flight data recorder

And it's two separate units.

The flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.

The FDR is the instrument.

Modern ones track hundreds of parameters.

Control positions, engine thrust, airspeed, altitude, heading, hydraulic pressure, flap settings, brake application.

On a cargo jet like the one in Miami, you're looking at thousands of data points per second across the final minutes of flight.

So the

FDR tells you what the machine did.