QZ8501: Airbus hopes black boxes can identify root cause of crash

Aircraft manufacturer Airbus hopes the recovery of AirAsia Flight QZ8501's black boxes can bring clarity to the root cause of what happened to the aircraft.

Airbus president and CEO, Fabrice Brégier said the recovery of the black boxes gave him hope that the investigations conducted by the authorities would bring clarity.

"What we want in this case is to go through detailed analysis of the possible root cause (of the crash)," he said at the Airbus Annual Press Conference held in Paris today, which was webcast live on the internet.

Brégier also reiterated the company's commitment to support the investigation and to be as close as possible to one of its best partners around the world, AirAsia.

The black boxes comprised the flight data recorder (FDR), which was recovered yesterday, as well as the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), which was found this morning.

The FDR records all technical details pertaining to a flight while the CVR, all communications within the cockpit and between pilots and Air-Traffic Controllers, as well with pilots of other aircraft flying along the same flight corridor.

The AirAsia Airbus A320-200, carrying 162 people on board, went down on Dec 28 after losing contact with air traffic control on its way from Surabaya, East Java, to Singapore.

The aircraft lost contact after the pilot requested to ascend to 38,000 feet from 32,000 feet to avoid turbulent weather over the sea area between Bangka Belitung and West Kalimantan.