Air India black box recovered after crash that killed 241 onboard and several others on the ground

AHMEDABAD, India (AP) — The flight data recorder from the crashed Air India flight was recovered Friday in what likely will lead to clues about the cause of the accident that killed 241 people on the plane and a number of others on the ground.

The London-bound Boeing 787 struck a medical college hostel when the plane came down shortly after takeoff on Thursday in a residential area of the northwestern city of Ahmedabad.

The plane's digital flight data recorder, or black box, was recovered from a rooftop near the crash site and India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said that it had begun its work with “full force.” The black box recovery marks an important step forward in the investigation, Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said in a social media post.

The device will reveal information about the engine and control settings, in addition to what the voice recorder will show about the cockpit conversations, Paul Fromme, a mechanical engineer with the U.K.-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers said in a statement.

“This 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,” said Fromme, who heads the professional association's Aerospace Division.

Separately, the country’s civil aviation regulator ordered Air India to conduct additional inspections of its Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 Dreamliners equipped with General Electric’s GEnx engines. That includes checks of the fuel parameters, cabin air compressor, engine control system, hydraulic system and takeoff parameters, the order said.

Investigators on Friday continued searching the site of one of India’s worst aviation disasters and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with the lone surviving passenger a day after the crash.

Aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti, a former crash investigator for both the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration, said investigators should be able to answer some important questions about what caused the crash as soon as next week as long as the flight data recorder is in good shape.

Investigators likely are looking at whether wing flaps were set correctly, whether the engine lost power, whether alarms were going off inside the cockpit and whether the plane's crew correctly inputted information about the hot temperature outside and the weight of the fuel and passengers, Guzzetti said.

Mistakes in the data could result in the wing flaps being set incorrectly, he said.

“I’m not saying that this accident’s going to be solved immediately, but I think some basic factual questions will be able to be answered in quick order,” Guzzetti said.

At least five people were were killed on the ground and about 50 injured, but many more victims victims were expected to be found in the search of the crash site. DNA testing was being conducted to identify bodies that were mostly charred beyond recognition.

The plane hit a building hosting a medical college hostel and burst into flames, killing several students, in the city that is the capital of Gujarat, Modi’s home state.

“We are all devastated by the air tragedy in Ahmedabad. The loss of so many lives in such a sudden and heartbreaking manner is beyond words,” Modi said on social media after visiting the site. “We understand their pain and also know that the void left behind will be felt for years to come.”

The survivor was seen in television footage meeting Modi at the government hospital where he was being treated for burns and other injuries.

Viswashkumar Ramesh told India's national broadcaster that he still can’t believe he's alive. He said the aircraft seemed to become stuck immediately after takeoff. He said the lights then came on, and right after that it accelerated but seemed unable to gain height before it crashed.

He said the side of the plane where he was seated fell onto the ground floor of a building and there was space for him to escape after the door broke open. He unfastened his seat belt and forced himself out of the plane.

“When I opened my eyes, I realized I was alive,” he said.

U.S. participants in the investigation will include people from the NTSB, FAA, Boeing and General Electric.

Professor Graham Braithwaite, director of Aerospace and Aviation at Cranfield University, said that the primary goal of the investigation would be “to find opportunities to prevent future accidents.”

“The multinational, multidisciplinary team will work together and can also involve specialists from the manufacturer or operator," he said, "but under very strict controls to ensure the independence of the investigation.”

At the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, grieving families gathered outside on Friday.

Two doctors at the hospital said that the bodies of four medical students killed on the ground after the plane crash were handed to their families. They said at least 30 other injured students were still hospitalized, and at least four of them were in critical condition.

Modi held a meeting with senior officials Friday and met with some of those injured on the ground during the hospital visit.

Thursday’s Air India crash involved a 12-year-old Boeing 787. Boeing planes have been plagued by safety issues on other types of aircraft.

According to experts, there are currently around 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide and this was the first deadly crash in 16 years of operation.

Indian conglomerate Tata Sons took over Air India in 2022, returning the debt-saddled national carrier to private ownership after decades of government control. Since the takeover, Air India has ordered hundreds of new planes, redesigned its branding and livery and absorbed smaller airlines that Tata held stakes in.

Residents living in the vicinity, who were among the first to rush to the crash site and help with rescue, described the scale of damage like they had never seen.

“In the beginning, I couldn’t understand anything, it was only smoke everywhere. We could see some small parts (of the plane) burning,” Indrajeet Singh Solanki said.

Solanki said that he and many others helped the injured people and rushed them to hospitals. “We had only one aim: to save lives no matter what happens,” he said.

The tragedy has left him shaken.

“It will be hard to sleep for the next few days at least,” Solanki said.

Separately, a bomb threat message was found Friday on Air India flight AI 379, which was bound for New Delhi from Phuket International Airport in southern Thailand. The message was found in a lavatory shortly after the plane took off, officials said.

The plane requested an emergency landing at Phuket and all 156 passengers were evacuated before authorities began an inspection of the plane, the airport said. Thai authorities said that the plane, passengers and luggage were thoroughly inspected and nothing suspicious was found.

The airport and airline said that the pilot wished to resume the flight and the plane took off again in the afternoon without one passenger who didn't want to continue.

