Every airliner carries two crash-proof recorders - one that captures cockpit conversations and another that records flight data like speed, altitude, and engine performance. People call them black boxes, but the boxes themselves are painted in bright fluorescent orange. The color makes them easy to spot in tangled wreckage or murky water.
The “black” name comes from early versions in the 1950s, which had black plastic shells, or possibly from old electronics slang for sealed gadgets nobody was supposed to open. The bright orange color showed up later when investigators realized recovery teams needed to find these things fast.
Modern recorders are built to survive almost anything. They can endure 3,400 g of impact force, temperatures of 2,000°F for an hour, and pressures of the ocean at 20,000 feet deep. A built-in beacon pings underwater for around 90 days so search teams can locate them even from a deep-sea crash site.
