theyoyomaster , 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

Trained air mishap investigator here (finally get to say that)! The “expiration” is mainly the batteries for the sonar ping in the event of a water recovery. Beyond that, over the timeframe of years corrosion and slow water intrusion can degrade the stored data. On older systems the magnetic tape had a much shorter life before data is lost but on the new solid state ones it is less likely, but still not impervious to time. For Air France 447 they were recovered 2 years after the accident and the data was still viable. There is definitely a time period beyond which data will eventually be lost, but we dont have an exact number for it and it is based on variables such as the exact forces at impact, water depth and dozens of other unknown factors. MH370 for example has only been underwater for 9 years and I would expect much, if not all the data from its boxes to be recoverable at this time. If it goes another 10-15 then we really don’t know but it’s likely something would be on the solid state drives. As MH370 shows the pinger battery is the main time limit because once it’s done the odds of finding the wreckage goes down dramatically.