Black Box Question

[Superfueler]

I was watching a show on TWA 800, and it showed them carrying the black boxes in coolers filled with water. Any idea why they do that?

 

[flx757]

This is kind of a simplistic answer, but the way I understand it is in the case of TWA 800, the CVR and FDR were recovered from the water (obviously) thus the tapes had been exposed to water. To preserve the condition of the tapes, they had to be kept wet. Allowing them to dry on their own would have damaged them and made recovering the data difficult. The lab where the tapes are analyzed uses a special process to dry the tapes to help preserve the data.

 

[310]

I'm not sure-- but I think it has to do with the salts and minerals drying and destroying the stored info. I think they will wash them in distilled water and then let dry.

 

[Seair]

Hi superfueler,

Black boxes are to be kept in the same environment which they are being retrieved as in this case would be from a wet environment. This is to prevent further damage to the contents.

Recovery teams attempt to keep the recorders in the same condition as found until delivered to NTSB lab. The lab has both equipment and knowledge on how to access the contents with minimum loss of data no matter what the condition the boxes were delivered in.

For the same reason if you drop your camera overboard, you should not take it out of the salt water, dry it off then take it in to be fixed.

Once the dried off camera gets exposed to the air, outside of the saline environment, it will corrode at an accelerated rate.

Keeping the data recorders in the water in which they were found prevents them from exposure to air which will damage them very quickly.


Hope this helps

(s) Seair

 

[PilotoHalcon]

I just felt compelled to ask if you all knew that the 'black" boxes are in reality a bright orange? Wonder why they call them black boxes then. Maybe the same person put the name to jumbo shrimp or military intel.

 

[Superfueler]

...and if they are made to survive a crash, why not make the whole plane out of that material?

 

[310]

because a 172 would weight 10000 lbs to make it that strong- with no room for anything much inside

 

[dmspilot00]

They used to be black.

They were changed to orange so that they would be easier to see. But, actually, I learned in a physics class that the easiest color to see by humans is yellow or greenish yellow.

 

[PilotoHalcon]

LOL superfueler. And 310, I asked you a million times to quit exaggerating.
j

 

[310]

uh......duh......say again LOL means what?


what would a crash damage resistent plane weigh?