List of unrecovered flight recorders

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Flight data recorders (FDRs) and cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) in commercial airplanes continuously record information and can be immensely helpful to determine the cause of a crash. The deepest a flight recorder has been recovered was the case of South African Airways Flight 295, where the cockpit voice recorder was recovered 16,000 feet (4,900 m) under the ocean. However, there are many cases where recovered recorders did not definitively identify the cause of a crash. Recorders may be recovered, but too damaged to read or have blanks, like in TWA Flight 800 or Swissair Flight 111, after power is cut off.

List of unrecovered flight recorders

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 metres (249 ft) of water; FDR recording media never found
1973-07-22	816	Pan American World Airways	Boeing 707-321B	Pacific Ocean, off Papeete, Tahiti	Resting in 700 metres (2,300 ft) of water; neither recorder found
1975-09-30	240	Malév	Tupolev Tu-154	near the Lebanese shoreline	Resting in between 600 metres (2,000 ft) and 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) of water
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.
1985-01-01	980	Eastern Air Lines	Boeing 727-225	25 NM (46 km) from La Paz at the 19,600-ft (5975 m) level of Andean peak Mt. Illimani.	Due to the extreme high altitude and inaccessibility of the accident location, the FDR and CVR were never recovered.
1987-11-28	295	South African Airways	Boeing 747-244B Combi	Indian Ocean, near Mauritius	CVR located at 4,900 metres (16,100 ft); FDR not found.
1987-11-29	858	Korean Air	Boeing 707-3B5C	Andaman Sea	Neither flight recorder was ever found.
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.
2001-09-11	11	American Airlines	Boeing 767-223ER	North World Trade Center, New York City	Neither flight recorder found, destroyed in the building.
2001-09-11	175	United Airlines	Boeing 767-222	South World Trade Center, New York City	Neither flight recorder found, destroyed in the building. See above.
2001-10-04	1812	Siberia Airlines	Tupolev Tu-154	Black Sea	Neither flight recorder found.

See also

• List of missing ships

1973-03-05 Ferry AVIACO Caravelle SE-210 10B1R1 Off Funchal, Portugal Resting in 105 metres (350 ft) of water; FDR recording media never found[1]

1977-12-18 730 SATA Caravelle SE-210 10B1R1 Off Funchal, Portugal Resting in 70 metres (210 ft) of water; FDR recording media never found[1]