India has denied allowing a UN investigator to join the probe into the Ahmedabad Air India plane crash incident, sources have said. According to the details, Indian authorities refused the offer after the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) had asked for the investigator, who was in India, to be given observer status.
Earlier this week, the United Nations aviation agency took the unusual step of offering India one of its investigators to provide assistance following the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crash, killing 270 people in Ahmedabad on June 12.
Previously, the ICAO had deployed investigators to help with certain probes, such as the downing of a Malaysian plane in 2014 and a Ukrainian jetliner in 2020, but those times the agency had been asked for assistance.
On Thursday, the government said the data is being extracted from black boxes, and analysis of the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder is underway to reconstruct the sequence of events that led to the fatal Air India plane crash.
Providing a detailed update a fortnight after the fatal accident, the Civil Aviation Ministry said the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) promptly initiated an investigation and constituted a multi-disciplinary team headed by the AAIB chief on June 13 in line with prescribed norms.
The team includes an aviation medicine specialist, an Air Traffic Control (ATC) officer, and representatives from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), it said in a statement.
Air India鈥檚 Boeing 787-8 aircraft operating flight AI 171 en route to London Gatwick crashed into a medical hostel complex soon after take-off from Ahmedabad on June 12, killing 270 people, including 241 people who were onboard the plane.
鈥淭he analysis of CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) and FDR (Flight Data Recorder) data is underway. These efforts aim to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the accident and identify contributing factors to enhance aviation safety and prevent future occurrences,鈥 the ministry noted.
Boeing 787 aircraft has two black boxes, each having a CVR and an FDR.
Both the CVRs and FDRs were recovered within a week after the accident. One was retrieved from the rooftop of the building at the crash site on June 13, and the other from the debris on June 16.
Meanwhile, a high-level multi-disciplinary committee, headed by the Union Home Secretary, is examining the causes that led to the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, and also suggests comprehensive guidelines to prevent such incidents in the future.
ALSO READ | Air India Employees Struggling With Morale Issues After Ahmedabad Crash: Report