Ahmedabad plane crash: Why 'Black Box' is actually Orange in colour?
Edited By Tarun Mishra
Published: Jun 13, 2025, 16:19 IST | Updated: Jun 13, 2025, 16:19 IST
The Black Box refers to two key flight recorders on an aircraft. First, Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) records pilot conversations and sounds in the cockpit. Second, Flight Data Recorder (FDR) stores detailed data like altitude, speed, and engine performance.
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(Photograph: Simply Flying)
What Happened in Ahmedabad?
A training aircraft crashed near Ahmedabad recently, bringing renewed public attention to aircraft safety mechanisms, especially the Black Box, which investigators rely on to understand what went wrong in mid-air.
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(Photograph: Zee News)
What Is a Black Box?
The Black Box refers to two key flight recorders on an aircraft. First, Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) records pilot conversations and sounds in the cockpit. Second, Flight Data Recorder (FDR) stores detailed data like altitude, speed, and engine performance. Together, they offer crucial insights during crash investigations.
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(Photograph: World Aviation Flight Academy)
Why Is It Called a ‘Black’ Box?
Despite the name, the box is not black. The term originated in the 1940s and 50s during early aviation, when internal military tech and crash analysis tools were kept in non-descript black casings. The name stuck even as the design evolved.
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(Photograph: Science)
Why Is the Black Box Orange?
Modern flight recorders are painted bright orange to make them easier to locate in wreckage. This high-visibility colour contrasts sharply with debris in various environments — forest, sea, or desert and helps crash investigators find them faster.
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(Photograph: Aviation24)
How Is It Built for Survival?
The Black Box is built to survive extreme conditions. It is Fire-resistant up to 1,100°C for 60 minutes, pressure-proof, crash-survivable up to 3,400 g-force, Waterproof, and sometimes equipped with an underwater locator beacon
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(Photograph: Aviation24)
How Long Can It Record?
CVRs typically store the last 2 hours of cockpit audio, while FDRs can capture 25 hours of flight data. These recordings loop over old data unless the box is retrieved quickly after a crash.
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(Photograph: ANI)
Role in the Ahmedabad Crash Probe
In the Ahmedabad crash, investigators recovered the flight recorder to reconstruct the final moments. Analysis of the Black Box will help determine whether the cause was pilot error, technical failure, or weather-related.
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