Black box recovered

MANGALORE: Investigators at the crash site of the Air India Express plane that overshot the runway in southern Mangalore killing 158 people said on Tuesday they had recovered the "black box" or digital flight data recorder.

"It's intact," an official from the Directorate General for Civil Aviation said as he held the battered recorder aloft.

The box is a vital missing link to the last couple of minutes of Air India Express' descent into Bajpe airport in Mangalore.

DGCA's Air Safety Team was conducting search in a wider area of the crash site on Tuesday, much beyond the location of the wreckage site assuming the crash impact may have flung the vital piece of equipment, further
out than normal.

"There will be combing operations on Tuesday in a wider area," Bajpe airport GM Peter Abraham had said before the black box was found.