[LINK] Flash drives in the sea?

[Jim Birch]

Yep.  It seems almost trivial to upgrade the memory in a the voice and data
recorders to current memory capabilities.  Likewise, battery technology has
moved along.  However, as I said " It seems unlikely that any retrofit to
would be justified in terms of opportunity costs for improving flight
safety."   Black boxes only improve safety indirectly by providing data
that may - or may not - change aircraft design, pilot training or
practices.  My feeling would be that the vast majority of air accidents
occur due to deviations from accepted best practice, eg, pilot error.  The
low hanging fruit is long gone.

However, there is still a psychological need to not have large important
objects disappear without explanation.

Cheers
Jim