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An aircraft passes in front of the moon - Source: Reuters
The Australian inventor of the black box flight data recorder, David Warren, has died aged 85.
Warren, who died on Monday at a Melbourne nursing home, was
involved in investigating the crash in 1953 of the world's first
commercial jet airliner, the Comet, as it was en route to
Australia.
The challenge of determining the causes of the accident led him to
the idea of a recording device that could withstand a crash where
there were no survivors and no witnesses.
Warren was born in 1925 at a mission station on remote Groote
Eylandt in far northern Australia, the first European child born on
the island in the Gulf of Carpenteria.
As a boy, he was schooled in the country's south, attending
Launceston Grammar in Tasmania and Trinity Grammar in Sydney, and
developed a love of radio electronics and, later, chemistry.
In 1934, his father was killed in one of Australia's first air
disasters, the loss of the de Havilland 86 Miss Hobart in Bass
Strait.
His last gift to Warren was a crystal radio set, according to a biography on the website of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO).
Warren was the principal research scientist at DSTO's
Aeronautical Research Laboratories in Melbourne from 1952 to
1983.
Early in his career at DSTO's Aeronautical Research Laboratories in
Melbourne, however, there was little interest in his argument for
the flight data recorder.
Warren persisted, and in 1956 he designed and built the world's
first prototype flight data recorder, which became known as the
"black box".
"It took five years before the value and practicality of the flight
data recorder concept was realised and a further five years until
authorities mandated they be be fitted to cockpits in Australian
aircraft," the Department of Defence said in a statement on
Wednesday.
"The modern-day equivalent of Dr Warren's device, installed in
passenger airlines around the world, is a testament to his
pioneering work."
"It is now also used in other forms of road transport to capture
information in the lead-up to accidents."
In 2002, Warren was awarded the Order of Australia - among the
nation's highest civilian honours - for his service to the aviation
industry.
In 2008, Australian flag carrier Qantas named an Airbus A380
aircraft after Warren for his pioneering work.
He is survived by his wife Ruth, four children and seven
grandchildren.
