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The abrupt and untimely death of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat in a military helicopter crash near Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, has sparked a major investigation into the cause of the crash. Officers from the Indian Air Force are on the scene collecting all essential data and materials in order to determine the reason of the crash, which claimed the lives of several armed forces officers, including Gen Rawat.
The IAF's technical team will focus on locating the Black Box (if it hasn't been found yet), a key electronic device also known as a Flight Data Recorder that collects 88 vital characteristics about a flight, including airspeed, altitude, cockpit communications, and air pressure, among other things. When a crash occurs, the black box is located on a first-come, first-served basis in order to determine what caused the crash. The following is a diagram of how the procedure works.
What is a Black Box?
A Black Box is a compressor-shaped device that is painted in a high-visibility orange colour. It is neither black nor box-shaped. Experts debate about where the nickname came from, although many historians believe it was invented in the 1950s by Australian physicist David Warren. All commercial airlines and the armed forces are required to have a Black Box in order to preserve clues from cockpit noises and data in order to assist prevent future mishaps.
A typical Black Box weighs around 10 pounds (4.5 kilogrammes) and is made up of four primary components:
- A chassis or interface that holds the device in place and allows for recording and playback.
- A location beacon that can be used underwater
- A stainless steel or titanium core container, sometimes known as a "Crash Survivable Memory Unit."
- Inside, the priceless recording chips on circuit boards the size of a fingernail
A Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) for pilot voices or cockpit sounds and a Flight Data Recorder (FDR) for flight data are the two recorders (FDR). The BEA shared a shot of the Ethiopian plane's FDR, which appears to reveal that the chip's critical casing is intact but the replaceable chassis is crushed.
How is recording sourced?
To avoid mistakenly erasing data, technicians carefully peel away covering layer and clean connections. It is necessary to download and copy the audio or data file. At first glance, the data is meaningless. Before it can be transformed into graphs, it must first be decoded from raw files. Investigators frequently employ "spectral analysis," a method of analysing noises that enables experts to detect faint alerts or the initial crack of an explosion.
How is data processed?
A listening room, similar to a recording studio, is equipped with audio mixing and playback equipment that is linked to a screen that displays synchronised data. Voices and background noise are separated by four channels. Most tapes are only heard by the chief investigator and a small group of persons before being sealed. The recording will be prepared by a technician to guarantee that it is in good working order. Trauma counselling is given for personnel hearing tapes in France.
When will the result come?
A listening room, similar to a recording studio, is equipped with audio mixing and playback equipment that is linked to a screen that displays synchronised data. Voices and background noise are separated by four channels. Most tapes are only heard by the chief investigator and a small group of persons before being sealed. The recording will be prepared by a technician to guarantee that it is in good working order. Trauma counselling is given for personnel hearing tapes in France.
Modern day Black Box
Modern versions feature computer chips encased inside "crash-survivable" canisters capable of withstanding g-forces 3,400 times the feeling of gravity, as opposed to older models that used wire, foil, or reels of magnetic tape. Since the accident and unsolved disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 in 2014, there has been heated debate about whether black boxes should feed live data back to the ground, which would be expensive and time consuming.