DRDO’s “Black Box” invention is all set to make skies safer!

Many aircraft have gone missing in mysterious circumstances, some to not be tracked again, others discovered after decades, such as the remains of two planes that an amateur investigator discovered on Mont Blanc in the French Alps last week, which experts believe could be those of one of those aircraft that Air India lost in two accidents in 1950 and 1966.

But army R&D bureau Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) has now developed a self-ejectable black box for planes. The system ejects from aircraft after a collision and self-activates as soon as it comes with a signal that could help rescuers find the device, once it sinks.

Constructed as part of ‘Make in India’ initiative, the product, aimed to be used on planes and submarines, has received “notice of allowance for patent” from the united states and Russia. BSAT with Satellite Transmitter -tested and has been developed by Naval Science and Technology Laboratory of DRDO at Visakhapatnam.

It attracted attention from specialists at an exhibition “Science for Soldiers & Society” organised in Chennai in the CVRDE at Avadi.Officials said the box has been developed based on. DRDO has perfected it and chose to develop it.

After receiving approvals it intends to export the item.”In the majority of the air crashes in the sea, the conventional black boxes fail likely because they sink to the bottom of the sea that could be tens of thousands of metres deep and also get influenced by the currents or damaged in the impact of the crash,” an official said.

“BSAT is designed to overcome all those hassles. The moment the water touches and floats on the surface will be ejected by it. In addition, it can be tethered to the flight so that some part of the debris be recovered,” the official added.

The black box has a use as it could send out signals when a submarine sinks and goes below its thickness, but its use would be in aviation. “The invention is good since it could the crash site and save flight information,” said air security expert and former pilot Captain Mohan Ranganathan.

A box stores information such as elevation, speed and other parameters of an aircraft’s flight. The information is imperative to piece together an accident’s cause. Aviation regulator and Airbus intend to get ejectable boxes on commercial airliners in the following two decades.