First black box aircraft data recorder

While there were various earlier attempts to record flight data, the first coupled Flight Data Recorder/Cockpit Voice Recorder designed for installation in civilian aircraft specifically for use in accident investigation was that produced by Dr David Warren of the Defence and Science Technological Organisation’s Aeronautical Research Laboratories in Melbourne, Australia. After a number of accidents of the world’s first commercial jet airliner, the De Havilland DH106 Comet in 1952 and 1953, after which Dr Warren was involved in trying to determine the causes, he designed in 1956 the first, crash-survivable, black box prototype, the ARL Flight Memory Unit, to record a flight crew’s conversation and other data prior to a crash. After an accident in Queensland, Australia, in 1960, that country became the first one to make Black Boxes mandatory. Modern equivalents are now fitted as standard equipment in all commercial airline aircraft. Contrary to the name “Black” Box, they are usually brightly coloured to facilitate finding them post crash.