Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 31, 2010
With any airplane crash, there are many unanswered questions as to what brought the plane down. Investigators turn to the airplane’s flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR), also known as “black boxes,” for answers. In Flight 261, the FDR contained 48 parameters of flight data, and the CVR recorded a little more than 30 minutes of conversation and other audible cockpit noises.
A flight data recorder (FDR) (also ADR, for accident data recorder) is a kind of flight recorder. It is a device used to record specific aircraft performance parameters. Another kind of flight recorder is the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), which records conversation in the cockpit, radio communications between the cockpit crew and others (including conversation with air traffic control personnel), as well as ambient sounds. In some cases, both functions have been combined into a single unit.
Popularly referred to as a “black box,” the data recorded by the FDR is used for accident investigation, as well as for analyzing air safety issues, material degradation and engine performance. Due to their importance in investigating accidents, these ICAO-regulated devices are carefully engineered and stoutly constructed to withstand the force of a high speed impact and the heat of an intense fire. Contrary to the “black box” reference, the exterior of the FDR is coated with heat-resistant bright orange paint for high visibility in wreckage, and the unit is usually mounted in the aircraft’s empennage (tail section), where it is more likely to survive a severe crash. Following an accident, recovery of the “black boxes” is second in importance only to the rescue of survivors and recovery of human remains.
Although many of the black boxes in use today use magnetic tape, which was first introduced in the 1960s, airlines are moving to solid-state memory boards, which came along in the 1990s. Magnetic tape works like any tape recorder. The Mylar tape is pulled across an electromagnetic head, which leaves a bit of data on the tape.
Solid-state recorders are considered much more reliable than their magnetic-tape counterparts. Data from both the CVR and FDR is stored on stacked memory boards inside the crash-survivable memory unit (CSMU). In recorders made by L-3 Communications, the CSMU is a cylindrical compartment on the recorder. The stacked memory boards are about 1.75 inches (4.45 cm) in diameter and 1 inch (2.54 cm) tall.
The memory boards have enough digital storage space to accommodate two hours of audio data for CVRs and 25 hours of flight data for FDRs.
Airplanes are equipped with sensors that gather data. There are sensors that detect acceleration, airspeed, altitude, flap settings, outside temperature, cabin temperature and pressure, engine performance and more. Magnetic-tape recorders can track about 100 parameters, while solid-state recorders can track more than 700 in larger aircraft.
All of the data collected by the airplane’s sensors is sent to the flight-data acquisition unit (FDAU) at the front of the aircraft. This device often is found in the electronic equipment bay under the cockpit. The flight-data acquisition unit is the middle manager of the entire data-recording process. It takes the information from the sensors and sends it on to the black boxes.
Any sounds in the cockpit are picked up by these microphones and sent to the CVR, where the recordings are digitized and stored. There is also another device in the cockpit, called the associated control unit, that provides pre-amplification for audio going to the CVR. Here are the positions of the four microphones:
Pilot’s headset
Co-pilot’s headset
Headset of a third crew member (if there is a third crew member)
Near the center of the cockpit, where it can pick up audio alerts and other sounds
Most magnetic-tape CVRs store the last 30 minutes of sound. They use a continuous loop of tape that completes a cycle every 30 minutes. As new material is recorded, the oldest material is replaced. CVRs that used solid-state storage can record two hours of audio. Similar to the magnetic-tape recorders, solid-state recorders also record over old material.
Ethiopian Airlines Plane crash ‘similar’ to Earlier Disaster
Say, British investigators
British aviation lawyers have launched their own investigation into last week’s Ethiopian airliner crash and are examining similarities with another air disaster less than three years ago.
Ethiopian Airlines’ flight 409 caught fire five minutes after take-off from Beirut on Monday and plummeted into the Mediterranean two miles off the Lebanese coast, killing all 89 passengers and crew, including two Britons.
The plane crashed in similar circumstances to a Kenya Airways plane that came down in Cameroon in May 2007 killing all 114 people on board.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 31, 2010
This is a very saddening and distressing situation!
