Soldato
The question I have, suppose the information on the FDR is intact (as it probably is) and retrievable. Is it possible to actually modify or delete the information on the FDR, lets suppose the Iranians wanted to delete parts of potentially incriminating information, before letting anyone else near it. (perhaps parts of the cockpit voice recorder, if the pilots were heard shouting anything about an impact or explosion) ?
Or could they modify any of the technical data stored on it, for example create a fake fault with the data from one of the engines, to make it look like one was likely to develop a fault right after takeoff?
Just trying to think of ways in which it might be 'hackable' to support their intentions.
Part of my job on some of the aircraft I've worked on is to download the FDR/CVR and either analyse it myself (when I was in the RAF) or hand it on to other people to analyse while I observe (my current civilian job) and while neither of those two particular aircraft files were locked/encrypted once downloaded etc i.e. I could change stuff if I wanted using Notepad or Excel (once the files were on a separate PC) - I haven't worked on this aircraft's particular system so can't give a definitive answer.
However my pure guess would be *IF* Iran has access to a 737-800 FDR "download" device, usually a laptop (its a very common plane so maybe?) then they can download the files and edit whatever they want as the idea is that the data isn't supposed to be "secret" etc, because people want to found out what happened, and the people doing the analysis are completely independent of the anyone else involved like the manufacturer etc so they have no reason to hide/mess with the data, which means there are no stops involved in editing the data.
Nothing an smelting oven can't solve.
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