It was also unclear if, after being immersed in salt water for nearly two years and under significant pressure, the data they contain — voice recordings from the cockpit and information on the plane's position, speed, altitude and heading when it ran into trouble — would be sufficiently readable to advance the investigation.
None of the navigational or system-status instruments seen in older aircraft appears in the jet's cockpit: instead, information is shown on three full-colour monitors and a HUD, or head-up display ‒ a transparent screen placed at eye level which shows text and symbols that are in focus as the pilot looks through it to the skies beyond.
Inmarsat said it will also offer a "black box in the cloud" service, which would stream off flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder information to aviation safety recipients should an unplanned event occur.
Dr. Warren, a fuel chemist at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories in Australia, proposed that recording devices be put in the cockpit to capture information.
Black boxes, which record sounds in the cockpit and detailed information on such things as altitude and speed, are crucial to helping investigators reconstruct how crashes occur.
In an emailed statement, a United Continental spokesperson said, "We have learned that some cockpit door access information may have been made public.
There it will release the transcript of the cockpit voice recorder and information from the flight data recorder (the black boxes) as well as thousands of pages of reports on engines, structures, air traffic control considerations, training and other factors.
Investigators have already uncovered how Lubitz searched for suicide methods and information on cockpit doors before the crash.
Lubitz had also searched on Google for different suicide methods and information on cockpit doors and their security features, the Dusseldorf state prosecutor said.
