Ahmedabad Plane Crash: Why Analysis Of Black Box Is Crucial

Hyderabad: Aviation authorities are searching for the black box of Air India flight AI-171 that crashed just minutes after takeoff from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad on Thursday afternoon. The Air India plane carrying 242 people, including 12 crew members, crashed at a doctor's hostel in Ahmedabad. On Friday, Air India stated that only one of the 242 people onboard survived the crash.

Officials have launched a formal probe into the tragic accident, and the retrieved black box analysis remains crucial in ascertaining the cause of the crash. Government Officials said the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), a unit of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, has launched a formal investigation in line with international protocols.

Speaking with ETV Bharat, S N Reddy, CEO of Telangana Aviation Academy, said only the Black Box can reveal the truth, while adding that something beyond the pilot’s control might have happened.

The aircraft's black box is a component that records flight data and cockpit communication, which will help in piecing together the exact chain of events that led to the crash. Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR) are two such crucial components, or black boxes. CVR captures radio transmissions and sounds within the cockpit, including pilots' voices, engine noises, stall warnings, and other sounds. Investigators analyse these recordings to create a transcript, which can reveal crucial details about engine speed, system failures, and conversations between pilots, crew, and air traffic control.

FDR monitors numerous parameters of a plane's flight, such as altitude, airspeed, and heading. Modern planes must monitor at least 88 parameters, with some recording over 1,000 characteristics, from wing flap positions to smoke alarm activations. The data collected by the FDR can be used to generate a computer-animated video reconstruction of the flight, and it typically stores 25 hours of information, including data from prior flights, which can be invaluable in identifying mechanical issues.

“The digital FDR and CVR will reveal the final moments before the crash. These recorders store vital information like speed, altitude, engine status, and cockpit conversations,” Reddy, who has experience of 25,000 hours of air training, told ETV Bharat.

Black Box features

• Black boxes are usually installed in the plane's tail section, considered the most survivable part of the aircraft.
• They are equipped with beacons that activate upon water immersion, capable of transmitting signals from depths of up to 14,000 feet (4,267 meters). While the beacon's battery lasts about a month, the data itself has no definitive shelf life.
• Even after prolonged submersion, data can often be recovered. For example, black boxes from an Air France flight that crashed in the Atlantic in 2009 were found two years later at over 10,000 feet, and most of the information was successfully retrieved.

Consider this. Investigators were able to recover crucial information from the black boxes found two years after an Air France flight that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. Those black boxes were recovered from a depth of more than 10,000 feet.

The black box has roots in the 1930s with French aviation engineer Francois Hussenot, who developed a method to record flight data onto photographic film stored in a light-

The modern black box, as we know it, particularly the cockpit voice recorder, was conceived in the 1950s by Australian scientist David Warren. His inspiration came from investigating the 1953 Comet airliner crashes, realising that audio recordings of the cockpit environment could be invaluable to accident investigators. Despite initial scepticism, Warren's 1956 prototype eventually paved the way for the widespread adoption of these devices in commercial aviation globally.

The term black box itself likely originated from Hussenot's early device, which needed to be light-tight for the photographic film. Another theory suggests it was a general term for self-contained electronic devices in the post-WWII era, where the internal workings were less important than the input and output. Ironically, modern black boxes are actually bright orange to aid in their recovery after a crash, a colour chosen from the beginning to ensure visibility.