French investigators cracked open the badly damaged black box of a German jetliner yesterday and sealed off the rugged Alpine crash site where 150 people died when their plane slammed into a mountain.
The cockpit voice recorder was being mined by investigators for clues into what sent the Germanwings Airbus 320 into a mid-flight dive on Tuesday after pilots lost radio contact over the southern French Alps during a routine flight from Barcelona, Spain, to Duesseldorf, Germany.
Helicopters surveying the scattered debris lifted off at daybreak and crews traveled slowly over land to the remote crash site through fresh snow and rain, threading their way to the craggy ravine.
Photo: AFP
“The black box is damaged and must be reconstituted in the coming hours in order to be useable,” French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL radio.
Key to the investigation is what happened during the two minutes from 10:30am, said Segolene Royal, a top French government minister whose portfolio includes transport. From then on, air traffic controllers were unable to make contact with the plane.
The voice recorder takes audio feeds from four microphones within the cockpit and records all the conversations between the pilots and air traffic controllers as well as any noises in the cockpit.
The flight data recorder, which Cazeneuve said had not been retrieved yet, captures 25 hours’ worth of information on the position and condition of almost every major part in a plane.
Royal and Cazeneuve both said that terrorism is considered unlikely in the crash, which scattered shards of pulverized debris across several hectares.
The crash left pieces of wreckage “so small and shiny, they appear like patches of snow on the mountainside,” French Ministry of the Interior spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said after flying over the debris field.
Investigators retrieving data from the recorder will focus first “on the human voices, the conversations” followed by the cockpit sounds, French Secretary of Transport Alain Vidalies told Europe 1 radio.
He said the government planned to release information gleaned from the black box as soon as the data can be verified.
Germanwings said 144 passengers and six crew members were onboard the flight. The people killed included two babies, two opera singers, an Australian mother and her adult son vacationing together, and 16 German high-school students with two of their teachers returning from an exchange trip to Spain.
“Nothing will be the way it was at our school anymore,” said Ulrich Wessel, the principal of Joseph Koenig High School in the German town of Haltern. “I was asked yesterday how many students there are at the high school in Haltern, and I said 1,283 without thinking — then had to say afterward, unfortunately, 16 fewer since yesterday, and I find that so terrible.”
SECURITY: As China is ‘reshaping’ Hong Kong’s population, Taiwan must raise the eligibility threshold for applications from Hong Kongers, Chiu Chui-cheng said When Hong Kong and Macau citizens apply for residency in Taiwan, it would be under a new category that includes a “national security observation period,” Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. President William Lai (賴清德) on March 13 announced 17 strategies to counter China’s aggression toward Taiwan, including incorporating national security considerations into the review process for residency applications from Hong Kong and Macau citizens. The situation in Hong Kong is constantly changing, Chiu said to media yesterday on the sidelines of the Taipei Technology Run hosted by the Taipei Neihu Technology Park Development Association. With
CARROT AND STICK: While unrelenting in its military threats, China attracted nearly 40,000 Taiwanese to over 400 business events last year Nearly 40,000 Taiwanese last year joined industry events in China, such as conferences and trade fairs, supported by the Chinese government, a study showed yesterday, as Beijing ramps up a charm offensive toward Taipei alongside military pressure. China has long taken a carrot-and-stick approach to Taiwan, threatening it with the prospect of military action while reaching out to those it believes are amenable to Beijing’s point of view. Taiwanese security officials are wary of what they see as Beijing’s influence campaigns to sway public opinion after Taipei and Beijing gradually resumed travel links halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the scale of
A US Marine Corps regiment equipped with Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) is set to participate in the upcoming Balikatan 25 exercise in the Luzon Strait, marking the system’s first-ever deployment in the Philippines. US and Philippine officials have separately confirmed that the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) — the mobile launch platform for the Naval Strike Missile — would take part in the joint exercise. The missiles are being deployed to “a strategic first island chain chokepoint” in the waters between Taiwan proper and the Philippines, US-based Naval News reported. “The Luzon Strait and Bashi Channel represent a critical access
Pope Francis is be laid to rest on Saturday after lying in state for three days in St Peter’s Basilica, where the faithful are expected to flock to pay their respects to history’s first Latin American pontiff. The cardinals met yesterday in the Vatican’s synod hall to chart the next steps before a conclave begins to choose Francis’ successor, as condolences poured in from around the world. According to current norms, the conclave must begin between May 5 and 10. The cardinals set the funeral for Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square, to be celebrated by the dean of the College