Germany is closer?

https://www.dw.com/en/ethiopian-airlines-black-boxes-flown-to-paris-for-investigation/a-47904180

(snip)

A delegation from Ethiopia flew to Paris on Thursday to deliver the black boxes from the recently crashed Boeing 737 MAX.

Ethiopian Airlines said on Twitter the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder were to be examined.

France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA) announced the boxes had arrived and that it would be investigating them. The office did not provide an estimate of how long the analysis would take.
(snip)

The FAA said new information from the wreckage as well as newly refined flight path data indicated some similarities between the latest crash and the Lion Air disaster in October, "that warrant further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause."

Preliminary results from the Lion Air investigation found that following a separate sensor error, pilots were battling with the new MCAS system to keep the nose pointed into the air. All 189 people on board were killed.
(snip)

They were willing to help but there was a problem with the complexity of the newer software, I believe.

See:

Read: https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/frances-bea-poised-to-receive-ethiopian-737-max-rec-456632/

Germany just doesn't want to involve themselves in such a volatile investigation.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211917345#post12

Europe is home to Airbus, Boeing's biggest rival.

Boeing engineers will certainly be involved in the investigation.... they are the technical experts on this plane, and the eningeers on that investigation team will take their responsibilities very seriously.

Airbus is a French company supported by the French government.

Sounds like a made up story to me. I would think that the rest of the world doesn't trust the Trump NTSB to report what the findings actually are. I'm not blaming the NTSB, I'm blaming Trump colluding with Boeing.

Just a wild guess here that Boeing wants to claim pilot error over software malfunction.

The other thread here on DU that claims that Trump grounded the planes with an EO also made me laugh. Boeing gave our FAA permission to ground the planes. In Trump's administration the FAA doesn't tell Boeing what to do, Boeing tells the FAA what to do. As Reagan said, government is bad.

Reading their findings on all sorts of accidents is impressive. I've done that on occasion, and it's always fascinating.

Send them here and fuck head’s FAA might “lose” them or destroy data and claim that the boxes had been damaged in the crash. Especially since what fuck head calls “shithole” countries are involved here.

The people who investigate airplane crashes -- and it's not the FAA by the way -- are honest and hard working.

Someone here commented that crashes were often blamed on pilot error for insurance purposes, which is likewise completely false.

So my trust in them is limited.

The NTSB is one of the best. Perhaps more to the point, person heading it was not appointed by the current President.

I am getting very frustrated by people here trashing the NTSB. They are the ones who investigate accidents. NOT the FAA.

Read some of the accident reports that you can find by going to their website and you should come away impressed by the professionalism.

including the manufacturer. there would be no winners in that.

If Boeing can learn what is wrong, it will cost them x billions.

If Boeing can't learn what is wrong, it'll cost them billions and billions and billions.

Boeing manufactures the plane here, at least in part. That's why Trump didn't ground them, after speaking with Boeing's CEO.

It's entirely possible he'd threaten people to make certain findings from the black box, so it doesn't hurt the U S economy.

It's pathetic we have a President who would actually do something like that.

Considering the EU probably has a better track record than the US for flight safety, I'm not surprised....and you're right, no one over here trusts that orange idiot.

However, have a look at the safest airlines in the world and notice the scarcity of US carriers....only a couple and they aren't major airlines. http://www.traveller.com.au/worlds-safest-airlines--the-ones-that-have-never-had-a-single-plane-crash-h0z0ne

Given the location of the crash, it's not surprising the black boxes were sent to France. Not everything in the world centers around the States.

Since Colgan in 2009, the U.S. has had only *ONE* fatality on a passenger flight... Please check the EU's safety record for the last decade and get back to us.

You left off air freight and small plane fatalities and cherry picked your start date as 2009...forgetting about approximately 3000 people killed in 2001. I provided a link for the safest airlines and pointed out the scarcity of US carriers and you slid over that one too.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_airliners_in_the_United_States

And given that the U.S. has infinitely more cargo/GA flights within its borders kind of skews the numbers a bit does it not? Now who's fuckin' "cherry picking"? Besides, even you don't fucking think that Europe doesn't have cargo/GA crashes, do you?? Didn't a world-class soccer star just get killed? Didn't a billionaire soccer team owner perish recently with his kids? Proportionally speaking, i.e. pound for pound, European airlines are not *significantly* safer than ours are and I defy you to prove otherwise.

