Take A Look Inside A Black Box

Also, the outside is not black

By G. Clay Whittaker | Published Jun 30, 2016 6:20 PM EDT

Technology

Opening a black box — With so many plane disappearances and crashes in the headlines the last couple of years, there's been a lot of talk about black boxes. But do you know what's inside? Watch this video to see what's inside a flight recorder black box. And, did you know they're not black? Go figure. YouTube

You’d want it to be nearly impossible to penetrate an aircraft black box, right? We would too.

Black boxes, or flight recorders, are meant to take a lot of wear and tear. After all, they’re supposed to survive plane crashes from tens of thousands of feet in the air, aboard metal vessels filled with jet fuel.

But the inside of a modern black box (spoiler: they’re not actually black) is a small wonder of strength and protection.

Needless to say getting inside them is no easy task. After dropping the box out of a helicopter to show its durability, the Youtube channel “What’s Inside?” cut the thing in half with a saw, so we could see a cross-section of the device that captures valuable data in the event of a crash.

Take a look inside:

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