UAAG CH9

The Electronic Flight Recorder, commonly known to the public as the black box, is divided into two parts: the FDR and the CVR.

The FDR, or Flight Data Recorder, records all electronic data during the flight.

The CVR, or Cockpit Voice Recorder, records any sounds that occur on the flight deck.

After listening to the cockpit audio from the final 30 seconds of Japan Airlines Flight JL917, Zhuo Huan immediately shifted his focus back to the FDR. He needed to examine the flight data before the crash.

Su Fei retrieved the flight data.

Zhuo Huan: “Let’s look at the last 30 seconds first.”

Su Fei: “Okay, here it comes.”

The moment he pressed the enter key, dense data curves immediately filled the entire computer screen. To a layman, this graph would appear intricate and complicated, with various types of data crowded together, leaving one at a loss as to where to begin.

Zhuo Huan, however, read it extremely fast.

He was practically scanning ten lines at a glance, constantly scrolling down the progress bar. Starting from the last thirty seconds, in the blink of an eye, he was already at the last sixteen seconds.

When he saw the sixteenth second before the crash, his gaze stopped.

Zhuo Huan: “Zoom in on this section and project it onto the screen. Only extract these two seconds.”

Su Fei received the order and quickly projected the data graph from 16 to 14 seconds onto the screen.

Zhuo Huan: “Put the audio from the same time period up there too. Isolate the cockpit dialogue.”

“Got it!”

One person spoke rapidly; the other acted rapidly.

While the staff from other investigation agencies present were still at a loss, Su Fei had already followed Zhuo Huan’s instructions, projecting all the necessary data and audio onto the big screen.

It was only then that they realized what kind of monster this strange teenager in UAAG, who looked like a minor, truly was.

He wore skull stud earrings, and the tips of his hair were dyed with a green that hadn’t completely faded.

He had a peculiar aesthetic and a punk appearance.

But above all that—he was a genius.

Zhuo Huan had Su Fei overlay the flight data with the audio, and he pressed the play button.

“Prepare to lower landing gear… Wait, I suddenly lost thrust.”

From the 16th second to the 14th second before the crash.

Co-pilot Maeda Shosuke let out an astonished cry; he was surprised to discover that he had lost engine thrust.

His reaction was extremely fast. The flight data showed that at the 16th second before the crash, all four engines suddenly flamed out simultaneously. And just two seconds later, he discovered this anomaly.

Zhuo Huan: “Play it again.”

Su Fei obeyed.

Zhuo Huan: “Play it again.”

Su Fei pressed the play button again.

“Play it again.”

He repeated this for a full seven times. This man closed his eyes, carefully listening to every trace of sound coming from the speakers.

His behavior was incomprehensible to everyone present, but they all followed him, listening over and over again.

After the seventh time, he suddenly opened his eyes: “Play the audio of the last thirty seconds from beginning to end again.”

Su Fei: “…Fine.”

“Confirm throttle retard.”

“Throttle retard confirmed.”

“Flaps 30.”

…

“Ah, pull up, pull up!”

“GLIDE SLOPE! GLIDE SLOPE! GLIDE SLOPE!”

“Ahhhhhhh we’re going to crash!”

Bang—

Following the horrific, ear-piercing sound of the impact came the sizzling sound of electric current. Soon, the black box stopped working; it had completed the mission it was tasked to bear.

Zhuo Huan: “Listen again.”

Su Fei: “Alright!”

Listening again and again, Su Fei continued to process the relevant data from the black box at the same time.

What they were hearing and seeing now was only the last 30 seconds, but this black box had completely recorded all data from the thirty minutes prior to the crash.

Zhuo Huan: “Is the data for the last ten minutes processed?”

Su Fei: “Eh? Not yet, I’ve only finished five minutes.”

“Let’s listen to the five minutes first.”

Su Fei: “…”

This was absolutely child labor exploitation, absolutely!

Cursing the Great Demon King ten thousand times in his heart, the punk teenager pouted and projected the five minutes of data he had just processed onto the big screen for everyone to observe and analyze.

Aircraft accident investigation is destined to be tedious; it is impossible to get results quickly.

Investigators from other agencies went to busy themselves with their own tasks, leaving only the UAAG people still there, accompanying Zhuo Huan to listen to the sounds in the black box over and over again.

“It’s wrong.”

Fu Cheng suddenly looked up at Zhuo Huan.

Raising his right hand to cover his mouth, Zhuo Huan looked down at the floor, his long, narrow eyebrows locked tightly together.

Old Joseph: “Reid, what’s wrong? From the flight data curves, there are no issues, except for the sudden flameout of all four engines at minus 16 seconds. Before that, all aircraft data was normal.”

Zhuo Huan didn’t answer. He closed his eyes. At this moment, the audio started another round of replay. He listened carefully, then suddenly opened his eyes.

“The sound is too muffled.”

“Huh?” Everyone looked at each other, seeing the confusion in each other’s eyes.

Fu Cheng was also baffled.

