Investigators have started analysing data extracted from the black box retrieved from Air India flight 171 to find clues on why the Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed shortly after take off from Ahmedabad airport on June 12 , the government said on Thursday. Both black boxes were found within a week of the June 12 crash in Ahmedabad. (REUTERS)

A team led by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), the designated authority for air crash investigations in India, extracted both cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder data after the devices were recovered from the crash site and flown to the bureau’s lab in Delhi, the government said in a statement. The team, set up according to International Civil Aviation Organisation norms, is led by the Director General of AAIB and includes technical experts from AAIB and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), an aviation medicine specialist and an ATC (air traffic control) officer, the government said.

The statement indicates a crucial break in the investigation. Investigators typically face lengthy delays in air crash probes when damaged black boxes must be sent to original equipment manufacturers for extracting the data.

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The Boeing 787 has two black boxes, one at each end of the aircraft, for redundancy. Each black box, which is in fact coloured bright orange, in a 787 contains what is known as the enhanced airborne data recorder (EADR) that includes the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR).

One set was recovered from a rooftop of a building at the crash site on June 13 and the other from the wreckage on June 16 and kept under police protection and CCTV surveillance.

Shortly after takeoff, the aircraft crashed into a medical college complex in nearby Meghaninagar and burst into flames, killing 241 of the 242 passengers and crew on board and at least 19 more in the vicinity. The tail of the aircraft that was lodged on the roof of the mess of the residential wing of the medical college and other debris strewn over the site are being moving to a building on the airport premises.

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“..The black boxes were brought from Ahmedabad to Delhi by IAF aircraft with full security on 24 June, 2025. The front black box arrived at AAIB Lab, Delhi with the DG (director general) of AAIB at 1400 hrs on 24 June, 2025,” the statement said.

“The rear black box was brought by a second AAIB team and reached AAIB Lab, Delhi at 1715 hrs on 24 June,” it added.

Efforts to extract data began the same evening.

“The Crash Protection Module (CPM) from the front black box was safely retrieved, and on 25 June, 2025, the memory module was successfully accessed and its data downloaded at the AAIB lab,” the statement read.

The analysis of cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder data, the government said, aims to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the accident and identify contributing factors to enhance aviation safety and prevent future occurrences.

India, as a signatory to the (ICAO) Chicago Convention (1944), investigates aircraft accidents in accordance with ICAO Annex 13 and the Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules, 2017. “All actions have been taken in full compliance with domestic laws and international obligations in a time bound manner,” the government said.