Plane

[4getmenot]

If the "black box" flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn't the whole airplane made out of that stuff?

[stoo_pid]

Becasue it would be too heavy to get off the ground. Certainly would be safe tho!

[Dom Tuk]

Even if you make the whole plane out of the stuff and even if you design engines that can carry such a heavy plane you will still all die for the simple reason that our bodies are soft and we will rattle inside that box like nobodys business (seat belt or no seat belt)

[andy-hughes]

The first plane designer asked why they don't make planes from the same material as flight recorders responded "Well, we can do that, but you might as well take the wings off and run it down the freeway, ain't no way it's ever going to get off the ground!"

[Buenchico]

All of the above answers make perfect sense. Just to expand upon Dom Tuk's answer:

Car manufacturers used to think that they could improve passenger safety by building their cars 'like tanks'. These days they deliberately design the common impact points (e.g. the front of the car) to form 'crumple zones' so that they absorb much of the impact of a collision. So, if it was possible to design an impact-proof plane, your chances of survival, in the event of an accident, would be lower (rather than higher) than with current designs. (Even if seat belts were changed to the full-body harnesses used by rally drivers, this wouldn't prevent neck injuries. Neither would it prevent your internal organs from continuing to hurtle forwards, at hundreds of miles per hour, when the rest of your body came to an abrupt halt).

Chris

[netibiza]

Hey hang on there, you're putting me off of my flights to America and England, think I'll get the bus.