Too muffled?

What sound was too muffled?

The conversation between the three pilots in the cockpit?

Zhuo Huan slowly raised his head. Old Joseph was sitting right in front of him, so their eyes met first. But after pausing for a moment, he turned his gaze to the black-haired young man standing by his side.

After their eyes met, Zhuo Huan said, “You used to be a carrier-based aircraft pilot.”

Fu Cheng’s pupils constricted. After a long while, he nodded: “Yes.”

As soon as these words landed, the whole room was in an uproar. Old Joseph whistled.

Su Fei jumped straight up from his chair: “Fuck, brother, an aircraft carrier pilot? You’re that awesome?! Flying an aircraft carrier, damn!”

Fu Cheng glanced at him.

It was flying planes on an aircraft carrier, not flying the carrier itself.

But he couldn’t be bothered to correct him.

Zhuo Huan sat in the swivel chair, his right hand tapping lightly on the armrest.

“Civilian airliners and military aircraft, due to different engine performance, produce different engine resonance vibrations when burning fuel. However, this difference is difficult for the human ear to distinguish. But carrier-based aircraft are different.” As Zhuo Huan spoke, his sharp gaze was fixed on Fu Cheng. “Landing a carrier-based aircraft is extremely difficult, so by that point, the difference in engine resonance can be directly perceived by the human ear.”

Fu Cheng’s expression was calm: “Yes, the engine sound of a carrier-based aircraft during landing is very different from other aircraft.”

Zhuo Huan: “The engine resonance of JL917 is different from a normal McFly F435.”

A light bulb went off in Old Joseph’s head, and he said to Su Fei, “Quick, find a normal F435 engine audio track to listen to.”

Su Fei: “…”

You guys are totally treating me like exploited child labor!

Though complaining internally, Su Fei’s hands quickly found a normal engine audio track for an F435 from the data network and played it.

However, after listening to it.

Old Joseph: “…Is there a difference?”

Fu Cheng smiled slightly: “I don’t think so.”

Su Fei raised his hand: “I don’t think so either!”

Hearing their words, Zhuo Huan let out a scoff through his nose and took a sip of coffee.

“If you can’t hear it, wouldn’t overlaying the tracks make it visible?”

Su Fei then overlaid the engine audio track of the normal F435 aircraft with that of the JAL F435.

The moment the two audio tracks overlapped, Fu Cheng’s lips moved, unable to hide his astonishment.

After a long silence.

Su Fei: “…If he can even hear that, is he even human?”

The punk teenager didn’t deliberately lower his voice, so these words reached Zhuo Huan’s ears clearly.

For once, he didn’t act pretentious but spoke a truth to explain: “Because this is a McFly plane.”

Old Joseph: “We know you used to be McFly’s chief designer, but didn’t you not participate in the design and improvement of the F435?”

Zhuo Huan’s eyebrows moved slightly: “Lina told you?”

Old Joseph: “Yes. Did you participate in the design of the F435?”

“No.”

Just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, they heard the Great Demon King say lightly in a totally unremarkable tone: “But I disassembled an F435.”

“…”

Finland, Helsinki, Aviation Safety Agency.

Early in the morning, media reporters had completely blocked the entrance of the Aviation Safety Agency.

The Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs had prepared a conference room. At 9:50 AM, media reporters entered the conference room, waiting for the press conference to begin.

At ten o’clock sharp, the doors to the conference room opened. A blonde woman with a slender figure wearing a red dress walked into the room. Her long, thin high heels accentuated her long, straight legs. She revealed a generous and beautiful smile, stood before the podium, and spoke gently.

“Hello everyone, I am Stephanie Conte, representing the multi-national aircraft accident investigation organization UAAG. Today, I am responsible for reporting to the public on UAAG’s investigation progress regarding the Japan Airlines JL917 crash…”

After half an hour of reporting, it was time for questions from the media reporters.

These reporters, dressed in suits and seemingly dignified, transformed at this moment into warriors wielding sharp blades, acid-tongued and incisive, launching attacks on the French woman on the podium. Unfortunately, everything was defeated by her elegant and flawless smile. Lina answered every question from the reporters with ease until the press conference ended.

At noon, an official from the Finnish Aviation Safety Agency personally saw her off.

“Please send my regards to Mr. Conte.”

Lina smiled: “I will certainly convey them to my father.”

Getting into the car, the blonde woman saw a dishevelled and wretched Asian man sitting on a stone at the entrance of the Aviation Safety Agency. He looked at the ground in despair, his suit wrinkled and dirty, unwashed for who knows how many days.

Lina looked a little longer, and the Finnish official followed her gaze.

“Oh, that’s a crash survivor. For the past few months, he came here every day demanding we punish the co-pilot severely, saying the co-pilot hijacked the plane and caused the crash. But that co-pilot is already dead, and we don’t understand his demands; we can’t just drive him away. Now that the truth is out, he should feel a bit better knowing it wasn’t human error.” The official turned to look at Lina, smiling as he said, “I hope Mr. Patrick can find the truth soon.”

