When a plane crashes, who takes the lead? What data does the aircraft black box record?

At the beginning of this year, the plane crash incident in Washington D.C., USA, which resulted in the deaths of 67 people, remains fresh in people’s memories. Whenever such air disasters occur, authorities are seen trying to rescue survivors at the crash site through media coverage. The search for the so-called “black box” flight data recorder is crucial to determine the cause of the accidents. So, what important information is recorded inside the black box?

According to a report from Live Science, the black box was an idea conceived by Australian scientist David Warren in the 1950s following a series of air disasters.

At that time, David Warren, then only 28 years old and working at the Aeronautical Research Laboratory in Melbourne, believed that every aircraft should be equipped with a device capable of recording speed and flight conditions to assist in accident investigations.

Although Warren’s idea was not immediately implemented, it eventually became a significant milestone in modern aircraft safety. Nowadays, commercial airplanes and helicopters are installed with black boxes to record flight data.

David Esser, an aviation scientist at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the United States, told the website that the black box consists of two independent parts: the data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. The former typically informs people of what happened in an incident, while the latter can explain why it occurred.

The data recorder is typically installed in the tail of the aircraft – the area most likely to remain intact after a crash. The cockpit voice recorder is installed inside the cockpit to record conversations and other sounds. These recorders are equipped with beacons that emit signals to facilitate their location, especially in water-related accidents.

Esser mentioned that the black box is not actually black but deliberately made in bright orange color to make it easier to find at the crash site.

Abdalla Elazaly, an advanced systems engineer at Honeywell, a black box supplier, stated that the casing of these recorders is made of sturdy materials like titanium or stainless steel, capable of withstanding high impact, fire, and deep-sea pressure in extreme conditions.

However, certain circumstances can cause these recorders to fail, including complete loss of power in the aircraft, high-speed crashes, prolonged exposure to fire, or deep water.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the United States mentioned that some data recorders can store parameters of at least 88 flight operations continuously for up to 25 hours, including time, altitude, and speed.

Moreover, these devices record over 1,000 data points inside the aircraft that assist in accident investigations. For example, they register whether and when smoke alarms were triggered, the position of the aircraft’s flaps, and when the autopilot was engaged.

On the other hand, the cockpit voice recorder can record noise from the engines, movement of the landing gear, switch toggling, and other alarms inside the cockpit. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandates that commercial aircraft must be equipped with cockpit voice recorders capable of recording continuously for at least 25 hours.

In the event of an air disaster, the black box provides crucial information for investigators to determine the cause of the accident. Only investigative personnel from NTSB or FAA have access to this data.

Experts say that this process is akin to conducting a criminal investigation and could take anywhere from a month to several years to complete, depending on the nature of the accident.

Unlike the earlier magnetic tape systems, modern black boxes store information on solid-state memory cards similar to those used in laptops and phones. The first step in retrieving information is ensuring the memory card is intact and then copying the data.

Apart from accident investigations, black boxes also provide vital safety information for airlines during normal operations. For example, the FAA allows airlines to download certain data from black boxes for quality control purposes such as fuel management.

Esser mentioned that this concept is about identifying trends and preventing incidents or accidents before they occur.