Flight data recorder (black box)
Caja negra (registrador de vuelo)
- Date
- 1958 · confidence high
- Place
- Aeronautical Research Laboratories, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Credited to
- David Warren
- People
- 👤 David Warren1925–2010
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A recorder that captures cockpit voices and instrument data on a protected medium to investigate accidents. Australia made it compulsory in 1960, and it later spread worldwide.
There were earlier flight-data recorders (Mata-Hari in Finland, c. 1942, not 1939; Ryan in the US, 1953); Warren created the combined voice and data recorder in 1958.
What it led to
- systematic investigation of air accidents
- improved air safety
- data recorders in trains and ships