India to send black box of crashed Air India 787 aircraft to US for data recovery

India will send the black box of the crashed Air India Boeing 787 aircraft to the US for analysis. The recorder sustained heavy external damage from post-crash fire making it impossible to extract data in India, people aware of the development said.

They said that data from the Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) will be extracted in the Washington-based laboratory of National Safety Transport Board (NTSB) and will be shared with India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) as under international rules, the state of occurrence has the responsibility of investigation.

“While AAIB had established a laboratory at its headquarters in Delhi last year, it is yet to be properly equipped to extract data from recorders which have sustained heavy damage. The NTSB team will carry them to their lab under protection and supervision from Indian officials to ensure that proper protocols are followed,” a person involved in the process said.


The United Kingdom’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch will also be present as there were 53 British citizens among those killed.

The Air India aircraft crashed seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad airport killing 242 on board the aircraft, and 33 on the ground.

The two units- the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) are called black box. Painted in bright orange, they are designed to survive extreme conditions and located near the tail as that area has the least impact during a crash. But heavy damages are common due to impact from the crash or from fire after that.

Data extracted from an aircraft’s black boxes is crucial in investigations of the crash as the flight data recorder will give insight into multiple technical parameters such as timing, altitude and airspeed. CVR holds crucial audio recordings from the cockpit, including pilot conversations and ambient noise like any warning message from the electronic systems in the cockpit.

The person quoted above said that the time to extract data from the recorder could range from two days to months depending on the extent of damage.

“Since the recorder has been damaged, the chip will need to be extracted by removing the memory board so that there is no further damage to data. The electronic circuit will also have to be assessed for damage,” the person said.

Investigators are examining multiple possibilities whether the flaps on its wings were properly extended and why the landing gear went down. They are also looking at electronic failure or a fuel contamination which could potentially lead to shut down of engines.

The 787, like any modern aircraft, has been built with multiple redundancy meaning there are duplications of critical components or systems to enhance reliability to make the aircraft fail safe. The aircraft has demonstrated capability to fly for 345 minutes with a single engine and with numerous system failures.

A single emergency Mayday call was the final radio message sent by the pilot. He didn’t respond back to the air traffic control, Samir Kumar Sinha, secretary of the civil aviation ministry, had said.

The AAIB, which is yet to form an investigators panel for the determining cause of the incident, has one month time to bring out the preliminary report.