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Air India plane crash: 1 black box found; search for other underway
Of the 2 black boxes, the one in the rear of the aircraft has been located and safely guarded.
Hours after the tragic Ahmedabad plane crash that killed over 200 people, the authorities have found one of the two black boxes that will help in revealing what triggered the accident.
Of the two black boxes, the one in the rear of the aircraft has been located and safely guarded. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation will collect the equipment to analyse the recordings. The second black box, in the aircraft's front portion, is yet to be found, a source told HT.
What's a black box?
A black box is a small machine that records information about an aircraft during its flight. This bright orange or yellow rectangular box is crafted to withstand explosions, fire, water pressure, and high-speed crashes.
It contains flight and cockpit recordings, and flight data, which help in zeroing in on the real cause of the plane crash. Soon after an accident, authorities first try to locate the equipment to discover what led to the crash.
Air India crash
The London-bound Air India plane was carrying 242 passengers. It crashed into Ahmedabad's residential area. Barring one survivor, most of the passengers and crew are feared dead.
Former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani was among the dead, according to BJP leader C R Patil. One passenger, identified as Vishwash Kumar Ramesh and seated on 11A of the ill-fated Boeing 787 Dreamliner (AI171), miraculously survived the plane crash.
There was no official count of those killed even hours after the twin-engine wide-bodied aircraft crashed in the city's civil hospital and BJ Medical College.
Some people on the ground are also feared killed in the accident.
According to Air India, of the 230 passengers, 169 were Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. The other 12 people on board were two pilots and 10 crew members.
With inputs from PTI
