR will show what happened to the jet and possibly the force and direction of any impact.

Radar guided missiles usually attack the largest area of a target or the centre fuselage of an airliner, but there is a lag that could have resulted in the proximity fused weapon exploding close to the cockpit, instantly killing the pilots and preventing a radio call.

"If the crew couldn't get a message out the cockpit recorder is unlikely to show much at all," one expert said.

The handover ... a Malaysian investigator receives a black box from Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from people who claimed to be officials from the Donetsk People's Republic. Picture: Dmitry Lovetsky Source: AP

Radar readings and the aircraft's Automated Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADSB), a position broadcast based on global positioning systems (GPS) data, will provide the best clues regarding the exact location of the plane when it disappeared.

Both FDR and CVR can only be used for investigation purposes and airlines must use other methods to monitor a flight's progress or the performance of an aircraft and its systems.

They are normally done using on board quick access recording for maintenance staff or via telemetry to transmit data to airline headquarters or an aircraft maker such as Boeing.

The cockpit voice recorder resets every two hours and will pick up anything said by the pilots or any other noises audible in the cockpit including a missile explosion and catastrophic decompression.

That would allow investigators to possibly isolate the type of weapon used.

Mr Oddie said it was possible that Russia's claim that a Ukrainian fighter jet was tracking the airliner from a distance of between three and five kms was feasible.

"If a fighter doesn't want an airliner to know it is there then it won't emit the signals used by collision avoidance systems," he said.

The flight recorders include a power supply and crash survivable memory unit encased in stainless steel or titanium and rated to withstand an impact of 3400 times the force of gravity and temperatures up to 1000 degrees C. They are stored in the tail of the aircraft.

The FDR records up to 100 flight parameters ranging from altitude and airspeed to fuel levels and flap settings.

The black boxes from Flight MH-17 have been passed by Malaysian authorities to the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch at Farnborough in England for forensic analysis by a team of international investigators.

The meticulous technical investigation will take months to re-create and analyse the final moments of the flight and the 298 souls on board.

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