I’ve never understood this – I figured it must be because of pilot unions or something along the lines. It’s archaic that we physically search for black boxes rather than have it streamed. And to that point, why not have it video recorded as well? It’s a common practice across many professions – how there can be any justification against it?
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Head on over to flightradar24.com and see just how many planes are in the air at any given time to get an idea of how much data steaming and storage you’d need, compared to each plane already carrying the recording device onboard (which also helps ensure data integrity and constant signal). The amount of times we can’t find a black box…never mind have an incident occur where we even need to search for one…is exceedingly low. The cost/benefit just isn’t there.
Onboard flight data recorders already keep far more information than is possible/feasible to stream in real time on such a scale. In addition, searching for a black box isn’t really such a time sensitive task where having the data immediately would change anything.
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