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Investigators Race to Recover Black Boxes from Air India Dreamliner Crash

India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has taken charge of the probe and is prioritizing the retrieval of flight data and cockpit voice recorders to establish whether bird strikes or a technical failure triggered the emergency

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Overview

  • The Boeing 787 Dreamliner operating flight AI 171 crashed seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad with its landing gear still down, slamming into a medical student hostel and killing at least 180 of the 242 people on board
  • Pilots declared a Mayday at about 600 feet, reporting sudden loss of power, and video footage shows the nose pitched upward in a controlled descent before impact
  • Former and current aviation experts suggest multiple bird strikes may have caused dual engine flameouts, though scenarios including simultaneous technical faults or fuel starvation remain under consideration
  • India’s AAIB, with likely assistance from the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch due to 53 British nationals aboard, is leading the investigation
  • Good weather conditions and a highly experienced flight crew have shifted focus to forensic analysis of black box data rather than external factors