Air India Crash: How US Golden Chassis Helped Recover 49-Hour Flight Data, 2-Hour Audio

Last Updated:July 13, 2025, 08:13 IST

The Air India-171 crash report was released on Saturday, revealing the cause of the crash on June 12.

Air India crash report: AAIB details how data was recovered from black box (PTI Image)

A Golden Chassis from the United States played a key role in downloading 49 hours of flight data from one of the black boxes of the ill-fated Air India-171 plane, which crashed on June 12, killing all but one on board.

After the crash in Ahmedabad, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) retrieved two black boxes and brought them to New Delhi on June 24 for decoding purposes.

Usually, to get data from damaged flight recorders, investigators borrow a “Golden Chassis" and the needed download cables from other agencies that handle air crash investigations.

In the ongoing investigation, AAIB said on Saturday that the Golden Chassis, or the identical EAFR unit, and download cables, which were needed to download data from Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorders (EAFRs) were sourced from the US National Transport Safety Board (NTSB).

The data download from the front EAFR was tried at the AAIB Lab in the national capital on June 24. The Crash Protection Module (CPM) was taken out of the forward EAFR and was 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 released yesterday.

The report said that the aft EAFR was significantly damaged and could not be downloaded using conventional methods. The CPM was opened to check out the memory card, which suffered extensive damage.

Meanwhile, Sanjay Kumar Singh has been named the Investigator-in-Charge, and Jasbir Singh Larhga is the Chief Investigator. Vipin Venu Varakoth, Veeraragavan K, and Vaishnav Vijayakumar are part of the investigation team.

To support the investigation, experts in flying, aircraft engineering, aviation medicine, aviation psychology, and flight recorder analysis have also been brought in.

(With PTI inputs)

Ashesh Mallick

Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes...Read More

Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes...

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