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To: prisoner6

In 1953, when I was twelve years old and was a newspaper delivery boy, I went down to the train depot every morning to get my shipment of papers for home delivery. During a period of time when there were several crashes of airplanes, the paper would print a picture on the front page of the debris field of the plane, which usually burned after the crash and the cockpit voice and flight recorder were never recovered intact. But I noticed from the pictures that the tail section of the airplane almost always survived the crash and fire with little damage. I then wrote a letter to the Civil Aeronautics Board, which was the precursor to the FAA, suggesting that the black box be placed in the aircraft tail section to improve survival of the recorders. Several years later I received a nice letter from the FAA saying that they adopted my idea. When I was three years old I lived next to an airport in Portland, Maine, and I witnessed a plane crash and fire which killed several people in a trailer park next to the airport.


55 posted on 03/27/2014 7:49:53 PM PDT by batterycommander (a little more rubble, a lot less trouble)
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To: batterycommander

Very cool story.Good powers of observation.

When I was 12, I delivered newspapers. That was in 1966. I have been working ever since.That first job taught me a lot.


58 posted on 03/27/2014 7:58:06 PM PDT by exit82 ("The Taliban is on the inside of the building" E. Nordstrom 10-10-12)
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To: batterycommander
Several years later I received a nice letter from the FAA saying that they adopted my idea.

Congratulations! You may have indirectly saved the lives of many via aircraft improvements which were implemented as a result of intact black boxes.

62 posted on 03/27/2014 9:21:04 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by nature not nurture)
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