The black box from the ill-fated London-bound Air India flight was recovered on June 13th from the rooftop of the medical college hostel building it crashed into, just minutes after take-off. Its recovery brings investigators a step closer to determining the cause of the crash, which claimed the lives of all 241 people on board, along with several on the ground.

In aviation, a black box refers to two vital flight recording devices — the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR).Despite the name, a black box is actually bright orange — designed for high visibility amid debris or deep underwater.

Inside its rugged casing lies critical flight data. Built to withstand extreme heat, pressure, and impact, it can survive conditions as harsh as 20,000 feet underwater. The black box can provide crucial information to help determine the cause of the crash — including cockpit communication between pilots and any possible technical issues during the flight.

As grieving families of the victims try to come to terms with the catastrophe, the retrieval of the black box — and thorough analysis of the data inside — could help piece together the sequence of events that led to the crash. It will also shed light on whether there was a technical failure, a system malfunction, or a lapse in the pilot’s response — helping investigators understand not just what happened, but why it happened.

Published on June 15, 2025