Black boxes

I watch “Why Planes Crash” on TV. It is very interesting, and I am amazed at how the investigators can find the causes of even extremely
damaged airplanes. This makes me think about something.
Why can’t the “Black Boxes” be replaced with electronic contact with ground stations?
Bob Burns

Ground Stations to pick up aircraft sensory data, that sounds expensive to me. My guess is that entire aircraft fleets around the world would have to be retrofitted with a potential new recording system and that means cost. The system would also have to be meet crash force requirements, I think the IACO and FAA are satisfied with the “Black Boxes” that are currently in use.

Thanks for the reply.
What you say makes sense.
Bob

Two major factors are money and bandwidth. Costs of equipment, installation and maintenance would be, as they say, ‘non trivial’. Look at the arguments about implementing ADS-B by 2020 in the US. Thousands of aircraft streaming the data would create massive volumes of data which would need to be transmitted and stored. Who would capture and store the data? Who would own the data? And of course, what would be the use of all that data? What would you be looking for?
The first step in finding a needle in a haystack, is to find the country in which the haystack is found.

Thanks for the reply.
I was just curious.
Bob