Page 6: of Marine Technology Magazine (July 2006)

Sonardyne International was called-upon in a race to recover the flight recorders from a crashed Airbus A320. The Armavia airlin- er was lost with 113 lives on a flight between

Yerevan and Sochi on the Black Sea coast at the beginning of May. It disappeared into water over 2,000 ft. deep where the vital "black box" flight recorders proved impossi- ble to locate visually.

Strong currents and heavy sediment had quickly covered the wreckage removing all traces of the flight recorders. The Russian

State Scientific Center, YMG (Yuzhmoregeologiya) had the job of locating the flight recorders and consequently turned to Sonardyne. Sonardyne supplied a ROV-

Homer which enables underwater vehicles to home into the signals transmitted from beacons attached to divers, seabed equip- ment, or in this particular case, flight data recorders.

The device was rushed to the Black Sea where it was fitted to the search team's own RT-1000 ROV, which had been designed and built by YMG.

The light work/observation class vehicle is rated to 1,000 m and was equipped with three video-cameras, six lights and a hydraulic manipulator. The ROV Homer system consists of an ROV mounted range and direction unit and PC control software.

With the Sonardyne ROV-Homer fitted to the Russian-built ROV, the first black box was found quickly on the first day as its approximate location was already known.

The second black box was recovered the next day despite being buried in sediment without any traces being visible on the seabed. Recovery took place the day after enabling the entire operation to be com- pleted in four days and within the dead- line. 6 MTR July 2006

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Sonardyne Helps in Flight

Recorder Recovery

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