Air India plane crash investigators reportedly find first “black box” from Boeing 787-8 wreckage in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad, India — There were reports Friday that at least one of the so-called “black boxes” — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders — from Air India flight 171 had been recovered from the charred wreckage left in India’s western city of Ahmedabad when the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner slammed into buildings, killing all but one of the 242 people on the plane and dozens on the ground. The data recorders will be vital to investigators as they try to figure out what caused the passenger jet to crash just minutes after it took off from Ahmedabad for London’s Gatwick Airport.

“Directorate General of Civil Aviation team have recovered one black box from the crash site,” the French news agency AFP quoted a senior state police officer as saying Friday. 

They did not say whether it was believed to be the flight data or cockpit voice recorder.

According to the Reuters news agency, India’s aviation regulator ordered Air India on Friday to carry out additional safety inspections on all of its Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 aircraft — reportedly 34 planes in total — including what Reuters said would be “power assurance checks” that the regulator said should be carried out within two weeks. Most of Air India’s 787 fleet are 787-8s, like the plane that crashed on Thursday.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday that it would be “way too premature” to order any grounding of 787 aircraft in the U.S. before American investigators have a chance to examine the wreckage and other evidence. He said the government was reviewing information on the crash with Boeing and engine manufacturer GE.

Thursday’s tragedy was captured on video from multiple angles. CCTV images show the moment the ill-fated Air India flight took off for what should have been a nine-and-a-half-hour trip to London. But just seconds later, the Boeing is seen starting to slow down. The two pilots on the aircraft issued a mayday call, but it was too late. The plane, with no fire or damage visible, careens into accommodation buildings used by medical students and then bursts into an inferno.

Rescue workers scoured the site for survivors and, miraculously, one man, British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who had been in seat 11a on the Air India flight, right next to his brother, walked away from the crash site with only minor injuries.

Nayan Kumar Ramesh, another brother back in England, described the moment the family heard from Vishwash.

“He video called my dad as he crashed, saying, ‘Our plane’s crashed… I don’t know where my brother is. I don’t see any other passengers. I don’t know how I’m alive. How I exited the plane.”

Nayan said his brother’s primary concern was for their other sibling, who has remained officially missing since the crash.

It was India’s worst aviation disaster in more than 25 years. U.S. and British authorities were quickly sent to assist with the investigation, as more than 50 of those killed from the plane were U.K. nationals and the aircraft was made in the U.S.

Forensic teams were at the scene of the crash on Friday, along with various Indian officials, and ambulances, ready to transport the remains of victims. Indian officials were cited by local media as saying that, given the level of the destruction, DNA testing would be required to confirm the final death toll both from the plane and from the buildings at the site.

CBS News saw members of one family begging authorities for access to the site. Ravi Thakur hadn’t heard anything from his mother, who served food at the residential building that the plane crashed into, since the disaster. She was caring for his 2-year-old daughter, and both of them were missing.

“We have only one hope that they survive,” Thakur told CBS News.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to inspect the site, and he described the accident as “heartbreaking beyond words.”