The lil black box

[emmathestar]

What is it made off? and why dont they make the whole plane out of it as the box always survives a crash but the plane doesnt!???

[Genghis the Engineer]

Usually steel, painted orange or red (never black), and it usually survives because it's right in the middle of the jet, and if you made the whole aircraft out of steel that thick it'd never get off the ground.

G

[capt.sparrow]

Isn't it at the back - after all aeroplanes never reverse in to mountains............

[lomapaseo]

It's anyplace that is convenient to put it for servicing and access to routing to sensors.

It has some resistance to vibration, shock and fire and often survives better than the surrounding crushable structure..

I suppose that one could make an equally survivable cocoon for an aircraft but we might have to seal the passengers inside it without air, water, doors or windows in order to survive just as well. Of course there would have to be stringent testing of the innards such as passengers to ensure that they could survive the shock and vibration loads as well as the cocoon surrounding them.