Why did the flight recorder only record 30 minutes of audio?

Question

Cmon, we are in the year 2009.. Are they using 10 MB harddrives in that thing?

It should be able to record the entire flight, and have microphones all over the plane, and video recording of the cockpit (NOT HARD). Wow I should be president of something.

Answer 1

It is felt by the FAA, and other nations equivalents that the last 30 minutes of any flight is sufficient to expose any problems the flight may have had before and up to an emergency being declared.

In the case of the two pilots who overshot the airport, the act of inattentiveness was plain, and a recording was not really needed to assess error on the part of the pilot and first officer.

The thirty minute rule is in no way influenced by labor unions, it is the discretionary ruling of the FAA, and no one else.

Answer 2

Railbird is a moron, unions control FAA rules? Nope.



bgee, ok, how do you know that? If the flight recorder was for the whole flight.. we could know the truth. What if we heard 45 minutes of snoring over the mic.. then they wake up, and act like they were arguing? That is crap.



They need to record the whole flight, simple as that. These pilots are responsible for the lives of the plane riders, and people on the ground that they could smash into.. EVERYTHING should be recorded.. flying a jet isn't a right, its a privilege granted by the FAA.

Answer 3

There are actually two black boxes, one of which records every detail of the flight (what position every switch is in, etc etc). The voice recorder is limited to thirty minutes because if there is a declared emergency, that plane is likely to be on the ground in thirty minutes or less, one way or another. Communications with air traffic controllers are independently recorded on the ground but assuming you are referring to the infamous overflight they were not in communication with the ground so there are no recordings to study.



Where do you work, by the way? In a bank, let's say. Do you really want the bank to record every word of every moment of every day, even in the restrooms, and give those recordings to the Federal Reserve System, your state banking regulators, the F.B.I., and the local police just because some nut-job came in to rob the place?



The thirty minute limit is influenced more by labor unions and privacy issues than technology.



Edit: It isn't a matter of erasing all but thirty minutes. It is an endless loop device with thirty minutes of capacity, so it is constantly recording over itself. And the video cameras in a bank or convenience store generally do not record sound because they cover too large of an area. The question was not "How much time should be recorded?" but "Why was it only thirty minutes." When y'all become head of the FAA, maybe you can get it changed.

Answer 4

From what I understand it was the older type recorder, not a digital one. They should all be updated if these planes are still making flights, it's ridiculous. Those pilots were napping I have no doubt about it. How could they not hear calls in their headphones and they claim they were on the computer but ever saw the e-mails popping up, they're lying.