Box Clever

"It's extremely rare that we don't get the recorders back. I can't recall another domestic case in which we did not recover the recorders."
Ted Lopatkiewicz
spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board

"Black Box" flight recorders have been used in aviation since the 1940s and have been improved greatly since then. The early flight recorders were only designed to record the actual flight conditions of the aircraft, i.e., heading, altitude, airspeed, vertical accelerations and time. It was not until 1965 that, by law, the first cockpit voice recorders (CVR) had to be installed. The CVR was designed to record the last 30 minutes of conversation between the cockpit crew and ground control onto magnetic tape. This required very complex fire and crash protection for the "Black Box" that would enable the device to survive a crash in excess of 1000gs. To give you an idea of just what kind of impact that might be bare in mind that an astronaut taking off in a rocket would experience about 3-5gs and the gravity of the Earth is 1gs.
Even grater improvements were made to the "Black Box" throughout the 1970s and 80s until eventually, in the 1990s, flight data was able to be recorded using solid state equipment using semiconductor memories or integrated circuits rather than the older and more fragile magnetic tape. These state of the art flight data recorders are now designed to store information from up to 300 different sensors on board an aircraft in comparison to the initial 5 parameters that the early "Black Boxes" could record. Every commercial aircraft in operation in the world today has two digital flight data recorders fitted into its tail section.
Each flight recorder has to withstand rigourous testing before it can be declared safe for use. Each test has to be done in sequence and each test is designed to leave no doubt that the "Black Box" can withstand the most extreme conditions.

Crash Impact Test -- It has been agreed that 3400gs for 6.5 ms would be required to meet most accident scenarios. This test is actually performed with a cannon. A Fairchild CVR has survived a crash that was estimated to be more than 6000 gs.

Static Crush -- In this test, 5,000-pound pressure is applied against all six axis points.

Pierce Test -- A pierce test employs a 500-lb. weight dropped from 10 feet. It has been modified to be performed with a hardened steel pin.

Fire Test -- The devices are subjected to 1100 degrees Centigrade for 60 minutes, then undergo 10 hours at 260 degrees Centigrade. Because of its outstanding fire survival record, the Fairchild Model A100CVR was used as the model to insure mandated standards could be obtained.

The "Black Box" is one of the most important inventions in aviation history. The information retrieved from these devices has probably enabled improvements to be made to aircraft that have saved countless lives and provided crash investigators with vital information about the final moments before a crash.

So, with all this in mind, I can't help thinking about September 11. When I watched the second plane hit the south tower of the WTC, my first thought was, "This is war!" My second thought was, "The Black Boxes!"
I had no doubt in my mind that the flight recorders would be recovered and that we would all eventually hear or read the transcripts of those final moments before impact. So I waited. I watched the scenes of incredible destruction and the massive clear-up operation that followed and all the grief that went with it. I waited as I listened to George W. Bush talking through his bullhorn standing on a pile of rubble at "Ground Zero", all that remained of the World Trade Centre, but I didn't hear anything about the "Black Boxes".
"Black Box" flight recorders have been recovered from mountains, swamps, deserts and even from the bottom of the worlds deepest oceans but not from the World Trade Centre in the middle of Manhattan. One of the flight recorders from flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania was found but apparently it was too badly damaged for its recorded contents to be analysed and the contents of the two flight recorders recovered from the Pentagon "crash" were also said to be beyond retrieval. This explanation seems so unlikely given the conditions that the "Black Boxes' are designed to withstand and it becomes even more unbelievable when you look at photographs of the Pentagon after the supposed crash. To begin with there is no wreckage outside the Pentagon and the damage seems incredibly limited considering a passenger jet has been intentionally flown into it. The fire damage to the area around the "Impact " zone is absurdly small. Tables, chairs and office equipment can all be seen but none seem to show any signs of being burnt by the 11300 gallons of fuel that the 757 would have been carrying and which would have ignited on impact. Apparently the bulk of the fire that followed the "crash" was put out in an incredible seven minutes which would have only been a fraction of the time that the "Black Boxes" have been built to withstand a serious fire. As for the World Trade Centre not one of the four "Black Boxes" contained in the tail sections of both planes was officially said to have been found, not even any remains. No charred or crushed components from the flight recorders were found either. We are expected to believe that something designed to withstand perhaps even a nuclear explosion was completely destroyed by the collapse of two office buildings after a plane crash but that several blocks away from The World Trade Centre a paper passport supposedly belonging to one of the alleged hijackers was found intact. Why would a suicide bomber bring a passport with him on a domestic flight even though he knew he wouldn't need one then, or ever again? And doesn't it seem incredible that something as small as a passport was conveniently found among all the debris and dust of the fallen buildings but four flight data recorders each the size of a shoe box emitting audio detection signals remained undiscovered?

Well, it seems that at least three of the four "Black Boxes" were found by two ground zero rescue workers. Honorary fire fighter Mike Bellone has claimed that he was approached, along with his colleague Nicholas DeMasi, by FBI agents and told to "keep his mouth shut" after the discovery. Apparently there are several other witnesses who saw the "Black Boxes" but according to Bellone they have all been silenced by the FBI. Officially the case seems to be closed.
There is only one reference to the flight data recorders in the 9-11 commission report and it comes in the form of a foot note in Chapter 1:

"The CVR's and the FDR's (voice and flight data recorders) from American 11 and United 175 were not found."

But then, neither were any weapons of mass destruction......

V. Christ