Every time there’s a plane crash or other aviation safety incident, we often hear talk of the famous “black box”. Of course, anyone these days will tell you that they’re not black, but orange, for visibility’s sake. Plus, there’s often not one black box, but two! There’s a Flight Data Recorder (FDR), charged with recording aircraft telemetry, and a Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), designed to record what’s going on in the cabin.
It sounds straightforward enough, but the cockpit voice recorder has actually become the subject of some controversy in recent times. Let’s talk about the basics of these important safety devices, and why they’re the subject of some debate at the present time.
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A flight data recorder (left) and a cockpit voice recorder (right). Some later designs combine the two into a single unit. Credit: YSSYguy, CC BY-SA-3.0
When it comes to figuring out what happened in an air disaster, context is everything. Flight data recorders can tell investigators all about what the plane’s various systems are doing, while more advanced maintenance recorders developed by airline manufacturers can deliver even more granular data. Knowing the control inputs from the pilots, the positions of control surfaces, and system statuses is all relevant to piecing together what happened. However, there’s also a lot that can be learned from the pilots themselves. Past research has found pilot error to b ..
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