A method for monitoring and tracking an aircraft under exceptional conditions, comprising: receiving at a flight data recorder a data stream from a flight data acquisition unit specifying values for a plurality of flight data parameters while an aircraft is in flight; storing one or more of the values from the data stream in a memory unit; determining an occurrence during flight of an exception condition in response to an evaluation of at least one exception parameter using a processing system comprised by the flight data recorder, wherein the at least one exception parameter comprises one or more of the flight data parameters; responsive to determining the occurrence of the exception condition, wirelessly communicating selected aircraft data to a remote location external of the aircraft using a wireless transmitter comprised by the flight data recorder, wherein the selected aircraft data includes data that is useful for tracking and/or monitoring the aircraft by flight controllers, the method further comprising: preventing interruption of the monitoring and tracking and preventing the flight crew from disabling transmissions of the selected aircraft data by providing power to the flight data recorder and the wireless transmitter using an electrical bus of the aircraft, which electrical bus is an essential electrical bus of the aircraft which cannot be practically disabled by a flight crew during flight without disabling other equipment that is essential for safe flight operations, wherein the wireless transmitter comprised by the flight data recorder is exclusively under the control of the flight data recorder. receiving at a flight data recorder a data stream from a flight data acquisition unit specifying values for a plurality of flight data parameters while an aircraft is in flight; storing one or more of the values from the data stream in a memory unit; determining an occurrence during flight of an exception condition in response to an evaluation of at least one exception parameter using a processing system comprised by the flight data recorder, wherein the at least one exception parameter comprises one or more of the flight data parameters; responsive to determining the occurrence of the exception condition, wirelessly communicating selected aircraft data to a remote location external of the aircraft using a wireless transmitter comprised by the flight data recorder, wherein the selected aircraft data includes data that is useful for tracking and/or monitoring the aircraft by flight controllers, the method further comprising: preventing interruption of the monitoring and tracking and preventing the flight crew from disabling transmissions of the selected aircraft data by providing power to the flight data recorder and the wireless transmitter using an electrical bus of the aircraft, which electrical bus is an essential electrical bus of the aircraft which cannot be practically disabled by a flight crew during flight without disabling other equipment that is essential for safe flight operations, wherein the wireless transmitter comprised by the flight data recorder is exclusively under the control of the flight data recorder. preventing interruption of the monitoring and tracking and preventing the flight crew from disabling transmissions of the selected aircraft data by providing power to the flight data recorder and the wireless transmitter using an electrical bus of the aircraft, which electrical bus is an essential electrical bus of the aircraft which cannot be practically disabled by a flight crew during flight without disabling other equipment that is essential for safe flight operations, wherein the wireless transmitter comprised by the flight data recorder is exclusively under the control of the flight data recorder.