When an aircraft crashes, almost everything around the flight recorder can be destroyed.

So how does the black box survive?

In How a Black Box Survives a Plane Crash, we explore the remarkable engineering behind modern aircraft flight recorders and the extreme conditions they are designed to withstand.

Despite the name, a black box is usually painted bright orange to make it easier to locate after an accident.

Inside its protective housing is the memory system that stores critical flight information.

The recorder may contain information about altitude, airspeed, heading, engine performance, control inputs, and hundreds of other aircraft parameters. The cockpit voice recorder can also preserve conversations, alarms, and important sounds from the flight.

But protecting that information requires e ...