Black boxes in air disasters preserve crucial data for analysis to prevent future accidents.

From Investing.com: 2025-01-12 08:15:38

Flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the crashed Jeju Air jet stopped recording four minutes before the crash, South Korea’s transport ministry reported. Black boxes, actually orange, have evolved from early devices to digital chips to preserve clues from cockpit sounds and data for analysis to prevent future accidents.

Black boxes weigh about 10 pounds and contain a chassis, underwater locator beacon, Crash Survivable Memory Unit, and recording media. Technicians carefully handle and clean connections to avoid erasing data, decoding raw files into graphs for analysis. FDRs must record at least 88 essential parameters, with modern systems tracking over 1,000 additional signals.

Regulatory changes to flight recorders can take years to implement. Recommendations for 25-hour loop voice data originated after accidents where recorders stopped working due to lost power. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration proposed changes in 2005, adopted for new planes delivered from 2010, following incidents like the Egyptair flight in 1999 and the Jeju Air crash in 2010.



Read more at Investing.com: Explainer-How black boxes preserve vital clues to air disasters By Reuters