Has there been a time either during an aviation accident or during normal flight where the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder devices failed or the data was significantly corrupted?
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
-
5$\begingroup$ There are a number of incidents recorded where the FDR was destroyed or unreadable, most being due to post-accident fires. Wiki have the following list; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unrecovered_flight_recorders $\endgroup$ – Steve Matthews Mar 25 '20 at 12:47
-
2$\begingroup$ @SteveMatthews-- The above comment should be made an answer. $\endgroup$ – quiet flyer Mar 25 '20 at 14:30
-
1$\begingroup$ I seem to recall a case where a flight recorder was actually stuck prior to an accident, recording nothing until a midair collision jarred it loose. So it was able to record the aftermath. I'll have to see if I can find that. $\endgroup$ – Fred Larson Mar 25 '20 at 18:34
-
1$\begingroup$ It was the Zagreb midair. I can't find anything in that article about it, but a book I have says, "The cockpit voice recorder on the Yugoslav aircraft had not been working properly but the impact jolted it into action." (Air Disasters, Stanley Stewart, p. 142) $\endgroup$ – Fred Larson Mar 25 '20 at 18:55
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
As mentioned in the comment above, there is lot of aviation accidents with unrecovered flight recorders. List from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unrecovered_flight_recorders
-
2$\begingroup$ Unrecovered is not the same thing as failed. $\endgroup$ – Michael Hall Mar 26 '20 at 1:05
-
1$\begingroup$ How do you know the recorder failed if it wasn't recovered? 🤔 $\endgroup$ – Jörg W Mittag Mar 28 '20 at 6:09
