Invented: 1954

Inventor: David Warren

David Warren invented the Black Box Flight Recorder in 1954. David Warren had been involved in many meetings as a chemist specialising in aircraft fuels. These meetings had been called to try to figure out the mystery of many aircraft disasters in the 1950s involving Comet Jet Powered Airliners. Warren got very frustrated and decided he would invent a device that would be fireproof and would record the 4 hours of flight before a crash including what people were saying and controls in operation. Warren brought up this idea in Australia though very little interest was raised. Warren decided that maybe to get interest he would need to actually build the object to show people, so with the help of his superintendent and Instrument Engineer he did but it still didnt raise much interest. Though Warren eventually found interest in 1958 when the Secretary of the UK Air Registration Board, Robert Hardingham saw the invention while on an informal visit to Australia. Warren then demonstrated the device in the UK after being invited to by Hardingham, the demonstrations were very successful and recorder featured in the newspapers and TV. The British soon started fitting Black Boxes in their aircraft while Australia still werent very interested. In 1960 after a serious plane crash in Mackay, QLD the judge ordered that all Australian Airliners must carry Black Boxes and Australia became the first ever country to make Black Boxes compulsory. Black Boxes are now compulsory across the world in all planes.