Significance of black box in the air crash investigation

Investigators have found the “black boxes” of the ill-fated Boeing 737-800 aircraft which become a significant development towards ascertaining the reasons behind the Air India Express crash at Kozhikode. These boxes will help investigators weave together the crucial events that led to the crash, which killed at least 18 people on board, including both pilots.

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Key-Points

The black boxes are actually two orange metallic boxes containing the recorders.

The black boxes date back to the early 1950s, when, following plane crashes, investigators were unable to arrive a conclusive cause for the accidents and deemed it necessary to install the said recorders on aircraft.

Most aircraft are required to be equipped with two black boxes — the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR) — that record the information about a flight and help reconstruct the events leading to an aircraft accident.

The CVR records radio transmissions and other sounds in the cockpit such as conversations between the pilots and engine noises.

The flight data recorder records more than 80 different types of information such as altitude, airspeed, flight heading, vertical acceleration, pitch, roll, autopilot status etc.