World

Black box recovered from Air India Express plane

Express May 25, 2010

MANGLAORE: Investigators recovered on Monday the "black box" digital flight recorder that holds crucial clues to the crash of an Air India Express plane in southern India that killed 158 people.

The discovery followed an intense three-day search that began hours after the Boeing 737-800, flying from Dubai to the city of Mangalore, overshot the runway on Saturday, plunging into a gorge and bursting into flames.

"It's intact," an official from the Directorate General for Civil Aviation said as he held the battered recorder aloft for media gathered at the hilltop crash site.

"This will help enormously with the investigations," he said.

Due to the good flying conditions and visibility at the time of the crash, investigators say the black box, which records all flight data, holds the key to discovering what might have caused the pilot to overshoot the runway.

The cockpit voice recorder, which tracks communications between the pilots and with the air traffic controllers, was recovered late Sunday.

Only eight people among the 166 passengers and crew survived Saturday's crash.

COMMENTS (1)

Meekal Ahmed | 14 years ago | Reply I suppose we should be happy that the DFDR and CVR weren't in ten thousand feet of water (like in the case of the Air France jet). India, unlike Pakistan, does make their findings public and does submit a comprehensive accident investigation report. This is good because the aviation industry will learn from the mistakes made. It is this sharing for information that has made civil aviation better and safer over the years. When we hide the "probable cause" of accidents to PIA, we deny the aviation world valueable insights and information on what went wrong and why and what we need to do to ensure it never happens again. That is the greatest pity. We (and the aviation world) know nothing about PIA accidents in Cairo, Taif, Khatmandu or Multan. They are, inexplicably, closely guarded secrets.

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