Barely two months before India suffered its worst air crash in almost three decades, the country launched its first-ever lab for analysing “black boxes”, the flight data and cockpit voice recorders crucial to investigating aviation accidents.
The facility was a testament to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign to upgrade air travel with a massive expansion of airports, airlines and infrastructure that has made India the world’s third-largest aviation market.
“Only through effective and independent investigations can future accidents be prevented,” aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said when he inaugurated the facility in New Delhi on April 9.