The black box of the Air India Express IX 812 that crashed at Bajpe Airport in Mangalore last month has not suffered any damage and the data stored in it "are intact", the head of the Court of Inquiry into the mishap said yesterday.
Retired Air Marshal Bhushan Neelakanta Ghokale, who is inquiring into the May 22 air crash that claimed 158 lives, began investigations with a visit to the mishap site.
"The black box has not suffered any damage. The data can easily be retrieved. We are taking it to the US to retrieve the data sometime next week," he told reporters.
Ghokale also visited the hospitals where the injured were treated and interacted with the doctors. Eight passengers of the Dubai-Mangalore flight had a miraculous escape after it overshot the table-top runway and plunged into a valley before catching fire.