The grieving father of Albert Assal, one of the Ethiopian plane crash victims whose body hasn’t been found yet, died from a heart attack on Friday. Jirji Assal was admitted to Bitar hospital in Batroun after suffering a heart attack. However, he later died. Meanwhile, the bodies of Ali Ahmed Jaber and Anna Abes, two victims of Monday’s jet crash, were handed over to their families for burial on Friday. Jaber, 40, will be buried in Nabatiyeh at 2:00pm while Abes, 37, will be laid to rest at her hometown of Tripoli’s Mina district. The body of a child, Mohammed Kreik remains at hospital because his family is awaiting for news on his father, Hassan Kreik, who was aboard the plane and is still missing. Also five bodies of Ethiopians remain at the hospital morgue. Lebanese officials plan to send a team to Ethiopia to take DNA samples of victims’ families there. Four people, including a child, were buried on Thursday. The fate of the remaining passengers remains unknown.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 29, 2010
After Lebanon’s Transport and Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi suggested Tuesday pilot error could have caused the crash, several Lebanese media outlets carried stories inferring Ethiopia was to blame.
“The aviation discipline is such that when there is an accident, you don’t rush to conclusions, you have to wait for the investigation to be completed,” Ethiopian Airlines CEO Girma Wake told reporters on Tuesday following Aridi’s comments. “Rushing remarks, I don’t think … helps anybody.”
Message boards on Lebanese and Ethiopian websites have seen a flurry of activity, with tersely-worded accusations being hurled on either side. One commentator on the Al-Arabiya website said they believed “the Lebanese government is looking for a scapegoat” to cover up for poor airport safety.
On Monday night a regional broadcaster conducted a live interview outside the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, where bodies of the passengers are being taken. A bereaved Ethiopian who accidently walked into shot was quickly dragged out of view by the television crew.
At the hospital grounds Thursday, a group of Ethiopian women gathered to wait for news of their friends. They initially said they had been treated well by the Lebanese following the plane crash but later said they were being ignored. “There are too many problems here,” said one woman who wished to be identified as Kelile. “Many of our friends aren’t being allowed to come to the hospital. The employer of one of our friends didn’t even tell her that her sister had been onboard.”
There are around 20,000 Ethiopian migrant workers in Lebanon, mostly women who work as live-in house-keepers or nannies. According to many of those gathered outside the hospital, many of those who perished on Monday were workers who were returning home after finishing their contracts in Lebanon. Others were escaping abusive employers. “The friend I had on the plane was just released from prison,” one woman told The Daily Star, declining to identify herself or her friend. Her friend spent nine months in prison because her papers were not in order.
Pathologist Ahmad al-Muqdad told OTV the Lebanese would accept DNA samples from the Ethiopian Consulate in Beirut to help identify Ethiopian victims on board, but did not say whether genetic data would be sent to Ethiopia.
“I had friends on the plane,” said Ethiopian freelance worker Desta (not her real name). “They worked hard in Lebanon and some weren’t treated well by their employers. It makes me so sad to think how much they suffered here and then, on their way home, to have this happen.”
Desta said she’d heard from other members of her community that relatives of Ethiopian passengers were put in a separate waiting room at Beirut’s international airport following the crash. “It’s as if we’ll contaminate them [the Lebanese],” she said. “But everyone is suffering. Don’t the Ethiopian families deserve respect too?”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 27, 2010
There are still no answers as to what caused an Ethiopian Airlines jet to crash into the Mediterranean just off the coast of Lebanon early this morning, killing 90 people.
The Boeing 737 passenger jet took off in bad weather from the airport in Beirut heading for Addis Abeba in Ethiopia.
The jet went up in flames shortly after take-off and plunged into the sea with 90 people on board.
The plane crashed only four minutes after starting out on its journey at 2.30 am local time (1.30 am Central European Time).
Eyewitnesses reported hearing a loud noise and seeing a ball of fire in the sky. Then the Boeing 737 crashed into the middle of the sea.
A police spokesman ruled out a terror attack as the cause of the accident.
A spokesman for the airport said that the plane was clearly hit by lightning. “The weather really was very bad”, confirmed the transport minister Ghazi al-Aridi.
