Every year ASC carries out routine flight recorder installation survey on national aircraft. In September official document of flight recorder installation survey forms are sent to operators and government agencies. The goal of this survey is to find out the aircraft installation of CVR, FDR, FDAU, and QAR at various national operators. The findings would be the reference for enhancement of the readout capability of the investigation laboratory, as well as the basis of flight recorder readout in relations to occurrence investigations. The specific works accomplished are:
Survey the models and the manufacturers of flight recorders.
Survey the format of the flight data readout database.
Survey the models and the manufacturers of FDAU.
Survey the installation of FOQA system.
Statistics of the installation of flight recorders in civil aviation fixed-wing aircraft.
Statistics of the installation of flight recorders in government fixed-wing aircraft.
Statistics of the installation of QAR in civil aviation aircraft.
Statistics of the installation of flight recorders in national rotorcraft.
Analysis of the laboratory readout capability of flight recorders.
Findings
ASC accomplished the annual flight recorder installation survey in November 2012. This survey included 14 operators (China Airlines, EVA Airways, UNI Airways, Far Eastern Air Transport, Trans-Asia Airways, Mandarin Airlines, Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation, Daily Air, Sunrise Airlines, Emerald Pacific Airlines, Winair Jet, ROC Aviation Company, Great Wing Airline, and Executive Aviation Taiwan Corp.) and two government agencies (National Airborne Service Corps. and Civil Aeronautics Administration). According to the responses from all these agencies, there are a total of 242 aircraft including 202 fixed-wings and 40 helicopters. Out of these, 208 are civil aircraft (198 fixed-wings and 10 helicopters) and 34 are public aircraft (4 fixed-wings and 30 helicopters.) We have the following findings after completing the survey:
Figure 1 shows the statistics of civil fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft:
The proportion of the civil aircraft with CVR and FDR installation are 94.2% and 91.3% respectively;
The proportion of the civil aircraft with tape-based CVR and FDR installation are 1.4% and 1.4% respectively;
The proportion of the civil aircraft that have 30-min CVR and 120-min CVR installed are 18.3% and 74.5% respectively.
Figure 2 shows the statistics of civil fixed-wing aircraft:
The proportion of the civil fixed-wings airplanes with CVR and FDR installation are 97.0% and 96.0% respectively;
The proportion of the civil fixed-wings airplanes that have tape-based CVR and FDR installed are 1.5% and 1.5% respectively;
The proportion of the civil fixed-wings airplanes that have 30-min CVR and 120-min CVR installed are 17.2% and 78.3% respectively.
The proportion of the civil aircraft with the FDR readout database of paper and electronic flies are 63.0% and 67.3%.
The proportion of the FDR readout database with verification is 92.9%.
The proportion of the civil aircraft that have QAR installed is 86.9%.
The readout capability at ASC LAB for the surveyed CVR and FDR has reached 100% and 99.5% respectively. However, one FDR model (FA2100-4045-00) of L3 Communications and one FDR-25 model (1607-00-00) of Universal Avionics could not be readout due to the shortage of specific equipments.
There are 40 rotary-wings aircraft (including civil and government use), the proportion of CVR, FDR and GPS installation are 20.0%, 2.5% and 75.0%.
There are 34 of public aircraft with seven CVR, and three FDR installed on seven of them. The other 27 government aircraft did not install any flight recorders. The proportion of CVR and FDR installation are 20.6% and 8.8%.
Figure 1 Statistics of civil fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft
One of the goals the ASC Investigation Laboratory trying to pursue is to reach 100% capability of flight recorders readout. To accomplish this, the laboratory carries out national aircraft flight recorder installation survey every year. The survey result shows that the laboratory has made progressive improvement in achieving 100% readout capability on the surveyed recorders. Overall, the proportion of tape-based CVR and FDR decreases noticeably to 1.4%. In the past we have recommended CAA to promote the use of 120 minutes CVR, there were positive responses in this survey.
The installation rate is still quite low on rotary-wing aircraft. Only 8 of the 40 helicopters (including civil and public helicopters) have installed CVR and only one has installed FDR. The proportion of CVR and FDR installation are 20.0% and 2.5% respectively.
There are no relevant regulations for the installation of recorders on public aircraft. This issue has been reported to Executive Yuan in 2002, and the government is now paying attention to the government aircraft supervision mechanism. All 30 government helicopters have installed Global Positioning System now.
The future plans of ASC Laboratory regarding CVR/FDR readout are:
Establish the readout capability on FDR FA2100-4045-00 of L3 Communications and FDR-25 1607-00-00 of Universal Avionics as soon as possible.
Establish readout capability for CPDLC (Controller¡VPilot Data Link Communications) messages on the latest CVR models.
Maintain present readout capability of tape-based flight recorders.
Assist counterparts at Asia-Pacific countries to establish their investigative capabilities.
Send our investigators to counterparts in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia for on-job-training.
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