Lina: “I will convey that to Reid.”

Find the truth?

Easier said than done.

They had just abandoned a wrong path and seemingly found a new direction.

However, looking up into the distance, the road ahead was full of thorns, obscured by thick fog and dark clouds, with no end in sight.

To find the truth quickly would probably require a miracle.

But isn’t Reid himself synonymous with miracles?

The French woman smiled slightly and got into the car to leave.

Investigation Headquarters.

After the new investigation direction emerged, everyone fell into a new dilemma.

Old Joseph: “The engine resonance is indeed different, but judging from the flight data, this anomaly did not affect the normal operation of the engines. We can infer that the resonance is related to the cause of the accident, but what is the specific cause, and where should we start?”

“Could it be related to the low-pressure turbine module?”

Old Joseph: “All four engines’ low-pressure turbines failing together?”

“Maybe the fan module?”

Old Joseph shook his head: “I suspect maybe when the gas flowed out of the exhaust nozzle, a resonance anomaly occurred… hey, by the way, where is Reid?”

Going down the stairs to the first floor, Fu Cheng searched among the messy piles of machine parts for a long time before finally spotting the man.

Sitting at the very top of an industrial ladder, holding a wrench, he gently disassembled a cylindrical metal part from the engine. His white T-shirt inevitably got stained with a bit of grease, and his lean arms were also marked with smudges.

After removing the item, Zhuo Huan looked down and saw Fu Cheng.

Raising an eyebrow, Zhuo Huan asked: “How long have you been watching?”

Fu Cheng: “Old Joseph and the others are discussing upstairs. Teacher Zhuo, why aren’t you going?”

“You?”

Fu Cheng: “…”

Fu Cheng: “Why aren’t you going?”

Zhuo Huan laughed.

He leaped down from the ladder.

Zhuo Huan: “I listened to them for half an hour.”

Fu Cheng: “Hmm?”

Zhuo Huan: “It was still rewarding; got some inspiration.”

Fu Cheng: “For example?”

Zhuo Huan looked at him: “Something that quietly disappeared after the crash, possessing the power to damage four engines simultaneously. That’s what they summarized.”

Fu Cheng: “…”

He really wanted to say that Old Joseph and the others didn’t summarize these well-known things; they also proposed many investigation directions. Like the low-pressure turbine, fan module, exhaust nozzle…

Zhuo Huan: “Geniuses are always lonely.”

Fu Cheng looked up at him.

Zhuo Huan asked back: “Are you not lonely?”

For a moment, Fu Cheng didn’t know whether he should answer.

Zhuo Huan didn’t say anything more. He took the item back to the second floor, and everyone immediately stopped discussing to look at him.

Old Joseph: “Reid?”

Zhuo Huan: “The British Airways Flight 38 accident in 2008 was due to improper design of the engine fuel pipes; ice slush blocked the fuel pipes, causing the engines to flame out. This is very similar to our accident. As everyone knows, they improved the fuel pipes ten years ago. Regrettably, this is definitely not the cause of our accident. Five years ago, I disassembled a Boeing 777, so I can assure everyone with certainty… Rolls-Royce engine fuel pipes will absolutely not have similar problems again.”

Everyone: “…”

For a moment, they didn’t know whether to feel regret first or applaud you, the rich guy who disassembles planes.

Zhuo Huan: “After spending a month taking apart all the Rolls-Royce engines, I discovered a problem. The thing that disappears after a crash can be water, but it can also be an obvious thing that we have consistently ignored.”

Fu Cheng: “What?”

Zhuo Huan: “Electricity.”

Old Joseph was surprised: “The fly-by-wire system? Reid, that was the direction you abandoned right at the start.”

“Did I say it was the fly-by-wire system?”

“Then what is it?”

“It.”

Zhuo Huan placed the item he had just removed from the engine onto the table.

Old Joseph stared at it for a while, then said in astonishment: “An MCD magnetic chip detector?!”

Author’s Note:

Old Joseph: This Boeing 767 is nice.
RIP: I’ve disassembled it.

Old Joseph: This Airbus A320 is nice.
RIP: I’ve disassembled it.

Old Joseph: This Embraer E190 is nice.
RIP: I’ve disassembled it.

Old Joseph: …!!! Enough, get out!!!

Fu Cheng: This carrier-based aircraft is nice; I quite like flying it ^_^
RIP: I’ve disassem…
RIP: I haven’t disassembled it =A=

Are there any technical terms in this chapter?
Seems not~
Just that last magnetic chip detector? Oh, no need to know, it’s literal meaning, a detector for magnetic chips [?]
Oh right! There’s also engine resonance! OVO I made that up~
Ah right, let me explain again, the fly-by-wire system is the computer controlling the plane. Hard to explain, just think of it this way: your WINDOWS system has an error, that’s enough to understand~ If that doesn’t work, think of it as an AI, like in sci-fi movies; it helps you fly the spaceship, and then it bugs out.

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