List of unrecovered flight recorders

Flight data recorders (FDRs) and cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) in commercial aircraft continuously record information and can provide key evidence in determining the causes of an aircraft loss. The greatest depth from which a flight recorder has been recovered is 16,000 feet (4,900 m) the CVR of South African Airways Flight 295.

Recovered recorders are not always able to definitively identify, however, the causes of an accident. Recorders successfully recovered can be too damaged to be read, or may have missing data caused by power loss, as with TWA Flight 800, American Airlines Flight 77, and Swissair Flight 111. In the bombing of TWA Flight 841 on 8 September 1974, neither the FDR nor CVR were recovered from the Ionian Sea, despite the locations being narrowed down through the use of the attached Underwater locator beacons (knows as "pingers").

Date of crash	Flight No.	Airline	Plane type	Presumed location	Notes
1965-08-16	389	United Airlines	Boeing 727-22	Lake Michigan, off Chicago, Illinois	Resting in 76 m (249 ft) of water; FDR recording media never found[1]
1970-05-02	980	ALM	Douglas DC-9-33CF	Caribbean Sea	Resting in 5,000 ft (1,500 m) of water; neither recorder found[2]
1973-07-22	816	Pan American World Airways	Boeing 707-321B	Pacific Ocean, off Papeete, Tahiti	Resting in 700 m (2,300 ft) of water; neither recorder found[3]
1975-09-30	240	Malév	Tupolev Tu-154	near the Lebanese shoreline	Resting in between 600 and 1,000 m (2,000 and 3,300 ft) of water[4]
1979-01-30	cargo	Varig aircraft PP-VLU	Boeing 707-323C	in the Pacific Ocean, around 200 kilometers East Northeast from Tokyo, Japan	The aircraft debris were never located and thus, neither the CVR and FDR was found and the cause of the crash was never determined.[5]
1985-01-01	980	Eastern Air Lines	Boeing 727-225	25 nmi (46 km) from La Paz at the 19,600 ft (5,970 m) level of Andean peak Mt. Illimani.	Due to the extreme high altitude and inaccessibility of the accident location, the FDR and CVR were not recovered at the time.[6] A team of 3 men claims as of 2016 to have recovered the remains of the CVR and parts of the FDR, however this has not been confirmed by the FAA or other governmental departments.[7]
1987-11-28	295	South African Airways	Boeing 747-244B Combi	Indian Ocean, near Mauritius	CVR located at 4,900 m (16,100 ft); FDR not found.
1987-11-29	858	Korean Air	Boeing 707-3B5C	Andaman Sea	Neither flight recorder was ever found.[8]
1988-07-03	655	Iran Air	Airbus 300	Persian Gulf	Neither flight recorder was ever found.[9]
1992-10-04	1862	El Al Israel Airlines	Boeing 747-258F	Groeneveen and Klein-Kruitberg flats in the Bijlmermeer, Amsterdam Zuidoost	One Black Box was found. The tape was broken in 4 pieces. The last 2:45 minutes were unreadable.[10]
2001-09-11	11	American Airlines	Boeing 767-223ER	North World Trade Center, New York City	[11]
2001-09-11	175	United Airlines	Boeing 767-222	South World Trade Center, New York City	[11]
2001-10-04	1812	Siberia Airlines	Tupolev Tu-154	Black Sea	Neither flight recorder found. Main fuselage of the aircraft, believed to contain the recorder, was believed to be at depth of 1,000 metres - too deep for divers to retrieve.[12]
2004-10-14	1602	MK Airlines	Boeing 747-244(SF)	Halifax, Nova Scotia	FDR recovered; CVR mutilated in post crash fire
2005-10-22	210	Bellview Airlines	Boeing 737-200	Lisa Village, Ogun	FDR was never found
2012-06-03	992	Dana Air	McDonnell Douglas MD-83	Lagos, Nigeria	CVR recovered; FDR mutilated in post crash fire
2012-12-09	N345MC	private	Learjet 25	Iturbide, Mexico	CVR and FDR destroyed upon high speed impact
2014-03-08	370	Malaysia Airlines	Boeing 777-2H6ER	South Indian Ocean	Plane and all 239 passengers and crew missing CVR missing; FDR missing search for debris and recorders underway

See also

• List of missing ships

References

1. NTSB Aircraft Accident Report, United Airlines N7036U in Lake Michigan
2. NTSB Aircraft Accident Report, Aircraft Accident Report: Overseas National Airways, Inc. Douglas DC-9 N935F, Operating as Antillaanse Luchtvaart Flight 980, Near St. Croix, Virgin Islands, 2 May 1970
3. Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
4. The Lost Flight - Malév 240 | Airliners.net
5. "Varig accident description". Aviation Safety Network. 1979-01-30. Retrieved 2009-10-20.
6. Investigation of Controlled Flight into Terrain. Descriptions of Flight Paths for Selected Controlled Flight into Terrain (CFIT) Aircraft Accidents, 1985-1997. by Robert O. Phillips. Federal Aviation Administration, U. S. Department Of Transportation, Project Memorandum DOT-TSC-FA9D1-99-01, March 1999.
7. "Two Massachusetts men say they have found long-lost 'black boxes' in Bolivia - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2016-06-06.
8. "Seoul Pardons North Korean in Bombing of Airliner Killing 115". Los Angeles Times. 13 April 1990.
9. "Shooting Down Iran Air Flight 655". Iran Chamber Society. 2004.
10. nl:Bijlmerramp,
11. 9/11 Commission Report, Notes to Chapter 1, note 76, page 456 (PDF page 474),
12. Gilmore, Inigi (2001-10-07). "Israel accuses Ukraine of hiding missile strike that destroyed jet". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 30 April 2015.