Indian accident investigators are still to decide where to extract information from the combined flight recorders recovered from the Air India Boeing 787-8 wreckage in Ahmedabad.
The aircraft was fitted with two sets of the EAFR – enhanced airborne flight recorder – supplied by GE Aerospace.
Each EAFR has a combined cockpit-voice and flight-data recorder capability.
One instrument is typically installed forward and the other aft. The ministry of civil aviation says one of them was located on 13 June, the day after the accident, and the other on 16 June.
It has not indicated whether the recorders will be transferred abroad for examination.
The ministry says a decision on the location for decoding the recorders’ information will be taken “after due assessment of all technical, safety and security considerations”.
“Key recovery work, including site documentation and evidence collection, has been completed and further analysis is now underway,” the ministry adds.
It says it remains “committed to full transparency” during the inquiry but has yet to disclose any preliminary findings from the fatal accident.
As the ministry works to review aviation safety – having held meetings with SpiceJet, IndiGo and Akasa, as well as Air India – the directorate general of civil aviation, India’s regulator, has unveiled a comprehensive special audit plan for the sector.
It says regulatory and safety oversight functions in Indian civil aviation – such as ramp inspections and spot-checks – have traditionally been “conducted in silos”.
The comprehensive special audit framework amounts to a “significant paradigm shift”, it states, designed to “transcend existing siloed assessments by evaluating the aviation ecosystem holistically”.
It aims to examine safety-management systems, operational practices, and regulatory compliance across all aviation domains.
“By adopting a risk-based and integrated approach, these audits will pro-actively identify systemic vulnerabilities, enhance resilience, and ensure strict adherence to [ICAO standards and Indian national objectives],” says the DGCA.
