Black sentry box

2009/08/02 Kortabitarte Egiguren, Irati - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Teknologia
• Aeronautika

It is a brightly colored box, known as a black box.

When an aircraft suffers an accident, the black box is directly used. This box collects the record of data concerning the accident: data measured by the cabin equipment, sound recordings, etc. All these data allow us to know the extent of the accident. Therefore, no one questions that the black box offers very valuable information. At least it serves to solve the accident.

The first flight recorders began to be used in the late 1950s and were called black boxes. The truth is that what most of us know as a black box is not actually black, but is painted in vivid colors, usually orange or bright yellow. Because if an accident occurs, the black box should be easily localizable, eye-catching. In addition, it includes a submarine radio beacon that is activated automatically at the time of a crash to guide rescue teams to the place of the accident. The signal sent by the device reaches the surface without problems, as long as the box does not exceed 4,000 meters depth. However, their time is limited, so it is possible that in the case of the Airbus company Air France the signal has been lost or exhausted.

There is talk about the black box of planes, but also ships and trains. (Photo: Arpingstone).

Data deposit

After reading the black box data, they decide whether the accident was a human error or caused by bad weather, or whether it was a result of a breakdown of the plane itself. In order not to lose information, it is placed at the back of the plane, where it is more likely to avoid the consequences of a crash.

It consists of two devices that resolve the causes of an accident: the flight data collector and the cockpit voice recorder. On the one hand, the flight data collector can store up to 80 parameters such as airplane speed, altitude, steering or engine performance. On the other hand, the cockpit voice recorder keeps the sound coming from the pilot's and co-pilot's microphones and headphones, the sounds of the sound alarms received by a microphone located on the cockpit ceiling, etc.

Both devices are protected by a steel or titanium shield and an insulating material to prevent them from breaking, treading, burning or wetting. Thus, the black box can withstand a minimum temperature of 1,100 degrees in half an hour, 3,400 times the force of gravity and the same pressure as a sunken object at 6,000 meters.

Black boxes serve to solve accidents (Photo: Mor> File.

The information contained in the black box is only disclosed after an accident; if not for this data, in no case would the cause of several accidents be explained.

In fact, although the best known is that of the plane, many motor vehicles have black box, such as boats, trains... And although it is not yet widespread in Europe, some car companies have black boxes with functions similar to those of the aircraft box. That is, it collects the data before and after the accident. Black box cars are quite widespread in the US. Many times the owner does not know that he uses a car with a black box.

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