I guess there's a major mechanical failure that can happen to put it in a nosedive? And, whatever that failure is, it would also be unrecoverable?
Possibly. The last plane I can think of crashing at that speed/force is Shanksville on 9/11. The United flight inverted and went into the ground nose-first.
Yeah, that was a jack screw issue if I remember correctly, and caused the fleet to be grounded until they were inspected and more than a few repaired. If something goes wrong with the elevator, or if the fucking wings fall off, you could get this behaviour. To Rush's point, I'm pretty sure that there is a centre tank as well as the wing tanks. So if the wings came off, there'd still be a shit-ton of fuel on board to catch fire.
Three layers:One inch of solid aluminum, one inch of fire and heatproof insulation, one inch of Thompson steel. Tsar Bomba would have a hard time cracking that. United 93 didn’t have a chunk of the plane larger than a bowling ball after the crash/explosion, but the black box was unharmed.
I kind of knew there was a centre tank, but I had no idea it was the main tank. Looking at those volumes, it's a shit ton of fuel.
It’s a little harder than that, but these things are built like none other. To break one, you’ll need the force of over 3000 G’s. As in almost 3500 times that of earth’s gravitational force. So like WHAT’S THE DEAL? Why don’t they make the whole PLANE out of the black box?
see this is the kinda stuff that should be on the news. I don't care which politician had the runs this morning -- I wanna know that if my plane goes down, my last screams will certainly be recorded unless it lands wherever MH370 is or yo momma sits on it.
Most commercial aircraft use fuel from the center tank first as it reduces weight on the wing spar and the fuel in the wings factors into wing flex during flight. Also, for many aircraft, the fuel in the wing tanks is above the engines and can gravity feed at a sufficient rate to continue to feed the engine if for some reason the fuel pumps fail.
Regarding "black boxes" they are damage resistant, but not indestructible. There's also a version that will eject itself from the aircraft if the aircraft experiences severe structural damage, is submerged past two meters, and others will eject if the aircraft exceeds recoverable flight parameters. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/eje...be-installed-on-long-range-airbus-planes.html
I’m sure the dramatic dive was because some asshole didn’t have their device turned off or set to airplane mode. They’ve been warning us for years this could happen.
Biden says there’s gonna be a New World Order, and the US has to lead it. You know what that means, right? It means the next Muse album is gonna be fuckin’ lit.