• AAIU may request assistance from any State that, in its opinion, can best serve the investigation. The manufacturer’s standard replay equipment and playback software, which is typically used by airlines and maintenance facilities, is not considered adequate for investigation purposes. Special recovery and analysis techniques are usually required if the recorders have been damaged.
  • Facilities for the read-out of flight recorders should have the following capabilities:
  1. the ability to disassemble and read out recorders that have sustained substantial damage;
  2. the ability to play back the original recording/memory module without the need for the use of a manufacturer’s copy device or the recorder housing that was involved in the accident or incident;
  3. the ability to manually analyse the raw binary waveform from digital tape flight data recorders;
  4. the ability to enhance and filter voice recordings digitally by means of suitable software; and
  5. the capability to graphically analyse data, to derive additional parameters not explicitly recorded, to validate the data by cross-checking and other analytical methods to determine data accuracy and limitations.