The Indian civil aviation ministry announced on Thursday that investigators had successfully extracted important information from the flight recorders of the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which crashed shortly after departure from Ahmedabad earlier this month, killing 260 people.
On June 12, minutes after taking off from Ahmedabad, the doomed flight headed for London crashed, killing 241 of the 242 passengers and crew members on board and a number of others on the ground. The crash is regarded as the deadliest in the last ten years worldwide.
The two black boxes, the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), were eventually located through recovery attempts; one was recovered among debris on June 16, and the other was discovered on the roof of a nearby building on June 13.
A team from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) retrieved data from the forward flight recorder on Wednesday, the government said, marking a major advancement in the investigation.
According to a statement from the ministry, “these efforts aim to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the accident and identify contributing factors to enhance aviation safety and prevent future occurrences.”
International cooperation includes the involvement of the NTSB. Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of an aviation event, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy stated that the US team has been actively supporting Indian authorities. “The Indian government and the AAIB have provided us with excellent cooperation,” she stated.
Homendy cited the significance of transparency for aviation and public safety and expressed optimism that Indian officials will promptly and publicly release the investigation’s results.
According to a person acquainted with the study, the aircraft started dropping altitude after reaching barely 650 feet, which raised worries about a potential problem with engine thrust, even if the precise cause of the incident is still being investigated.
Investigators believe the aircraft’s emergency power generator might have been running at the time of the disaster, according to the Wall Street Journal. This information could have important ramifications.
Boeing 787 airplanes have twin GE recorders at the front and back of the aircraft that are intended to record the same flight data.
General Electric (GE), which also constructed the engines of the wrecked airplane, was the manufacturer of these recorders. To help with the analysis, GE specialists were dispatched to India.
Notably, the forward recorder has a separate backup power source that, in the event of a complete power outage, may keep the device running for about ten minutes. This feature was mentioned in a previous NTSB report from 2014.
However, experts in aviation safety have questioned the timing of the data retrieval. The start of the data transfer took over two weeks, which three experts told Reuters is not typical following a high-profile aviation accident.
According to US aviation expert Anthony Brickhouse, “Normally, countries know the world is watching.” Updates are given, and records are quickly accessed in such well-publicized incidents.
India reiterated last week that a definitive decision regarding the site of their investigation has not yet been made, despite early rumors that the black boxes might be transported to the US for study. The government insisted that every step was being taken in accordance with both international and domestic laws.
Within 30 days following the collision, a preliminary report on the collision is anticipated. Experts point out that most air crashes are caused by a combination of multiple circumstances rather than a single cause.
