Black boxes from 2009 Air France crash home

Let's pray they can find something useful on the memory cards that will allow this awful mystery to be solved. There are so many people flying on similar aircraft every day, possibly with a continuing problem.

I can't help but wonder how useful the old tape-driven flight recorders would have fared in this situation -- the salt water and high pressure would have likely destroyed them by now. At least with solid-state electronics, there is a chance that information can be salvaged. Just look at the detailed information that was retrieved from the onboard the orbiter Columbia after it disintegrated during re-entry.

AirBus and the industry users already have a pretty good idea what system issues were involved in the loss of AF447. The system failures seem to be related to erroneous pitot-static information sent to the using components throughout the airplane. The ACARS sent maintenance related failure data by burst transmission in the period just before the airplane was lost.
Similar mx failures and operator reports had been occurring in the A330/A340 fleets of various operators worldwide before the accident. There have been subsequent events as well. Icing in the pitot-static system was a suspected cause and steps were being taken to replace the probes by worldwide users from one vendor to another (Goodrich to Thales I think?).
I will ask my friends who are still current on the A330 to see what has been done the last year or so.

Good report. The change was the opposite i.e from Thales to Goodrich.

its always a tragity when an airplane goes down and the cause is unknown i hope they figure this out soon. for the loved ones sake.

Here is a link to "The Aviation Herald" website with very current info on the recovery operation of AF 447:

[http://avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1/0053&opt=0]