Today's New York Times brought us sad news that David Warren, a legend in the field of aviation safety and accident forensics, has passed away. Warren was the original inventor of the flight data recorders used after-the-fact to reconstruct the causes of aircraft accidents. His device is usually called a "black box," even though Warren actually painted his red.
The NYT writes:
David Warren, who is widely credited with creating the prototype of the flight data recorder, or “black box,” an advance in aviation that was partly inspired by the death of his father in a plane crash when he was 8, died on Monday in Australia. He was 85.
David Warren, whose father died in an air disaster, is credited with creating the flight data recorder. He made no profit from it. [...]
Mr. Warren, a government aeronautical researcher who had operated a ham radio as a boy, worked against skepticism and ridicule to create his device. But it, and later generations of it, proved to do exactly what he thought it would: simultaneously record the conversations of pilots and instrument readings.
Read on for the complete obituary... it's a fascinating and life-saving tale of insight, inspiration, and perseverance.
For comparison's sake, here's a flight data recorder of more recent vintage, as photographed by us inside an Airbus A380 test aircraft in 2007. Here too, notice that the box is orange and not black... and frankly, it's not much of a box either:
Warren photo: New York Times/Australian
Comments