🛩 Black boxes: Chamber of secrets

Shedding light on disaster On March 21, a China Eastern flight traveling within the country crashed in the mountainous region of Guangxi. For the first week, no one knew what exactly had happened—the plane had been operating for seven years without issue, but radar data showed that it descended 20,000 feet (about 6,100 meters) in about a minute, and the debris found at the site offered little chance that any of the 132 passengers survived the crash. But on March 27, there was new hope that we could know more: Search and rescue teams found the second of the two black boxes aboard the plane. Black boxes contain critical information about what happened leading up to a crash. They can’t change an outcome, but they can help investigators understand whether the mistake was, whether it was a mechanical failure or human error. That kind of data can help sort out legal questions, provide solace for families of victims looking for answers, and make planes safer in the future. Let’s review. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( [Quartz Weekly Obsession] Black boxes April 20, 2022 Shedding light on disaster --------------------------------------------------------------- On March 21, a China Eastern flight traveling within the country crashed in the mountainous region of Guangxi. For the first week, no one knew what exactly had happened—the plane had been operating for seven years without issue, but radar data showed that it descended 20,000 feet (about 6,100 meters) in about a minute, and the debris found at the site offered little chance that any of the 132 passengers survived the crash. But on March 27, there was new hope that we could know more: Search and rescue teams found the second of the two black boxes aboard the plane. Black boxes contain critical information about what happened leading up to a crash. They can’t change an outcome, but they can help investigators understand whether the mistake was, whether it was a mechanical failure or human error. That kind of data can help sort out legal questions, provide solace for families of victims looking for answers, and make planes safer in the future. Let’s review. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( By the digits [2:]( Black boxes on board each airplane [25 hours:]( Flight data they typically hold [2 hours:]( Cockpit recordings they typically hold [6 years:]( Battery shelf life [14,000 ft:](Maximum depth from which underwater beacons can transmit [30 days:]( Battery life of underwater beacons [$10,000-$15,000:]( Cost of each black box YSSYguy Explain it like I’m 5! Peering inside the black box --------------------------------------------------------------- A black box is neither black nor a box. Instead, what we refer to as a black box is actually two devices—a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and a flight data recorder (FDR). The first, the CVR, records the voices of the pilot and copilot, as well as instrument sounds, engine sounds, and whatever else is going on in the cockpit, for up to two hours. Depending on the model, the FDR can record at least 88 but sometimes more than 1,000 different data points, including flight speed, altitude, and which way the plane is pointed. One uses older magnetic tape as data storage, while the other uses more up-to-date flash memory. The designs of the devices vary slightly, but each is made of a cylinder and a cube. The cylinder contains a hard drive or memory card used to record information. The cube is the power source. It’s all inside a casing designed to protect what’s inside from fire, water, debris, crash forces, and pretty much anything else a plane crash could throw at it. There’s another small black cylinder affixed to the outside of the casing—that’s a homing beacon that flickers on if the device hits water. The whole thing is painted [international orange]( so that it’s easy to spot. After a crash, search and rescue teams recover black boxes and specially trained teams extract whatever data they can from them. In rare cases, like last month’s China Eastern flight, the [black box is so damaged]( that it’ll take up to a year to piece together a comprehensive narrative of what happened. Giphy Pop quiz Which type of vessel is NOT required to have a black box (or equivalent)? Private planesPassenger carsRocket shipsCruise liners Correct. This comes down to size, not ownership. A plane that can hold fewer than 20 passengers doesn’t have to have a black box. