> There's no benefit. You are going to be sending people out to the plane anyway.
This is a fantastic point. I can't think of many accidents that were resolved by the FDR alone. The FDR tells a substantial part of the story, obviously (flight control positions, instrumentation data, etc), but the wreckage suggests where potential points of failure occurred. The importance of this cannot be understated, and I'd highly recommend watching (albeit rather dramatized) Crash of the Comet [1] and related videos for how important wreckage and metallurgical analysis has been in resolving otherwise difficult accidents.
To add to your comment, the FDR and CVR have demonstrated that they can function up to the point of impact (with some exceptions, such as a few accidents caused by severe in flight fires), which yields some very important telemetry as to the attitude of the aircraft, state of the engines, etc.
This is a fantastic point. I can't think of many accidents that were resolved by the FDR alone. The FDR tells a substantial part of the story, obviously (flight control positions, instrumentation data, etc), but the wreckage suggests where potential points of failure occurred. The importance of this cannot be understated, and I'd highly recommend watching (albeit rather dramatized) Crash of the Comet [1] and related videos for how important wreckage and metallurgical analysis has been in resolving otherwise difficult accidents.
To add to your comment, the FDR and CVR have demonstrated that they can function up to the point of impact (with some exceptions, such as a few accidents caused by severe in flight fires), which yields some very important telemetry as to the attitude of the aircraft, state of the engines, etc.
So really, if it's not broke...
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws-GAiQKsBs