The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has submitted its preliminary investigative report on the Ahmedabad plane crash that killed at least 260 people, including all but one of the 242 on board, reported ANI news agency.
The report, which is expected to reveal the causes of the deadly crash, has been submitted to the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the concerned authorities.
According to the ministry, the investigation was launched on June 13 after constituting a multi-disciplinary team in accordance with international norms and protocols, the very next day after the plane crash.
The team, led by the Director General of AAIB, comprised specialists in aviation medicine, air traffic control, and technical experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), as mandated by international agreements given that the aircraft was manufactured in the United States.
The AAIB team, along with technical members from the NTSB, had commenced the data extraction process from the aircraft’s black boxes on June 24. The Crash Protection Module (CPM) from the front black box was successfully retrieved, and on June 25, the memory module was accessed and data downloaded at the AAIB’s laboratory.
Analysis of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR) was also conducted. Both the CVR and the FDR were recovered—one from a rooftop of the building at the crash site on June 13 and the other from the debris on June 16.
Meanwhile, a Bloomberg report citing parallel investigations into the incident by the airline suggested that a dual engine failure could have caused the Air India flight AI171, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner to crash just minutes after takeoff.
At least 260 people were killed when the aircraft, en route to London Gatwick, nosedived minutes after takeoff from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad and crashed into the students' hostel of B. J. Medical College in the Meghaninagar neighbourhood.