I was going to be generous to your flimsy arguments and not include Russia in the Europe air safety stats, but when I do it's really no contest.

...to circumvent EU and UK more stringent UK safety and ownership guidelines. I'm not even sure they know who owns the plane yet. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-47172509

And again, I didn't realize we were cherry picking causes for airplane fatalities. It seems to me that failure of airport security would be a concern. No?

Fwiw, my arguments aren't flimsy and I've backed them up with sources and links. You can continue to dispute my opinion with yours, although it seems your objection seems primarily to be that the US is the bestest and no one else in the world could possibly dare to be better.

In taking a red herring approach on general aviation and freight, you actually reinforced his point.

We're officially the worst nation that ever existed and only God knows why other countries would want to procure our aircraft (I can play this game too, chief)

Hey genius, you're the one who cited 3000 fatalities in 2001 as some kind of "proof" that air safety in the U.S. is below that of developing nations.

Oh, and please show me those "links" that prove Europe is significantly safer because I'd love to see them. And while you're at it, find out how many laws Germany changed after the Germanwings disaster...

EDIT: It's Friday so I'll give you a freebie -- Go here: https://www.icao.int/safety/iStars/Pages/Accident-Statistics.aspx

Look at the second graph, and from the drop-down menu compare the results for "USA" and "European Union"... Yeah, yeah, I know, the ICAO is "cherry picking" too So please tell me which parameters and which metrics are officially acceptable for you and I'll see what I can do.

...because someone disagrees with your opinion regarding your 'airline hobby'.

You think it's safer to fly on American airlines, and I'll stick to UK or EU airlines. I'll toss this one back to you...from the looks of the graphic in this article (source IATA)...the damage done to planes appears to be lowest in the EU, followed by the US.....and AGAIN....the safest carriers show a scarcity of any major American carriers....ie....no Delta, no United, no Southwest, no American, yadda, yadda, yadda.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/how-safe-is-flying-here-s-what-the-statistics-say

My sole point in all this is the US is not always the be all, end all in everything going on in the rest of the world...but what the hey, you got it in spades in insisting that America is the greatest country on earth. You might have even convinced me except for the fact I come with a perspective of living in America and outside of America and my eyes were opened a long time ago. Have a good day now, ya hear.

happen at far greater rates than most people imagine, although it's still not a huge number. Like car crashes, they happen one at a time, scattered around the country, and rarely make anything more than local news.

That's a really good link, by the way.

hard to say if they will get it back..

You seem to know the industry and I'm curious if the labs available around the world with this capability have to be certified in some fashion, perhaps by some international agency.

The data extracted is extremely important and could be involved for many years in litigation spanning several nations after a typical crash. Therefore, it would seem that the credibility of any lab that undertakes is this work should be unquestionable and their personnel would need frequent training updates.

but I will say that studying air crashes and other manmade disasters past and present and how the course of history changed because of them has been a hobby of mine for years...

And yes, the software/equipment from the manufacturer (like Honeywell for example) required for readout is only available to a limited number of national agencies, i.e., the crash investigators with the most expertise, resources and manpower.

And while Trump admittedly has eroded the faith and trust in pretty much all our institutions domestic and international, the reputation of the NTSB remains strong and despite what conclusions the hot take merchants in the media are jumping to, there's no great massive cover-up at play here as far as I've seen...

That service likely carries with it a very high liability premium and surely entails a lot of court time. I'm guessing interpretation of voice recorder download would be the most risky.

Agree it will take much more that a miscreant one-term president to wipe out many decades of confidence built in our institutions - especially in engineering, medicine, disease control and many other areas. That's one swamp he can't touch!

Pretty straight forward and no need for speculation.

edit: from the article cited in the OP: "The decision by the airline to reject the U.S. requests is unusual because the black box is not normally sent to a country that was not involved in a crash."

Not true. The black box from the Ukranian crash was sent to Nederlands.

... after sitting on them for three days.

France, Germany, U.S., Britain, no matter.