Ethiopian to hire consulting firm on data recording machines
Reporter, Ethiopia
March 6, 2010
Kaleyesus Bekele
Following the controversy over the plane crash investigation process, the management of Ethiopian Airlines is contemplating hiring an international consulting firm that specializes in Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) machines, it was learnt.
The Reporter last week reported that the Lebanese authorities had tampered with the CVR’s memory chip. Ethiopian officials said parts of the recorded segments on CVR was deleted. Ethiopian aviation professionals are puzzled by the fact that the memory chip was found separately detached from the VCR and parts of the recorded segments were deleted.
Reliable sources told The Reporter that officials of Ethiopian were contemplating to hire an international consulting company that specializes on the nature and functions of FDR and CVR. The company that would be hired by Ethiopian is expected to help the Ethiopian aviation professionals in solving the problems related to the CVR.
In response to The Reporter’s queries’ Boeing said that as the matter was under investigation they could not answer specific questions. However, Boeing said it does not produce CVRs. The FDR is manufactured by a company called Honeywell and the manufacturer of the CVR is L-3 Communications. The engine of the B737-800 is CFM-56-7b, manufactured jointly by General Electrics and Snecma.