Image Source: Agencies

June 17, 2025: The recovery of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from the Air India flight that went down last week is a crucial step in determining what led to the fatal accident. A Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner carrying passengers on its way to London crashed shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad, a city in western India, on Thursday. The majority of the victims were passengers. At least 270 people have died. Audio from the cockpit, including pilot conversations, alarms, and ambient sounds, is recorded by the CVR. On Friday, the debris contained the flight data recorder (FDR), which records essential flight parameters like altitude, speed, and engine performance. The "black box" of a plane is made up of both the CVR and the FDR as a whole. It is a vital tool in air crash investigations, helping experts reconstruct the flight's final moments and determine the cause of the incident.
Contrary to what the name suggests, the black box is actually two bright orange devices, one for the CVR and one for the FDR. The reflective strips on these devices make it easier to recover from a crash. These two gadgets are made to withstand a crash. With assistance from teams from the United States and the United Kingdom, India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is leading the investigation into the crash's cause. On Sunday, officials from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) surveyed the site of the plane crash.
"The AAIB has launched a detailed investigation, and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting a parallel probe under international protocols, since the aircraft is American-made," a statement released on Sunday said.
According to sources cited by Indian media outlets, officials from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the US agency responsible for aviation safety, visited the site as well. Separately, the first meeting of a high-level committee established by the Indian government to investigate the crash is anticipated to take place on Monday. According to the All India Radio, the committee will submit a preliminary report within three months and will propose new standard operating procedures (SOPs) to assist in preventing similar incidents in the future.