Media Release
2007/10
Flight Recorders: Garuda 737 Accident at Yogyakarta, Indonesia on 7 March 2007
11 March 2007
The ATSB has been successful in downloading key data from the
flight data recorder (FDR) of the Garuda 737 accident aircraft but
the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) has not yet been able to be
downloaded.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is assisting the
Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) with
Indonesias investigation into the factors which led to the accident
in accordance with Annex 13 to the international Chicago Convention
under which the Indonesian NTSC is in charge of the safety
investigation and the ATSB is Australia's 'accredited
representative'.
In addition to the ATSB's three on-site investigators, as part
of this assistance, four specialist ATSB investigators in Canberra
have been working since Friday afternoon, together with other
staff, to download data from both the CVR and the FDR recovered
from the accident aircraft.
The ATSB has been authorised by the NTSC to report that, despite
the damage to the two recorder 'black boxes', useful data has been
recovered from the FDR. The flight data recording system is
designed to record over 200 engineering parameters. The recovered
data covers the previous 53 flight hours of aircraft operation, and
includes substantial data from the accident flight.
The ATSB has this afternoon provided to the NTSC some initial
FDR data including the aircraft's speed, vertical acceleration,
flap settings and the wind experienced in the accident
sequence.
ATSB investigators have been working with the US-based CVR
manufacturer, Honeywell, to download data from the CVR but an ATSB
investigator now needs to take the CVR module to Honeywell in
Seattle to attempt recovery because all normal specialist recovery
techniques have proved unsuccessful.
At the NTSC's request, the ATSB is prepared to continue to
analyse the recovered FDR data over the coming weeks and months as
the investigation progresses and to prepare a full accident
animation.
It is for the NTSC to authorise the release of any information
derived from the recordings as it becomes available and is verified
by the investigation team.
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