Reports are coming out today that new software created by the French aerospace and defense company Thales has re-analyzed previously made sonar recordings captured during the previous hunts for Air France Flight 447's missing black boxes and has come up with, what the French Defense Ministry believes, is the location of at least one of them.
The new location has been turned over to the French Transport Ministry which will try to confirm the software's findings. If the location is confirmed, remote controlled subs will then try to retrieve the black box.
So far, the some $40 million has been spent on trying to retrieve Flight 447's black boxes.
Robert N. Charette is a Contributing Editor to IEEE Spectrum and an acknowledged international authority on information technology and systems risk management. A self-described “risk ecologist,” he is interested in the intersections of business, political, technological, and societal risks. Charette is an award-winning author of multiple books and numerous articles on the subjects of risk management, project and program management, innovation, and entrepreneurship. A Life Senior Member of the IEEE, Charette was a recipient of the IEEE Computer Society’s Golden Core Award in 2008.