Tbh, it’s such a simple and cheap device, why would you not have it?
I’m frankly rather surprised that airplanes don’t have more of them (for redundancy). They might have been complicated tech in the 70s, but today it’s a non-issue.
More black boxes mean more money, something air line corporations really don’t like paying.
What I mean is that black boxes are technically super easy today and shouldn’t cost a lot of money.
All you need is basically a microcontroller writing to an SSD in an armored, heat-shielded box. Should be cheaper than a single seat.
I couldn’t find up-to-date prices. The only thing I could find was that in 1993 a combined cockpit voice and data recoder that was made in a way that it would detach from the plane in case of ditching in water would cost ~$60k per piece.
That was in a time way before shock resistant SSDs, so it was mechanically much more difficult to build that.
Can’t imagine that a modern airplane grade black box costs more than a couple thousand.
When it comes to cars, all you need is a microcontroller logging to an SD card or EMMC. That costs maybe a few dollars.
Doubt mine has that its old as fuck.
In America.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_data_recorder#NHTSA_ruling
Since there was already an overwhelming trend for voluntary EDR installation, the ruling did not require manufacturers to install EDRs in vehicles produced for North America. Based on its analysis, NHTSA estimated that by 2010, over 85% of vehicles would already have EDRs installed in them, but warned that if the trend did not continue, the agency would revisit their decision and possibly make installation a requirement.
The mandate did, however, provide a minimum standard for the type of data that EDRs would be required to record, consisting of at least 15 types of crash data, including pre-crash speed, engine throttle, brake use, measured changes in forward velocity (Delta-V), driver safety belt use, airbag warning lamp status and airbag deployment times.
In addition to the required data, NHTSA also set standards for 30 other types of data to be recorded if EDRs were voluntarily configured. For example, if a manufacturer configured an EDR to record engine RPMs or ABS activity, then the EDR would have to record 5 seconds of those pre-crash data in half-second increments.
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