Black box data from the Air India 171 crash earlier this month has been recovered… and the truth is absolutely devastating.
After weeks of silence, investigators have cracked the black box from Flight 171 — the tragic Air India flight that burst into flames shortly after takeoff in early June.
What they found? A tiny pilot misstep… that triggered a fatal chain reaction. One overlooked detail. One irreversible error. One moment that turned a full cabin into a firestorm.
Explainer
What we know so far about the Air India flight 171 crash – a visual guideWhat has happened?
An Air India passenger plane bound for London Gatwick with more than 240 people onboard has crashed shortly after takeoff from the north-western Indian city of Ahmedabad.
Air India flight 171, a Boeing 787-8, also known as a Dreamliner, issued a mayday call to air-traffic control after takeoff. According to the Flightradar24 website, signal was lost seconds after takeoff when the plane had reached a height of 625ft.
The plane came down in the residential area of Meghani Nagar just after taking off at 1.38pm local time (09:08 BST).
Footage posted to social media showed the aircraft rapidly losing altitude – with its nose up – before it hit a building and exploded in a ball of fire.
Footage from near the scene showed smoke billowing from where the plane had hit a building used as accommodation by doctors working in local hospitals.
Debris from the plane was spread out in an area of a couple of hundred metres from the point of initial impact.
Who was onboard?
Air India said 242 people had been onboard, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew. Among those were 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese people and one Canadian, according to the airline.
What do we know about casualties?
The death toll had reached approximately 294, including people on the ground, by Thursday evening local time, Vidhi Chaudhary, a state police officer, told Reuters.
