Aeroplane flight recorders

King Neptune

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If the input microphone is still there, and the recorder has power to run the recorder, then it would continue recording, but, as I understand it, the battery that operates the beacon just does that and nothing else, so there probably wouldn't be any power to the recorder.
 

MJRevell

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Thanks – that's very helpful.

Perhaps an idiotic question, but do you know how they're actually detected when they're not underwater? I understand they automatically ping out a signal when touching water. What about outside of it?
 

King Neptune

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Thanks – that's very helpful.

Perhaps an idiotic question, but do you know how they're actually detected when they're not underwater? I understand they automatically ping out a signal when touching water. What about outside of it?

They have a radio beacon that works on dry land, but they are usually easier to find on land.
 

Thewitt

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The FDR and CVR do NOT have built in radio beacons that work on dry land. The plane has an Emergency Location Transmitter that should be triggered in the case of a crash, and that is the only way they can get close enough to the aircraft crash site to search for and locate the flight recorders. The ELT has been known to not trigger however, in both land and water crashes.

The flight recorders have a "pinger" that is activated by a crash into water, however they do not have a radio for operation above water.

As for whether the cockpit voice recorder will continue to record once a plane has crashed, it's highly unlikely, though I suppose it's theoretically possible. The crash would have to leave power to the cockpit in place and not sever the connection to the CVR which is normally located in the tail section of a commercial aircraft.