The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has submitted its preliminary report on the Ahmedabad Plane Crash incident to the Ministry of Civil Aviation and other relevant authorities, ANI said, quoting sources.
The report, based on the initial findings of the probe into the Air India crash that claimed over 260 lives, includes key technical assessments and data recovered from the aircraft`s black boxes.
According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Crash Protection Module (CPM) from the forward black box was successfully retrieved.
“On 25 June 2025, the memory module was accessed and its data downloaded at the AAIB Lab,” the Ministry stated.
Sources familiar with the development told ANI that a matching black box unit, referred to as a “golden chassis,” was employed to ensure accurate data recovery.
One black box was recovered from the rooftop of a building at the crash site on June 13 – the day after the mishap – and the second was retrieved from the debris on June 16.
The investigation is being spearheaded by the Director General of the AAIB and includes technical representatives from the Indian Air Force, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), and the US-based National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is the official investigative authority for aircraft designed and manufactured in the United States.
In addition to aviation safety specialists, an aviation medicine expert and an Air Traffic Control (ATC) officer have been included in the investigation team. The NTSB team is currently based in Delhi and is working closely with Indian officials at the AAIB Lab, ANI said, quoting sources. Officials from Boeing and GE are also in the capital to support the technical aspects of the investigation.
Prior to the Ahmedabad Plane Crash tragedy, the AAIB had routinely sent black boxes from damaged aircraft—and in some cases, helicopters—to foreign decoding centres in the UK, US, France, Italy, Canada, and Russia due to the lack of specialised equipment within India. However, this has now changed.
“The AAIB Lab in Delhi is now fully capable of decoding both Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVR) and Flight Data Recorders (FDR) domestically,” a senior official noted.
In previous accidents, black box analysis was largely conducted abroad.
Following the 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision, the black boxes were decoded in Moscow and Farnborough. The recorders in the 2010 Mangalore crash were sent to NTSB in the United States, while after the 2015 Delhi crash, assistance was taken from Canada’s Transportation Safety Board. The CVR and FDR following the 2020 Kozhikode crash were downloaded at the DGCA`s facility. However, data processing needed support from NTSB.
(With ANI inputs)