Seems Kenya officials don't trust the Airbus Manufacturer's home country to examine the black box....

Canada to examine Kenya Airways black box

Nairobi - The "black box" flight data recorder from the Kenya Airways airliner which crashed into the sea off Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on 30 January killing 169 people will be sent to Canada for evaluation, it was reported on Friday.

The Kenyan daily East African Standard said Ivory Coast President Robert Guie had decided the flight data recorder should be sent to Canada following a dispute between Kenyan and French experts investigating the crash of the Airbus A-310 airliner.

Media reports said Airbus technicians wanted to have the data recorder evaluated in France, while Kenyan experts feared that employees of the airplane maker would not make an "objective assessment" of how the crash took place.

There has been no concrete evidence of what may have caused the tragedy in which only ten people survived. Kenya Airways has said the pilot was well experienced and the plane was in good technical condition.

The Airbus A-310 plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after take-off from Abidjan Airport on the night of 30 January.

A Kenyan navy diver died during the search for wreckage and flight recorders last weekend. - Sapa-dpa

Link

http://news.24.com/English/Africa/Northern_Africa/ENG_244337_1003177_SEO.asp

Russia Finds Booster Rocket MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian search teams found an experimental booster rocket that was launched into space and came back to Earth last week, but a dummy satellite along for the ride was still missing, the Interfax news agency said Monday.

The experimental Russian booster, called Fregat, was designed to put payloads higher into orbit. It was launched Feb. 9 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakstan, successfully changing altitude four times and separating from the satellite.

But the booster and the satellite disappeared as they returned to Earth shortly afterward because their radio beacons malfunctioned. A snowstorm also hindered efforts to find them.

Search teams in Russia's Orenburg region, which borders Kazakstan about 800 miles southeast of Moscow, found the Fregat unit in tact Monday, Interfax cited the Russian Aerospace Agency as saying.

But the satellite, also believed to have landed in Orenburg, remained missing, Interfax said.

Still, officials said the fact that both the satellite and the booster had returned to Earth at all meant a second experiment in the launch was a success: Both were equipped with new devices called aerobrakes, which inflate and protect their cargoes from burning up in the atmosphere and ensure soft landing.

Link:

http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpne10.htm

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 15, 2000

Answers

BBC

"The main part of the plane is on a slope about 60m (200ft) under water, about 2km (1.5 miles) off shore, and is believed to be slipping deeper into the ocean by the day."

"It has been announced that Canada's Transportation Safety Board will help investigators download data from the flight recorder.

It was recovered a week ago - although the cockpit voice recorder has not been found.

The two "black boxes" would normally provide clues as to what caused the crash.

(TSB) Safety board spokesman Jim Harris said a local investigator would bring the recorder to Ottawa, but he was unable to be specific about the timing.

The move followed controversy over where the data should be processed.

Kenyan officials had said that the airline would oppose any plans to have the data analysed in France, where the plane's manufacturer is based.

They wanted the tests carried out on "neutral ground" such as the United States or Canada."

Kenya Airways website in Britain

(Passenger list included four Canadians, two Dutch, two Americans, one Belgian, one Indian, one Iranian.)

Airbus, France

Info at the Airbus site:

""Kenya Airways A310-300 accident in Abidjan

31-Jan-00 Airbus Industrie regrets to confirm that an A310-300 operated by Kenya Airways was involved in an accident shortly after take-off from Abidjan airport,Ivory Coast. The aircraft was operating a scheduled service, flight KQ 431, from Abidjan to Lagos, Nigeria.

(snip)

" The aircraft involved in the accident, with registration 5-YBEN, was MSN 426 which was delivered to Kenya Airways from the production line in September1986. The aircraft had accumulated approximately 58,000 flight hours in some 15,000 flights. It was powered by General Electric CF6-80C2A2 engines."

(snip)

" The A310-300 is a twin-engine widebody seating 220 passengers in a standard two-class configuration. The first A310 entered service in April 1983. At the end of December 1999, 249 A310s were in service with 54 operators. To date, the fleet has accumulated some 7.5 million flight hours in some 2.95 million departures."

Chronology of African Air Disasters

Newsday

(With 49 bodies still missing, Kenya Airways has ended the search for bodies.)

End of links and excerpts.

This crash is so sad because it glaringly points out the lack of resources so many countries have for dealing with a disaster of this nature. Relatives had to identify their family members by searching through bodies in an unrefrigerated morgue. My heart is with them.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), February 15, 2000.