But German Aerospace Centre spokesman, Andreas Schuetz, said: “It is still much too early – it is nearly impossible to name the exact reason or to rule out something just a few hours after such an event”.
“Lightning alone can not cause a plane to crash” said Schuetz, “it can only be a part of various other circumstances”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 27, 2010
China’s minister for commerce says trade with Ethiopia will reach $3 billion by 2015
ASK AN Addis Ababa taxi driver to take you to Ethio-China Friendship Road and he might just scratch his head.
The renaming of Wollo Sefer, one of the Ethiopian capital’s main thoroughfares, in tribute to the country’s burgeoning ties with Beijing might be obvious from the new street signs but it has yet to filter down to everyday use.
The road is not the only marker of China’s growing engagement with Ethiopia.
Addis Ababa’s ultramodern airport was built by the Chinese, as was the city’s ring road and flyover.
An extensive renovation of the African Union headquarters in downtown Addis is being financed by the Chinese to the tune of more than $100 million (€71 million).
Across the city, a Chinese government-built school, designed to cater for up to 3,000 students, offers Mandarin classes as part of its curriculum.
Scores of Ethiopians have been given scholarships to study subjects including engineering and architecture in China.
The Chinese restaurants and clinics advertising acupuncture and traditional herbal remedies that have become part of the landscape in almost every African city in recent years are here too. According to local media, some 1,000 Chinese companies operate in Ethiopia.
Besuited Chinese businessmen can be seen discussing deals in Addis hotel lobbies, while engineers and others fresh from working on road and telecommunications projects or building power stations and water supply systems haggle for souvenirs in the city’s sprawling Merkato before flying home to Beijing.
In some Ethiopian towns and villages, it is not uncommon for foreigners to find themselves being greeted by children yelling “China, China”.
Earlier this month Chen Deming, China’s minister for commerce, was in town predicting that trade volume between the two countries will reach $3 billion by 2015. Chinese investment in Ethiopia amounted to just under $1 billion last year, and there is much talk of future investment in agricultural projects.
“China and Ethiopia have been mutually supportive on the political front and closely co-operating on the economic front,” Chen said, going on to use the stock expression Chinese officials trot out when discussing relations with African states: “It is fair to regard the Sino-Ethiopian friendship as an all-weather one.”
China’s new engagement with Africa has played out very differently across the continent, helping revitalise moribund economies in some countries, while breeding resentment elsewhere due to support for unsavoury regimes, poor work practices and threatened local industries.
There have been a few cautionary tales for the Chinese along the way. In 2007, for example, nine Chinese oil workers were killed and seven briefly kidnapped in the restive Ogaden area of eastern Ethiopia.
Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi says African states must be prudent in setting the parameters of the relationship.
“The Chinese interest in Ethiopia has been nothing short of a godsend,” he tells The Irish Times.
“We have benefited massively from it, but like everything else it is capable of becoming a nightmare . . . It is up to the host countries as to how they use the available resources from the Chinese in the best possible manner. Those who do will benefit, those who don’t may not benefit as perhaps they ought to.”
China’s assistance in building infrastructure and its investment in manufacturing has been invaluable for Ethiopia, Meles says.
“We need investment from any quarter we can get it. The Chinese have been more aggressive in investing in Ethiopia than many others and our hope is that Chinese investment will entice not only additional Chinese investment but also investment from other countries.”
But, as in every African country wooing Beijing, there is debate over who stands to gain. A 2008 study by an economist at Addis Ababa University noted that while Ethiopian consumers will benefit from cheap Chinese imports, small local firms, particularly in the clothing and footwear sectors, will lose out.
Opposition figures, like many of their counterparts elsewhere in Africa, mutter darkly about deals agreed behind closed doors, and speculate on the motives of both the government and Beijing.
One told me he suspects that the Meles regime sees China’s overtures as an opportunity to shore up support where it matters on the world stage.
Whatever way the debate shifts, however, the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that the Chinese are here to stay.
