Tuesday, August 28, 2007

On-going saga of crashed plane

Remember the mysterious plane crash nine months ago? (See posts of January 5 and 25 and February 1.) Well, after months of dithering over who would pay for it, a US or Cypriot salvage ship (depending on the reporter) was finally hired by the airline to go retrieve the black boxes. The ship was equipped with sonar, underwater cameras and an unmanned robot capable of going as deep as 6,000 meters (20,000 feet). The ship arrived in the region last week. It took a few days to finish the last paperwork details before it was finally permitted to proceed to the crash site. It sounds like it was almost overladen with rubber-necking officials, local and foreign, as it churned its way to the site. Nevertheless it finished its mission in short order. Today it was announced that both black boxes were retrieved from a depth of around 2000 meters. Local papers mentioned that other wreckage assumed to be from the plane was also retrieved from the sea floor but that no human remains had been spotted. After 9 months I suppose not. The black boxes were immediately sent to the US and some reporters opined that they would be read within the week and analyzed within a month. I’m not holding my breath, but I am very curious as to the findings.

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