An Australian scientist who invented the flight data recorder famously known as the "black box" to help investigate aircraft accidents has died at the age of 85, defense officials said on Wednesday.
David Warren, whose own father was killed in a plane crash in 1934 in Australia, was a research scientist at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories in Melbourne.
He came up with the idea of a crash and fire-proof machine to record the crew's voices and instrument readings after helping to investigate the mysterious crash of the world's first jet airliner, the Comet, in 1953.
Warren designed and built the world's first flight data record prototype in 1956 which became known as the "black box" but it took five years before the value and practicality of his invention was realized.
It took another five years until authorities ruled that the flight-data recorders should be fitted to cockpits in Australian aircraft.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Inventor Of The Aircraft "Black Box" David Warren Dies At 85