The ministry said in a statement Wednesday the switches will be flicked at 7.30 pm every third Wednesday in the month to “help staff get dedicated to childbirth and upbringing”.
Those with urgent duties will be exempt from the switch-off.
“Going home early may have no direct link to having more kids, but you cannot just completely rule out a possible link between them,” Choi Jin-Sun, who is in charge if the project at the ministry, told AFP.
Low birthrate is a pressing issue in this fast-ageing society.
South Korea’s birthrate — the average number of babies born during a woman’s lifetime — remained near the world’s lowest at 1.19 in 2008 and there are fears the population will begin shrinking within a decade.
“It won’t be too long before our children are burdened with supporting the elderly,” Health Minister Jeon Jae-Hee told the Korea Times newspaper.
“Korea may lose out in the global economic competition due to a lack of manpower. It is actually the most urgent and important issue the country is facing.”
Married staff at the ministry are not doing their bit, with an average of 1.63 children compared to the average of 1.82 among all civil servants. The ministry aims to increase the figure to 2.0 in two years.
The ministry has various other incentives, including cash gifts, for staff who produce more than two babies. Some local governments also run schemes or even matchmaking services to boost the birthrate.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 21, 2010
Attractive women may have the competitive edge by letting their temper flare more, research suggests.
Researchers found women who rated themselves as pretty displayed a war-like streak when fighting battles to get their own way.
The University of California interviewed 156 female students to gauge their temperament and how they handled conflict.
The findings appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In the study, the women who believed they were good looking were more likely to respond angrily in disputes than those who rated themselves as less attractive.
Attractive women also had higher expectations of what they deserved.
These were strategies that appeared to work because the same women were better at resolving situations in their favour.
When the researchers, led by Dr Aaron Sell, scrutinised the findings further, they found how attractive other people rated the women also tallied.
And so did hair colour – with blondes rated as more attractive than brunettes and redheads.
The researchers believe the findings have an evolutionary basis, ensuring that the “fittest” people mate and have offspring.
In men, they found a similar link but with physical strength rather than attractiveness per se.
Consultant psychologist Ingrid Collins, of The London Medical Centre, said the latest findings were interesting but should be interpreted with caution.
“This is a small study on a very limited sample group so it is not possible to generalise.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 14, 2010
Celebrated US televangelist Pat Robertson, a former candidate for the US presidency, affirmed that the people of Haiti once made a “pact” with Satan since gaining their independence from France in the late 1700s. Reacting to the tragic earthquake, which may have claimed as many as 500,000 lives, Robertson mused that the tremor may be a “blessing in disguise” for the poorest nation in the Americas.
Robertson, host of the ‘700 Club’ television broadcast and a multimillionaire, said that Haiti has been “cursed by one thing after another” since they “swore a pact to the devil.”
“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about,” Robertson said.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 6, 2010
January 7, it’s Christmas in Ethiopia
Christ is born! He comes to empty Himself, and reveal God in human form. Christ is born! He became everything that we are, that we might become all that He is. Christ is born! Born in the cave and laid in the manger; yet His glory shone from the manger as from the Mercy Seat. Christ is born! All the angels and the whole creation rejoice! Christ is born! Empty of self in the poverty of humility. Christ is born! Radiant in the glory of His divinity, shining in the obscurity of human darkness. Christ is born! Enlightening with grace all creation. Christ is born! The pledge of the Age to Come: The radiant Coal of the deified New World.
With any airplane crash, there are many unanswered questions as to what brought the plane down. Investigators turn to the airplane’s flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR), also known as “black boxes,” for answers. In Flight 261, the FDR contained 48 parameters of flight data, and the CVR recorded a little more than 30 minutes of conversation and other audible cockpit noises. 
Solid-state recorders are considered much more reliable than their magnetic-tape counterparts. Data from both the CVR and FDR is stored on stacked memory boards inside the crash-survivable memory unit (CSMU). In recorders made by L-3 Communications, the CSMU is a cylindrical compartment on the recorder. The stacked memory boards are about 1.75 inches (4.45 cm) in diameter and 1 inch (2.54 cm) tall. 
Addis Ethiopia Weblog 