DHAKA: At last, bowing to international pressure, pro-Moscow separatists handed over on Tuesday the black boxes from the downed Malaysia Airlines plane, four days after it plunged into rebel-held eastern Ukraine though it is yet to know what happened to the earlier MH370 for the failure of recovering that plane’s black box.
To unravel the mystery of any aviation ultimately, at least partially, is the only way to get the data contained within a black box.
But, what is black box?
Is it a black colored box?
How much do we know about it?
The HLNTV recently released some interesting information about black boxes. With courtesy to them, we are here publishing the facts about black box.
Black box is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents.
There are two common types of flight recorder, the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR).
In some cases, the two recorders may be combined in a single unit.
The Black Box was first invented by a young Australian scientist named Dr. David Warren.
1. "Black boxes" are orange. Originally, flight data recorders were, in fact, black. But the color was changed so they could be spotted more easily among a plane's wreckage.
2. "Black boxes" are not boxes. The most typical flight data recorders are cylindrical and placed on top of an L-shaped housing. These units contain the information on both the plane's position and speed, among many other pieces of data, and the cockpit voice recorder.
The entire unit is only about one-and-a-half feet long, and it's often located in the tail of the plane, to best withstand major impact.
3. "Black boxes" record two hours of audio. While the cockpit's audio is recorded throughout the flight, it continually records over itself with only the most recent two hours of audio.
In most crashes, that's enough to listen to what was going on as the flight encountered trouble. However, because it's presumed Flight 370's on-board emergency occurred many hours before it crashed, that audio – if even recovered – is unlikely to be useful.
4. "Black box" beacon batteries last at least 30 days. This is how long the small beacon at the front of the recorders sends a continuous "ping" to be detected by sonar.
Water temperatures and other environmental factors could extend the life of Flight 370's recorder by a few days. They are designed to be able to function in water up to 20,000-feet deep. The Indian Ocean has an average depth of 13,000-feet.
5. "Black boxes" can be found even after the beacon goes silent. The one on-board Air France 447 was found more than two years after the crash, by unmanned vessels which zeroed in on the location after a new debris field was discovered.
BDST: 1650 HRS, JULY 22, 2014
