Air crash investigators on Friday recovered the black box of Air India’s London-bound Flight AI171 which had crashed moments after takeoff here on Thursday, killing all but one of the 242 people on board and many others on the ground.
By Friday evening, the death toll stood at 265, which means at least 24 people died when the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner ploughed into the B.J. Medical College hostel in Ahmedabad’s Meghaninagar area.
Sources said an Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau team had recovered the black box — the flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) — from the rooftop of the hostel.
The black box — actually painted a bright orange for easy detection from wreckage — can be key to ascertaining the cause of the crash.
Its CVR component records radio transmissions and other sounds in the cockpit, such as conversations between the pilots and engine noises. The FDR records information such as speed, altitude and direction, as well as pilot actions and the performance of important systems.
“This (black box data) should show quickly if there was a loss of engine power or lift after takeoff, and allow a preliminary determination of the likely cause for the crash,” an Associated Press (AP) report quoted Paul Fromme from the UK-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers as saying.
Forensic and other agencies were at the crash site scouring for clues. Teams from the UK — which lost 52 citizens in the disaster — and the US are expected to join the investigation.
Of the 230 passengers, 169 were Indian, 53 were British, seven were Portuguese and one was a Canadian. The lone survivor, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, is a British citizen.
Reports said five bodies had been identified and handed over to the families.
With most of the dead passengers charred beyond recognition, their DNA samples would be matched with those of members of the bereaved families, an official said.
Two doctors at the Civil Hospital said the bodies of four medical students killed on the ground had been handed over to their families, AP reported. They said at least 30 other injured students were still hospitalised, and at least four were critical.
The collection of DNA samples, which began late on Thursday evening at the ground-floor examination hall of the Civil Hospital, was continuing on Friday evening.
Employees of various government departments have been deployed to help the doctors and paramedics at the examination hall. One of the employees said they were calling up the passengers’ relatives to urge them to provide DNA samples if they had not already done so.
At the examination hall, family members sat patiently. Some of them wore blank expressions, many others sobbed.
Salim Patel was waiting for his 25-year-old nephew Sahil’s DNA to be matched with that of his mother Saira. Sahil, the youngest of four siblings from a farming family in Bharuch, had a student visa.
Ahmedabad-based Prakash Mehta said he didn’t know how to console his sister and her two children in Rajasthan.
His brother-in-law Prakash Menaria, a UK resident for two decades, had come to Rajasthan to attend his father’s funeral. He was returning on Flight AI171 after a two-month stay.
People submit documents at a help desk set up after the tragedy to claim luggage and other belongings of their deceased relatives who died in the Air India plane crash, at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, in Ahmedabad. PTI
Manish Kamdar, a Nagpur resident, was mourning for his daughter Yesha and her 15-month-old child, who died in the crash along with Yesha’s mother-in-law.
The BJP MLA from Ellisbridge constituency in Ahmedabad, Amit Shah, told The Telegraph on Friday morning that more than 200 DNA samples had been collected.
He said the government had arranged for lodging and food for the victims’ families.
Shah, a witness to the 2001 killer earthquake in Gujarat, said: “At that time we continued to retrieve bodies from the debris through three to four days; and here so many bodies were recovered in just a couple of hours.”
At the B.J. Medical College, searches were continuing amid the rubble till late on Friday evening. The area near the medical college hostel, less than a kilometre from Gate No. 8 of the Civil Hospital, remained cordoned off.
Narrow escape
Mukesh Chaudhary, an NDRF worker from Vadodara, said the death toll could have been higher had the plane crashed into the nearby slums or the Civil Hospital.
“I strongly feel that the pilot tried to minimise the damage,” he said.
A Class IV employee at the Civil Hospital, Leela Makwana, too wondered how many more could have died had the aircraft struck the hospital. “We were saved by just a couple of seconds,” she said.
She added that some of her colleagues at the B.J. Medical College hostel had survived through sheer luck — they had gone home for lunch when the jetliner dropped from the sky.
At the Civil Hospital, RSS workers in uniform assisted the administration in large numbers. They managed traffic, gave food and water to the victims’ relatives and cleaned the floor, when necessary.
“We have been asked not to speak to the media. We are just doing our duty,” was the refrain among them.
However, 49-year-old Anil Sitaram, managing traffic near Gate No. 2 of the Civil Hospital, did not mind being photographed.
“You may take a photo but I will not look towards you,” he said. “Several teams have been posted here since yesterday. We are here just to serve.”
Modi visit
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the crash site and met the injured in hospital on Friday. He also met Anjali Rupani, wife of former Gujarat chief minister and senior BJP leader Vijay Rupani, who was killed in the crash.
In one of several posts put up on social media, Modi said: “Our thoughts remain with those who lost their loved ones in this unimaginable tragedy.”