The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were recovered from the site where a passenger aircraft crashed, the country's civil aviation minister confirmed on Saturday.
Speaking at a news conference, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said the black boxes containing the data had been retrieved as he urged people not to speculate about what caused Friday's deadly crash.
Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, saying:
"This B-737 aircraft which landed, I am informed at 7:41 pm (GMT 1411) in the evening. It was bearing registration number VT AX8. It overshot the runway at Kozhikode while trying to land amidst, what is clearly inclement weather conditions prevailing at that time."
"Then the effort is to retrieve the two black boxes - that has been done and it is advisable never to speculate because all the data which is required for the investigation will be contained in those black boxes and I am sure the precise or whatever cause, whatever the contributing factor, immediate cause, all that will be known."
The news of the black boxes' recovery came as the family of the plane's pilot Deepak Sathe, who was killed in the accident along with the co-pilot Akhilesh Sharma, gathered together in their home state of Maharashtra.
Mother of deceased pilot Deepak Sathe, Neela Sathe, saying:
"Since his childhood, he was always ready to do anything for others. When he used to go for horse riding, he used to take jaggery along with him for the horses. During Ahmedabad floods, he saved children carrying them in his arms. What can we do? We can do nothing. I feel that why did God take him away and not us. I don't want to say anything else."
The death toll from an Indian passenger aircraft accident rose to 18, with 16 people seriously injured, a senior government official said on Saturday.
The Air India Express plane, which was repatriating Indians stranded in Dubai due to the coronavirus pandemic, overshot the runway of the Calicut International Airport in heavy rain near the southern city of Kozhikode. It was India's worst passenger aircraft accident since 2010.
(c) ANI
(c) Reuters
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