Black box of Air India’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plane that crashed on June 12 in Ahmedabad has sustained damage and may have to be sent to the US for data extraction process, according to those in know of the situation, though they are built to survive crashes, high-impact, fires, and deep-sea type of circumstances.
The government will take the final call on whether to send the crucial device to the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington DC for inspection. However, if it is sent to the US, Indian officials will accompany it to ensure all protocols have been followed.
The data and recordings will help investigators understand what happened between the take-off and the crash of the ill-fated Boeing Dreamliner last Thursday.
It is called a black box, actually it is a bright orange-coloured device which has been designed and built to withstand extreme conditions.
Every commercial aircraft comes equipped with a Flight Data Recorder (FDR) which records details on flight operation like altitude, speed, engine performance, control inputs etc and a Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) which records conversations between pilots, their communications with air traffic control along with other ambient sounds.
By analysing their data and recordings, investigators will be able to reconstruct the final moments of the aircraft and prevent such mishaps in future. There can be many causes for a crash like technical/ mechanical, design, human error (pilot or ATC), weather conditions, which need to be fixed for future flight safety. In the past the back box data has been a great help to determine the cause of the accident which further led to changes in aviation regulations, training procedures and improving aircraft design.