Rajesh Roy reported from New Delhi, and Aijaz Hussain from Srinagar. Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok, Piyush Nagpal in Ahmedabad, India, and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska contributed to this report.

Parts of an Air India plane that crashed on Thursday are seen on top of a building in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

A relative of a victim of the Air India plane crash is comforted as she breaks down at a hospital in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

This handout photo issued by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs shows Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah meeting British plane crash survivor Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, at a hospital in Ahmedabad, after Air India confirmed Mr Ramesh was the sole survivor of the 242 people on board the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner when it crashed into a medical college shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad airport. (Ministry of Home Affairs India via AP)

Security personnel patrol the site of an Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Grieving relatives of Air India plane crash victims mourn outside the autopsy room at a hospital in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Parts of an Air India plane that crashed on Thursday are seen on top of a building in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Health workers and volunteers carry the body of a victim of an airplane that crashed in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, on Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)

Family members wait at a hospital for the body of a relative killed in an airplane crash on Thursday in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)

Kalpesh Bhai, whose 14-year-old brother was killed when an Air India plane crashed into a neighborhood, wails outside the autopsy room at a hospital in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Volunteers and hospital staff carry a casket with a victim of the Air India plane crash out of the autopsy room at a hospital in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Policemen secure the site of an airplane crash in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Crews picked through mountains of debris and waded into swollen rivers Monday in the search for victims of catastrophic flooding that killed nearly 90 people over the July Fourth weekend in Texas, including more than two dozen campers and counselors from an all-girls Christian camp.

With additional rain on the way, more flooding still threatened in saturated parts of central Texas. Authorities said the death toll was sure to rise as crews looked for many people who were missing.

Operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, said they lost 27 campers and counselors, confirming their worst fears after a wall of water slammed into cabins built along the edge of the Guadalupe River.

“We have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls,” the camp said in a statement. Authorities later said that 10 girls and a counselor from the camp remain missing.

The raging flash floods — among the nation’s worst in decades — slammed into riverside camps and homes before daybreak Friday, pulling sleeping people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and automobiles. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.

Piles of twisted trees sprinkled with mattresses, refrigerators, coolers and canoes now litter the riverbanks. Search-and-rescue teams used heavy equipment near Kerrville to remove large branches while volunteers covered in mud sorted through chunks of debris, piece by piece.

In the Hill Country area, home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said.

Fourteen other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.

Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday that 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

Authorities vowed that one of the next steps will be investigating whether enough warnings were issued and why some camps did not evacuate or move to higher ground in areas long vulnerable to flooding.

Search-and-rescue crews at one staging area said Monday that more than 1,000 volunteers had been directed to an area of hard-hit Kerr County.

Families were allowed to look around Camp Mystic beginning Sunday morning. A man whose daughter was rescued from a cabin on the highest point in the camp walked a riverbank, looking in clumps of trees and under big rocks.

One family left with a blue footlocker. A teenage girl had tears running down her face as they slowly drove away and she gazed through the open window at the wreckage.

Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt. When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbor was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.

“Then they were able to reach their tool shed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their tool shed, and they all rode it out together,” Brown said.

Among those confirmed dead were an 8-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was at the camp, and the director of another camp up the road.

Two school-age sisters from Dallas were missing Sunday after their cabin was swept away. Their parents were staying in a different cabin and were safe, but the girls’ grandparents were unaccounted for.

On Thursday the National Weather Service advised of potential flooding and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare step that alerts the public to imminent danger.

Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months of rain.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said one of the challenges is that many camps are in places with poor cellphone service.

President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit Friday. He said it wasn't the time to talk about whether he was still planning to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency and added that he doesn't plan to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year as part of widespread government spending cuts.

“This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it,” the president said.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said recent cuts to FEMA and the National Weather Service did not delay any warnings.

“There’s a time to have political fights, there’s a time to disagree. This is not that time,” Cruz said. "There will be a time to find out what could been done differently. My hope is in time we learn some lessons to implement the next time there is a flood.”

Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Cedar Attanasio in New York; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; and Michelle Price in Morristown, N.J.

A crew of firefighters from Ciudad Acuna gather for a briefing as they aid in search and rescue efforts near the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP Photo/Eli Hartman)

First responders carry out search and rescue operations near the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP Photo/Eli Hartman)

Texas Department of Public Safety Troopers load a recovered body into the back of a vehicle near the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP Photo/Eli Hartman)

First responders carry out search and rescue operations near the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP Photo/Eli Hartman)

A Texas Department of Public Safety official inspects tree debris at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

A person removes bedding from sleeping quarters at Camp Mystic along the banks of the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Military personnel carry a camp trunk salvaged down river from Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Avi Santos, 23, of San Antonio, Texas, reacts while stopping on the road alongside at Camp Mystic along the banks of the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Officials ride a boat as they arrive to assist with a recovery effort at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Myra Zunker takes a moment while searching for her missing niece and nephew along the Guadalupe River on Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP)

A person pulls luggage at Camp Mystic along the banks of the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

A person salvages a bell from the main building at Camp Mystic along the banks of the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Officials inspect an area at Camp Mystic along the banks of the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Onlookers review the damage along the Guadalupe River caused by recent flooding, Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Rodolfo Gonzalez)