The first commercial aircraft manufacturer that uses jet engine aircraft, the De Havilland Comet suffered a fatal accident four times in 1953 and 1954. Three of them is an accident at the time did not know the cause.
The first accident De Havilland Comet, which overrides the airline Canadian Pacific Airlines in Karachi, Pakistan on March 3, 1953 called the result of pilot error. Then on May 2, 1953 an accident similar happened BOAC Flight 783/057, then on January 10, 1954 accident also happened to occur at the BOAC 781 and airline South African Airways Flight 201 on 8 April 1954.
The series of accidents that are then forced a massive improvement on the Comet fleet. The whole Comet finally be grounded to prevent recurrence of accidents which was later known as a result of structural errors.
Accident that later inspired David Warren, an Australian scientist and researcher who is also an expert fuel to create what is now known as the black box or black box, especially for parts Cockpit Voice Recorder (VCR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR).
The idea came when he realized that the accident is investigated if the flight will be able to listen to the last conversation in the cockpit plane and data plane functions recording.
Previously existing tool is only used to record flight data, but there are shortcomings that can not record sound in the cockpit. This tool was created by Francois Hussenot and Paul Beaudouin in 1939 by making a recording device in the form of films with a length of 8 meters. This tool data record altitude, speed and others.
Waren then try experimenting after seeing a mini sound recordings in an exhibition event. He also makes the device using magenitik recording device that can be removed and reused to record.
The first model of this device, completed in 1957. The results of his creation tool can record voice data for four hours and the instrument can record data on the steel plate. While modern devices using digital data recorder data can be easily and quickly downloaded.
Merging the flight data recorder or the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (VCR) is what is now used as a black box.
At that time, the airline industry is not directly adopt these devices because of their security-related issues of privacy.
Warren was struggling to obtain recognition mengignat how important the device. Warren was featured in a live interview with ABC in 1985 .. He was told how the struggle in finding and developing these devices.
It was only in 1960, the Australian government began to adopt the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) on commercial aircraft marking the use of this device for the first time.
The data collected by this device include plane direction, altitude, speed, vertical acceleration, and time data. But now, the device is capable of recording more data to be able to reconstruct the accident, analyze problems, and with a more resilient power including fire resistant and survive when immersed in the sea.
Now, the black box is also equipped with Underwater Locator Beacon (ULB) which is active when interacting with water and will emit an emergency signal for 30 days so it is easy to find. In addition, the black box is also given a flaming orange color that is easily recognizable.
However, in some cases, the black box is sometimes also not found. It is then inspire the emergence of other more sophisticated devices that real time reporting system or ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System).
But so far the device has managed to track basic information ranging from takeoff to landing. In addition, some aircraft manufacturers have already complete with an MP3 recording devices that can record up to 500 hours of flight data.
