Air India plane crash report: How 'Golden Chassis' helped AAIB get raw data from black box

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A Golden Chassis is a specialised tool used to recover data from damaged flight recorders. It consists of an identical, undamaged unit of the same model as the affected recorder and is used to interface with its internal memory read more
The tail of an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane that crashed is seen stuck on a building after the incident in Ahmedabad, India, on June 12. In the aftermath of the crash, Air India continues to cancel several flights. Reuters
A highly specialised tool from the United States known as a Golden Chassis helped Indian investigators retrieve critical data from one of the black boxes of Air India's Boeing 787-8 aircraft that crashed last month, killing 261 people.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) said Saturday (July 11) that the tool enabled the recovery of approximately 49 hours of flight data and two hours of cockpit audio, including information from the crash itself.
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The aircraft, bound for London, came down seconds after take-off from Ahmedabad on June 12. Investigators retrieved the two Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorders (EAFRs) and transported them to New Delhi on June 24.
The forward black box, or EAFR, remained sufficiently intact for a download attempt at the AAIB lab. The aft recorder, however, was too badly damaged to yield data by conventional methods.
How the Golden Chassis works
A Golden Chassis is a specialised tool used to recover data from damaged flight recorders. It consists of an identical, undamaged unit of the same model as the affected recorder and is used to interface with its internal memory, known as the Crash Protection Module (CPM).
When a recorder is too damaged to power up or connect directly, investigators remove the intact CPM and mount it onto the Golden Chassis. This allows for safe extraction of flight and cockpit voice data.
In this case, the required chassis and cables were sourced from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Once the forward CPM was mounted onto the Golden Chassis, flight and audio data from six flights, including the doomed one, were successfully downloaded.
'The recovered audio was two hours in length and captured the event. Initial analysis of the recorded audio and flight data has been done,' the AAIB said in its preliminary report.
Ongoing investigation
The aft EAFR was found to be too extensively damaged to yield any data using standard procedures. The CPM from the aft unit was removed, but the memory card was also found to be severely compromised.
The AAIB has appointed Sanjay Kumar Singh as Investigator-in-Charge, with Jasbir Singh Larhga named Chief Investigator. Additional investigators include Vipin Venu Varakoth, Veeraragavan K and Vaishnav Vijayakumar.
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A team of subject matter experts, including experienced pilots, engineers, aviation medicine specialists, aviation psychologists, and flight recorder specialists, has also been assembled to assist with the inquiry.
With inputs from PTI