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Brief history [1953:]( David Warren, a scientist at the Australian Aeronautical Research Laboratory, invents the first black box. He had seen a mini-recorder at a trade fair around the same time as The Comet, the first commercial airline jet, had several accidents. [1957:]( Warren and his team make a prototype of the black box device, which is of interest to a visiting British official. A journalist coins the term “black box” during a demonstration, even though Warren’s device is red and egg-shaped. [1960:]( Australia becomes the first country to require black boxes in planes, and they will become mandatory around the world in the decade that follows. [1990s:]( Solid-state memory devices replace recording tape. These devices are hardier (and thus more reliable in a crash) and can be retrieved quickly. Reuters/Edgar Su Case study The mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines 370 --------------------------------------------------------------- On March 8, 2014, shortly after midnight, a Boeing 777 jet took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, headed for Beijing. Though all signs at the beginning of the flight appeared normal, what happened next was anything but—air traffic, radar, and satellite all lost track of the plane. It seemed to simply [disappear](. For months, no search and rescue team (or [Courtney Love](, or any myriad of online sleuths) could find a single piece of debris, much less any sign of the 239 passengers and crew who were on board. And there was no signal from the [plane’s flight recording equipment](. In July 2015, more than a year after the flight took off, the [first pieces of wreckage]( washed ashore in Réunion, an island in the Indian Ocean. That, along with subsequent debris that arrived in nearby Mauritius and Madagascar, helped investigators determine that the flight had deviated from its predicted trajectory and gone south after going dark. Glimmering clues that have emerged over the subsequent years have helped intrepid investigators piece together what happened aboard the flight. The most important question—why the plane went down—still has few definitive answers. A mechanical problem seems unlikely given that the plane deviated course long before it crashed. If it was a pilot-suicide, it’s unlike any known instances before. Some contend it was a [hijacking](, or a cybersecurity breach, or that the plane was shot down; others, predictably, spout [conspiracy theories](. “From the start, MH370 was leading investigators in unexplored directions,” author and pilot William Langewiesche [writes in The Atlantic](. After a furious effort to find the plane’s flight recording equipment, Malaysia Airlines 370 joined a [short but unnerving list]( of flights for which the cause of crash is unknown, and black boxes were never found. Fun fact! Black boxes are usually put near the tail end of a plane because that’s the part that’s most likely to stay intact in the event of a crash. Listen up! We did some voice recordings of our own... --------------------------------------------------------------- Here’s another quiz for you. Which of these would you be willing to eat?🦗 Sriracha crickets 🐜 Ant chutney 🐛 Mealworm chocolate chip cookies 🤢 Uhhh, none of the above? One you get past the ick factor, bugs have a ton of protein potential—and are already becoming a big business. 🎧 Learn more about the future of edible insects with [this week’s episode]( of the Quartz Obsession podcast. Listen on: [Apple Podcasts]( | [Spotify]( | [Google]( | [Stitcher]( Sponsored by EY [Listen now!]( Up in the cloud(s) The future of flight recorders --------------------------------------------------------------- As the unsuccessful hunt for the Malaysia 370 black box shows, more can be done to make flight records more accessible. In 2014, France’s Bureau of Investigations and Analysis [published a report]( suggesting improvements like extending battery life from 30 to 90 days and a mechanism to catapult them out of the water. But in an age of streaming and near-infinite data storage, why not imagine a different kind of tech fix? Here are a few that some have suggested. ⏱ [Real-time data.]( In 2019, aviation companies Honeywell and Curtiss-Wright announced that they would equip black boxes in commercial, cargo, and business aircraft with the ability to not only store data locally, but also make it immediately accessible to those on the ground. ☁️ [Cloud-based storage.]( When a plane goes down, information contained in black boxes is just one piece of the larger picture that includes radar data and aircraft communications. Investigations could be a whole lot easier if all of that info was stored in one central place—the cloud. 🎥 [Video.]( For years, the US National Transportation Safety Board has been pushing for video footage to be one of the types of recordings required on all flights. Pilots have been [pushing back](, saying this violates their privacy. The technology’s ready to go, however, and already used in [helicopters](. Reuters Poll Do you need to take a break and look at puppy pics? [Click here to vote]( Yes, my anxiety is through the roofYes, but I take puppy pic breaks at any opportunityPuppies don’t impact the future of aviation! Come on! 💬let's talk! 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