Silkair flight recorder said to frustrate probe
Silkair flight recorder said to frustrate probe
WASHINGTON (Reuters): Investigators probing the SilkAir crash
in Indonesia last month have been frustrated by difficulties
reading the flight data recorder, Aviation Week reported on
Monday.
U.S. and Indonesian investigators working in Washington
discovered they were unable to retrieve any data for the last
moments of the flight, the magazine said in its latest issue.
SilkAir flight MI-185 crashed on Dec. 19 in southern Sumatra
on its way from Jakarta to Singapore. All 104 people on board the
Boeing 737-300 were killed.
Aviation Week said investigators were now working with the
maker of the data recorder and other experts to see if there was
a way of restoring the tape.
A flight data recorder in good condition can be read out
quickly, as shown by the recent 24-hour analysis of a recorder
from a United Airlines jumbo jet that hit severe turbulence last
month, killing one person.
The National Transportation Safety Board has had the flight
data recorder almost two weeks. An NTSB spokesman declined to
comment except to say work on both the data recorder and the
cockpit voice recorder continued.
The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday that the 68
U.S.-registered 737's it had ordered inspected for a possible
tail problem had passed those checks.
The FAA ordered the review of bolts and screws on horizontal
stabilizers after indications that 26 of these fasteners may have
been missing from the accident plane before it crashed.
Affected worldwide were 211 Boeing 737-300, 400 and 500 series
aircraft delivered after Sept. 20, 1995.
Aircraft under construction in Boeing plants have also passed
the inspection but attention would still seem to be focused on
the tail of the SilkAir plane.
The Straits Times newspaper of Singapore reported over the
weekend that six pieces of tail wreckage had been found nearly
4.4 miles (seven km) away from the main wreckage area in the Musi
river. These pieces included the horizontal stabilizers.
Neither the FAA, NTSB or Boeing Co. would comment on the
report.
The SilkAir crash has attracted extra attention because it
occurred while the plane was at cruising altitude --
statistically the safest portion of a flight.
The plane was only 10 months old and crewed by experienced
pilots who sent no distress call.
Aviation Week cast doubt on previous reports that the plane
was in clear weather, however. It said a Qantas Boeing 747 flying
a little higher and about five minutes behind the SilkAir plane
had to make a deviation around a severe thunderstorm at the crash
location.
SilkAir is a regional unit of Singapore Airlines.