Jharkhand Air Ambulance Crash: Aircraft Had No Black Box, Weather Radar Now Under Investigation
The tragic Beechcraft C90 King Air air ambulance operated by Redbird Airways Pvt Ltd crashed on Monday night while flying from Ranchi to Delhi, killing all seven people onboard, including a patient, medical staff, and the flight crew. 
Officials conducting the probe have confirmed that the medical evacuation aircraft was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) or a flight data recorder (FDR), commonly known as black boxes. Under current civil aviation rules, these devices are not mandatory for aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight below 5,700 kg, which applies to this older Beechcraft model. This absence complicates efforts to establish a precise cause of the crash. 
Without black box data, investigators from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) are instead relying on air traffic control communications, radar data, wreckage examination, and eyewitness accounts to reconstruct the aircraft’s final moments. 
Officials conducting the probe have confirmed that the medical evacuation aircraft was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) or a flight data recorder (FDR), commonly known as black boxes. Under current civil aviation rules, these devices are not mandatory for aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight below 5,700 kg, which applies to this older Beechcraft model. This absence complicates efforts to establish a precise cause of the crash. 
Without black box data, investigators from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) are instead relying on air traffic control communications, radar data, wreckage examination, and eyewitness accounts to reconstruct the aircraft’s final moments. 
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