Mirage crash: Black box to be sent to France for data mining

BENGALURU: Investigators probing last week’s Mirage 2000 crash, which claimed the lives of two test pilots, have decided to send the black box (flight data recorder) to France, for the original equipment manufacturer (OEM)—Dassault Aviation—to mine data.

The investigating team has members from at least four agencies: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Director General of Quality Assurance (DGQA), Centre for Military Airworthiness & Certification (Cemilac) and the Indian Air Force (IAF).

“The investigators found that the black box was too damaged and information from it could not be retrieved locally. So a decision was taken to send it to France for Dassault to mine and the data and share it,” a source familiar with the investigation said.

On Friday last, the Mirage 2000 crashed just seconds after it took off from the HAL airport here, claiming two lives—Squadron Leader Siddartha Negi and Squadron Leader Samir Abrol—while also destroying the aircraft.

As reported by TOI, the black-box was recovered on the same day as the crash. “The findings from the black box will prove crucial for the investigation, which is yet to determine what may have led to the crash,” another source said.

Prima facie, experts, including former test pilots, say that there could have been a problem with the undercarriage of the aircraft. That the plane caught fire is seen as the reason for the damage of the black box.

As on Wednesday, nothing concrete had emerged from the investigation, and sources said that the investigation can progress once the data from the black box is retrieved. “It is not clear how much of the data can be recovered now,” one source said.