What the receptionist said

Deciphering of the “black boxes” of the lost Armenian airliner has begun

Specialists of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), as Vremya Novostei learned, on Monday began deciphering the data from the flight recorders (the so-called “black boxes”) of the Armenian Airlines A320 aircraft, which crashed during landing at the airport on May 3 Sochi.

Despite the fact that during the disaster the “black boxes” were subjected to severe dynamic impact, and then lay on the seabed for almost three more weeks at a depth of about 500 meters in an aggressive hydrogen sulfide environment, they turned out to be relatively serviceable and retained all the information - the operating parameters of the main components aircraft and conversations between crew members about what happened on board the A320 in the last minutes and seconds before the tragedy. True, a preliminary study of this data has not yet helped experts figure out the cause of the disaster. Certain conclusions in this regard are expected to be made only after a detailed analysis of the black box data, which may take several weeks, and possibly months.

An Armavia airline plane flying from Yerevan to Sochi fell and sank in the Black Sea during landing at a distance of 6-7 km from the coast on the night of May 3. As a result of the disaster, all 105 passengers and eight crew members on board were killed. A technical investigation into the causes of the incident was carried out by the IAC commission with the participation of Rostransnadzor, Rosaviatsia, Rosaeronavigatsiya, as well as representatives of Armenia and France.

Information from media enclosed in special containers, which are “black boxes,” was filmed in Paris. According to world practice, damaged on-board recorders are opened in the country of origin. In the case of the A320, that country is France. Last weekend, the recorders were flown to Paris to the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), the government agency charged with investigating plane crashes in that country.

Although the “black boxes” are structurally manufactured with armor protection and are supposed to be resistant to heat and aggressive environments, their contents are still partially damaged. In addition, the voice recorder that recorded the pilots' conversations turned out to be made according to the old design scheme - using magnetic tape as an information carrier, although microchips are now used in Europe for these purposes. The second, parametric recorder was made exactly this way. Its microcircuits record not only the flight altitude and speed, which investigators almost immediately determined based on locator data at Sochi airport, but also the operating mode of the engines, the position of the rudders, flaps and a whole range of other units and instruments.

Work to remove information from the tape and chip was carried out using the BEA technical base, as noted in the IAC’s official statement, “in full compliance with technological and procedural standards with the participation of representatives of the aviation authorities of Armenia and Russia.” The recording on both recorders, despite the damage, was in satisfactory condition, and on Sunday the information was copied to other media.

IAC experts began decoding, or more precisely, analytical processing of information on Monday in Moscow. Experts have already established in principle what happened on board the crashed plane, but they cannot yet say why exactly the airbus crashed into the Black Sea. It will be possible to answer the question about the causes of the disaster only after a thorough time comparison of the data from both recorders and the conversations between the crew and the dispatcher. Adding some complexity is the fact that some of the conversations in the cabin were conducted in Armenian, and to accurately establish the situation they have to be translated. According to preliminary calculations, all this will take at least a month. Until this moment, the IAC refuses to give any official comments.

Eduard LOMOVTSEV