AVIATION
Anatomy of a black box
March 12, 2014 - The mystery of what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 lies in the plane's data recorders. Commercial aircraft carry two so-called black boxes. While they do nothing to help the plane in flight, they are vitally important to accident investigators in the aftermath of a plane crash.
Flight data recorders, which are actually orange in colour, are designed to endure the high impact of a plane crash, the pressures of the deep sea and the high and low temperatures of fire and ice. They keep a 25-hour record of audio, radio, and flight sensor data.