Explainer | Air India crash: what ‘black boxes’ can tell investigators about plane accidents

‘Black boxes’ or flight recorders, are vital for aviation accident investigations, helping reconstruct events leading to a crash through data analysis and video recreations.

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The tail of Air India flight 171 is pictured after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 12. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:43pm, 12 Jul 2025

A preliminary finding into last month’s Air India plane crash has suggested the aircraft’s fuel control switches were turned off, starving the engines of fuel and causing a loss of engine thrust shortly after take-off.

The report, issued by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau on Saturday, also found that one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel in the flight’s final moments. The other pilot replied that he did not do so.

The Air India flight – a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner – crashed on June 12 and killed at least 260 people, including 19 on the ground, in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad. Only one passenger survived the crash, which is one of India’s worst aviation disasters.

The report based its findings on the data recovered from the plane’s black boxes – combined cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders.

Here is an explanation of what black boxes are and what they can do:

What are black boxes?

The cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder are tools that help investigators reconstruct the events that lead up to a plane crash.

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