# Airplane Black Box Question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airplane-black-box-question/810914>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 20, 2018, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airplane-black-box-question/810914 "2018-03-20T21:25:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@Jimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimpy)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2018, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airplane-black-box-question/810914/1 "2018-03-20T21:25:02Z")

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I was watching the show Air Disasters on the Smithsonian Channel and I noticed something. Whenever they brought up black boxes from the ocean and send them off to be analysed they put them in containers full of water. Why don’t they let them dry out on the way? That has bothered me ever since I noticed it.

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**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2018, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airplane-black-box-question/810914/2 "2018-03-20T21:28:40Z")

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Metal doesn’t really start rusting until it’s been exposed to air. There are components in the black box that they’d like to keep in as nice a condition as possible until it’s time to get the info out of it.

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2018, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airplane-black-box-question/810914/3 "2018-03-20T21:29:59Z")

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Allowing them to dry could actually cause additional damage to device and data stored on it due to the corrosive nature of salt water when exposed to air. Keeping it submerged keeps things relatively inert until it can get to the lab.

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**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2018, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airplane-black-box-question/810914/4 "2018-03-20T21:35:11Z")

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> [@friedo](#):
>
> Allowing them to dry could actually cause additional damage to device and data stored on it due to the corrosive nature of salt water when exposed to air. Keeping it submerged keeps things relatively inert until it can get to the lab.

In the lab, is anything special (inert gas?) used to dry the recorder safely?