John LeBoutillier
Tuesday Oct. 2, 2001

In fact, the "black box" is two boxes - the flight data recorder and the voice cockpit recorder - and they're both orange.

The flight data recorder records the instrument readings available to the pilot as well as the settings he has made on the throttles, flaps, landing gear etc. This is to help investigators piece together the 'what happened' if the cockpit crew dies in an accident.

The voice cockpit recorder records the conversations of the cockpit crew with each other over microphones in the cockpit. These are often chilling in their poignancy, screams and fear.

Whenever there is a crash there is the inevitable search for the familiar 'pinging' sound emitted from these 'black boxes'. A powerful radio transmitter embedded in the boxes - the boxes themselves are in the tail of the plane - often survives a fiery crash and leads investigators to the boxes.

The September 11 hijackings gave me an idea: we have snippets of information about what happened on those four planes from the cell phone calls passengers made before their deaths. Well, if those cell phones can work so well, why not equip every commercial jet with a live video/audio/telemetry transmitting capability direct to the Air Traffic Controller and the FAA?

Hidden cameras and mikes in the cockpit and in the cabin would enable the Controller to see right into the plane - in real time - and determine what is occurring. He could see who is actually flying the plane, he could pan the passenger section to see what is going on back there - all from hidden cameras.

No one on the plane would know the exact placement of the cameras or microphones - and their transmission system could not be turned off; it would be impenetrable. (In the case of two of the hijacked jets, the well-trained hijackers turned off the transponders.) Similar to the Lojack anti-car theft program, hiding the devices helps deter the bad guys.

Instrument settings could also be transmitted in real time - similar to the 'telemetry' that NASA spacecraft send to Houston.

In the case of a 'routine' crash the video/audio/telemetry feed would be recorded by the FAA through a satellite and could be subsequently retrieved from a 'tape bank' for investigative purposes. All commercial jets could have this system - and all could broadcast continually up to a satellite - from anywhere.

This system would provide investigators with better information than the damaged 'black boxes.' And, in the case of another hijacking, we would know for certain what is happening in the jet before the President or Air Force orders it shot down.