A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to colloquially as a " black box ", an outdated name which has become a misnomer βthey are now required to be painted bright orange , to aid in their recovery after accidents.
There are two types of flight recording devices: the flight data recorder FDR preserves the recent history of the flight through the recording of dozens of parameters collected several times per second; the cockpit voice recorder CVR preserves the recent history of the sounds in the cockpit, including the conversation of the pilots.
The two devices may be combined into a single unit. Together, the FDR and CVR objectively document the aircraft's flight history, which may assist in any later investigation.
The two flight recorders are required by international regulation, overseen by the International Civil Aviation Organization , to be capable of surviving the conditions likely to be encountered in a severe aircraft accident. They have been a mandatory requirement in commercial aircraft in the United States since After the unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight in , commentators have called for live streaming of data to the ground, as well as extending the battery life of the underwater locator beacons.
In seafaring, a device which recorded the position of different vessels in case of an accident was patented by John Sen Inches Thomson in January, The latent image was made by a thin ray of light deviated by a mirror tilted according to the magnitude of the data to be recorded altitude, speed, etc. This company went on to become a major supplier of data recorders, used not only aboard aircraft but also trains and other vehicles. SFIM is today part of the Safran group and is still present in the flight recorder market.
