In the nearly three years since an Air France Airbus A330 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean and searchers began a 22-month hunt for the airplane’s flight recorders, alternatives have developed to make future searches more efficient or, in some cases, to provide new methods of delivering crucial flight information to accident investigators.
Some of these alternatives involve various uses of streaming data; others focus on new methods of locating an aircraft’s black boxes under water or in other difficult terrain.
In the aftermath of the June 1, 2009, crash, regulators have pressed for changes even as the French Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA) has continued its investigation into the cause of the accident, which killed all 228 people aboard the flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris. The BEA has said that its final report would be published by June.1
An investigation also was continuing into another accident four…
