Air India plane crash: US Golden Chassis helped AAIB download raw data from black box

New Delhi: A Golden Chassis from the United States helped download 49 hours of flight data from one of the black boxes of Air India's ill-fated Boeing 787-8 aircraft that crashed last month.

After the fatal accident that destroyed the aircraft and killed 260 people on June 12, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) retrieved the two black boxes or Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorders (EAFRs) and brought them to the national capital on June 24.

Generally, data from damaged flight recorders is downloaded after sourcing Golden Chassis and relevant download cables from other accident investigation authorities.

In the current investigation, AAIB on Saturday said the Golden Chassis or the identical EAFR unit and download cables required to download data from EAFR were sourced from the US National Transport Safety Board (NTSB).

The download from the FWD EAFR was attempted at the AAIB Lab in the national capital on June 24 and the Crash Protection Module (CPM) was retrieved from the forward EAFR and found to be in good condition.

"The CPM was mounted on the Golden Chassis and the raw data was downloaded from the EAFR. The downloaded flight data contained approximately 49 hours of flight data and 6 flights, including the event flight.

"The recovered audio was two hours in length and captured the event. Initial Analysis of the recorded audio and flight data has been done," AAIB said in its preliminary probe report on the plane accident.

According to the report, the aft EAFR was substantially damaged and could not be downloaded through conventional means. The CPM was opened to inspect the memory card. The damage was extensive, it added.

Meanwhile, Sanjay Kumar Singh has been appointed as the Investigator-in-Charge, while Jasbir Singh Larhga is the Chief Investigator. Vipin Venu Varakoth, Veeraragavan K and Vaishnav Vijayakumar are the Investigators.

Experienced pilots, engineers, aviation medicine specialists, aviation psychologists and flight recorder specialists have been taken on board as subject matter experts to assist in the probe.