CHENNAI:The mystery surrounding the last minutes of the Indian Coast Guard’s missing Dornier aircraft is expected to clear when the experts at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Bengaluru, decode the information in the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the aircraft, which was found 950 metres under the sea.
Addressing a hurriedly-convened press meet late on Friday night, Inspector General SP Sharma, Commander, Indian Coast Guard (East), said data on the FDR and CVR would be given to a Board of Enquiry formed by the Indian Coast Guard to probe the incident.
The board is headed by Deputy Inspector General of Coast Guard, also a seasoned senior pilot, and it also has a member from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the manufacturer of the aircraft.
“The FDR and Cockpit Voice Recorder would help us find out what went wrong,” Sharma said.
Sharma hastened to add that the Coast Guard was not in a hurry to decode the information at the moment, as their efforts were focussed on tracing the three missing crew members.
“We have asked the ROV ‘Olympic Canyon’ to focus on locating the crew members. The search would be conducted on a 500 metre radius area from where the aircraft debris were found,” Sharma said.
He said the Coast Guard had confirmed the FDR serial number.
The FDR, cockpit voice recorder and the undercarriage of the aircraft wheel was located 1600 yards away from the signal detected by the Indian Navy submarine INS Sindhudhwajj on July 6.
The battery of the solar locating beacon continued to emit signals even after the minimum guarantee period of 30 days, which helped the ROV in finding the FDR.
Both FDR and the undercarriage of aircraft were located within a radius of 30 metre.
“The ROV spotted them in the morning. By around 4 pm, it delicately picked them up using its claws,” Sharma explained.