Black Boxes Recovered From Crashed Air India Express Flight In Kerala; Probe Underway

The black boxes from the Air India Express flight that crash-landed at the Karipur airport in Kerala, killing 18 people so far, has been recovered after a probe team landed in Kozhikode on Saturday morning.

Follow live updates on Air India plance crash at Kozhikode airport in Kerala here. 

A DGCA official said that the Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) has been recovered from the aircraft and the floor board was cut to retrieve the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) from the plane that was broken into two pieces after it skidded off a tabletop runway ammid heavy rain.

Both the recorders store crucial information about the plane, including the altitude, position, speed and the conversation between the pilots, which will be crucial to determine what led to the tragic incident.

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Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DG), Civil Aviation Ministry senior officials, Airports Authority of India, and Air Navigation Service members will meet in Delhi today to discuss the crash landing of the Air India Express flight.

Union Civial Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri will also visit the airport in Karipur shortly to take assess the situation. He is expected to reach the airport around 12 pm.

Eighteen people have been killed so far and scores injured after the AIE flight from Dubai with 190 on board overshot the tabletop runway while landing in heavy rains and fell into a valley 35 feet below and broke into two portions on Friday night.

The pilot-in-command Captain Deepak Sathe and his co-pilot Akhilesh Kumar were among those who lost their lives.

"Pilot must have tried to bring the flight to the end of tabletop airport's runway where it skidded due to slippery conditions owing to monsoon," Puri said.

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Puri's ministry said the B737 aircraft overshot the runway at 7.41 PM on Friday but no fire was reported at the time of landing.

The Air India Express is a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India and it has only B737 aircraft in its fleet.

A spokesperson for the Air India Express said that help centres are being set up at Sharjah and Dubai for affected people.

"We regret that there has been an incident regarding our aircraft VT GHK, operating IX 1344," the spokesperson added.