Author : Satya Prakash Pandey, Anand Singh, Vishwajeet Singh and Pragya Tiwari

Any plane or flying jet is required essentially to be equipped with a Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) & a Flight Data
Recorder (FDR). It is these two important items to which we refer as a ‘Black Box.’ While they do nothing functional in helping the plane during the flight, but both of this equipment’s are crucially important in the case if plane crashes, as they hold down the history of each & every act going on inside the plane’s cockpit area & later on help crash investigators in finding out what had actually happened just before the crash. Each usable recorder has a device fitted to it, known as an Underwater Locator Beacon (ULB), comes into use when plane’s crashed parts falls into the sea or any water body after crash. The device is activated, as soon as the recorder comes into contact with the water & it starts transmitting signals from the depth as deep as 14,000 feet. Most important aspect of it is that, A Black Box is not black at all, but bright orange in colour. All recorders undergo countless tests before getting deployed in any plane or aircraft.

Keywords: Beacon, EUROCAE, Flight Data Recorder, Cockpit voice recorder, Open VMS, Aviation Safety & Security, Cloud Computing

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.7, No.5 (Sept/Oct 2017)