The death toll from the tragic Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad has risen to 270, prompting the Centre to form a high-level probe panel led by the Union Home Secretary. The committee will investigate the cause of the crash and is expected to submit its report within three months. Officials confirmed that the aircraft’s black box has been recovered and is currently being decoded to understand the sequence of events leading to the crash.
The ill-fated Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, with 242 people on board, was en route to London Gatwick when it crashed minutes after takeoff. The plane nosedived into the students’ hostel at BJ Medical College in Meghaninagar, roughly 2 km from the airport.
Civil Aviation Secretary Samir Kumar Sinha, in an official briefing, stated that the last communication from the cockpit was a distress call, “Mayday,” made at 1.39 pm on June 12. Within a minute of takeoff, the plane had climbed to 650 feet before it began to rapidly lose altitude and vanished from radar. Attempts by Air Traffic Control to re-establish contact failed.
Captain Sumit Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Sundar were piloting the aircraft. Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu confirmed that the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) recovered the flight data recorder on Friday evening. “The black box will provide critical insight into the final moments of the flight,” he said, adding that the investigation is being treated with utmost urgency and transparency.
