New Delhi, July 12: Black box data from an Air India Boeing 787-8 aircraft that crashed in Ahmedabad last month was recovered with the help of specialized equipment flown in from the United States 11 days after the incident, according to a preliminary investigation report.
India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) said it used a “Golden Chassis” and download cables supplied by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to retrieve data from the two Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorders (EAFRs) on board the aircraft. The equipment arrived in India on June 23, while the flight recorders were recovered on June 13 and June 16 from the crash site at B.J. Medical College.
The delay in data recovery has prompted questions about the preparedness of India’s aviation investigation infrastructure, despite the recent inauguration of a ₹9 crore ($1.1 million) state-of-the-art black box lab by the AAIB in April. It remains unclear whether the facility was equipped to recover data from recorders as severely damaged as those in the Ahmedabad crash.
The rear black box, found on the rooftop of a building, was substantially damaged and could not be read using conventional methods. The Cockpit Area Microphone (CAM) was found to have extensive damage to its memory card. The forward EAFR, recovered near a hostel building, was intact though covered in soot.
The recovered flight data spans roughly 49 hours across six flights, including the ill-fated one. The cockpit voice recorder captured about two hours of audio, which includes the final moments of the flight.
“The initial analysis of the recorded audio and flight data has been done,” the AAIB report noted.
This is not the first time Indian authorities have had to rely on external support for flight data recovery. During the 2020 crash of an Air India Express aircraft in Kozhikode, black boxes were sent to the U.S. due to damage to the memory card.
The AAIB has in past cases sourced similar equipment from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and international counterparts to recover critical flight recorder data. India’s Civil Aviation Ministry has not commented on whether future upgrades to the black box lab will eliminate the need for foreign assistance in similar cases.
