News that the cockpit voice recorder has been recovered from the underwater crash site of EgyptAir Flight 804 is welcomed by everyone who wants to know what caused the plane to mysteriously dive into the Mediterranean on May 19th killing 66 people onboard. What the pilots said and other sounds recorded on the two hour tape should be able to help determine what happened. But what the CVR probably won’t be able to do is indicate if there was an explosion on board. “Engine failure, catastrophic in flight failure, the recording will stop at the same time,” said Mike Poole, a recorders expert from Canada who… Read More…

Seven years ago today, an Air France Airbus A330 failed to arrive in Paris after an overnight flight from Rio de Janeiro. Two hundred and twenty-eight people died. So it is a particularly poignant case of “the more things change the more they stay the same,” that the airline industry is still wrestling with the issues raised by that accident and revisited repeatedly since then. The loss of EgyptAir Flight 804 over the Mediterranean is the most recent re-ignition of the conversation. On May 20th, the Airbus A320 with 66 people on board appears to have crashed in the sea and the recorders have not… Read More…