EgyptAir's Airbus A320, that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea in May, was forced to make at least 3 emergency landings 24-hours prior to its last journey, the French media reported. Aircraft's warning systems signaled a malfunction on board after the take-off on three several occasions. The alert messages were investigated every time but the plane was cleared to take off.
Routine maintenance checks were performed on the plane before the final flight from Paris to Cairo, officials told CNN.
Former aviation security official, Jean-Paul Troadec, commented on the alerts: “These new findings are an important element for the investigators. We cannot presume to know exactly what happened on board but it’s not entirely normal to turn around several times after a technical incident without finding anything.”
In the meantime, the hunt for the plane’s black boxes received a boost. The French vessel Laplace has detected signals in the Mediterranean Sea, that are assumed to be sent from the black boxes from the EgyptAir's A320 aircraft, according to France’s air accident investigation agency BEA.
The French naval forces are waiting for the second vessel to arrive to the wreckage search area that has been narrowed down to 5 km, in order to take pictures and retrieve the objects from the bottom of the sea.
Egypt’s armed forces are racing against time along with support from France, Greece, the U.S and the U.K. to find the aircraft's black boxes as they send a transmission signal only for 30 days - until their batteries run out of power. From a maximum depth of 4,200 meters they send a signal from an underwater locator beacon that is activated as soon as it comes into contact with water.
Airbus senior engineer commented that the crash has strengthened the case for black boxes, that could eject from the tail of the aircraft before the accident removing the need for similar searches altogether. “If we have a deployable recorder it will be much easier to find,” said Charles Champion, Airbus Executive Vice-President for Engineering.
The idea was highly recommended before the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 two years ago. Ejectable black boxes are used in the military, but some industry experts are critical about their implementation on commercial planes as they could pop out by accident and introduce new risks.
The cause of the crash remains a mystery and the finding of the black boxes is crucial for putting together the puzzle of the last moments of the EgyptAir's flight.
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