Investigators have recovered equipment from this week’s tragic plane crash in Ahmedabad, India, which could shed light on the final moments on the flight deck.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, which were recovered from on top of the medical college hostel building where the plane crashed, could put to rest some of the speculation into the investigation that killed 241 people aboard the aircraft, according to aviation industry experts.

The flight data recorder was recovered from the rear end of the plane.

“It’s quite dramatic,” Goelz said. “It looked to me like the plane was trying to land at the end. It was flaring, but we just won’t know until we get the boxes back.”

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CISF Rescue Operations Underway at AI 171 Crash Site, Ahmedabad. Following the tragic crash of London-bound Air India flight AI 171 near Ahmedabad Airport, #CISF personnel immediately activated emergency protocols and rushed to the site. Rescue operations are being carried out in close coordination with local authorities and emergency services.

How the Air India plane came crashing to earth

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau of India is in possession of the recorders and other potential pieces of evidence for the investigation. The data recorders are expected to give some insight into what happened during the flight’s final moments, when pilots were making critical decisions.

Less than a minute after takeoff, staff on the plane gave a mayday call to air traffic control, Indian civil aviation authorities said.

The deadly crash has drawn even more global attention to air safety and spurred on public anxieties about flying. There have already been several aviation tragedies and incidents this year — including January’s midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet — that have prompted calls to increase safety measures.

Boeing’s Dreamliner

Boeing’s 787-8 Dreamliner is highly regarded by many aviation experts for its reliability and engineering. In the last 14 years, the fleet has carried more than 1 billion total passengers, according to Boeing.

“It truly is an amazing airplane, and when they engineered it, it was completely off the normal production line of what Boeing usually creates,” said Erika Armstrong, a pilot and director of marketing at Advanced Aircrew Academy.

For years, the company has drawn increasing scrutiny for crashes involving its planes, leading to the 20-month grounding of its MAX aircraft following two deadly crashes, quality concerns and financial woes.

Golez said the tragedy “couldn’t happen at a worse time for Boeing,” which is part of the investigation along with GE Aerospace, the engine manufacturer for the plane.

In the United States, the plane maker will be in the hot seat at the end of the month, when investigators are set to determine the probable cause of an in-flight separation of a mid-exit door plug on a Boeing 737-9 commercial plane near Portland, Oregon, last year.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg has also reportedly canceled plans to attend the Paris Air Show, a major aviation industry event where the company typically shows off its aircraft.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg testifies before the US Senate on April 2, 2025. He has reportedly canceled plans to attend the Paris Air Show this year.

“This accident is a further challenge,” Goelz said.

The Dreamliner is popular for international routes, with the 787-8 configuration fitting up to 248 passengers, according to Boeing.

What happens next

Jeff Guzzetti, president of consulting firm Guzzetti Aviation Risk Discovery and former NTSB official, said these investigations typically hold an “organizational meeting” where all of the technical experts will gather, recalling his own experience with accidents.

“They will form specialty groups” assigned to analyze different areas, such as the engines or the flight data recorder, he said. “They’ll put representatives from the different organizations on these groups, and they will begin to methodically document the wreckage and download the recorders.”

The crash falls under the jurisdiction of the International Civil Aviation Organization, the United Nations agency that helps 193 countries work together in air travel.

Guzzetti said the investigation is in its fact-finding phase, which includes wreckage clean up and interviews of those who trained the pilots. The captain and first officer’s background will be looked at, he said, which could range from how much sleep they got to what their flight record was like.

The black box recovery is critical, many experts say, at this point, because the technology will point to what pilots were saying before they made the mayday call.

“This will not be a mystery for more than another week or so if they got the data recorded, and the voice recorder will also explain what the pilots thought they were dealing with,” Goelz said. “Pilots sometimes make mistakes, you don’t know.”

Israel launched a wave of unprecedented strikes on Iran shortly before sunrise Friday morning, hitting key sites in the nation’s nuclear program as well as residential areas in upscale neighborhoods of Tehran and killing some of the country’s highest-ranking military leaders.

Israel’s military said it used 200 fighter jets in the operation, called “Rising Lion.” Based on a review of strike targets, the attack had several prongs: Heavy strikes against at least one of Iran’s uranium enrichment sites as well as its stockpiles of ballistic missiles, and more targeted strikes in Tehran to decapitate the regime’s military leadership. It aimed to halt what Israel said was Tehran’s rapid progress in developing nuclear weapons.

The Israeli operation came after years of threats and days of heightened speculation.

Earlier in the week, the US had made efforts to withdraw non-essential personnel from locations around the Middle East, with one official citing “developing tension” in the region. On Thursday, US President Donald Trump told reporters in the White House that he did not want Israel to target Iran while talks to reach a new agreement to limit Iranian nuclear enrichment were ongoing.

In retaliation, Iran launched over 100 drones toward Israeli territory, Israel’s military said, and then a barrage of ballistic missiles.

Here’s what we know about how Israel’s attack unfolded, minute by minute. All times are local to Iran.

Pre-dawn: First strikes

Seven miles west of those buildings – still in the north of the city – another video showed damage from a strike on the upscale Chamran Town neighborhood. An entire wall had been stripped off one of the buildings, with people seen climbing through the rubble inside.

One strike hit centrally near Laleh Park, the site of protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died after Iran’s morality police detained her for allegedly not wearing her headscarf properly.

Beyond the capital, a video showed a strike on the Piranshahr military base in western Iran, some 350 miles (about 560 kilometers) away from Tehran. The video showed the dark night sky being lit up by a series of rapid explosions, with smoke rising in the distance.

The Natanz nuclear facility includes two large underground halls believed to hold centrifuges for enriching uranium, according to a 2003 report from the Institute for Science and International Security, which includes satellite imagery of the site under construction in 2002. Based on that imagery, the latest attacks do not appear to have hit the underground buildings, but the full extent of the damage is not yet known.

Iran’s atomic energy agency said its primary nuclear enrichment facility “did not encounter serious damage” and there were “no radiation leaks that would cause concern to the people” after Israel attacked it. The spokesperson of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said on Iranian state media that the damage was on the ground level away from the underground facility at the plant.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a statement that “radiation levels outside the Natanz facility remained unchanged” but added that there was “radioactive contamination present inside the facility,” which “can be managed with appropriate protective measures.”

4:14 a.m.: IDF speaks

Soon after the first explosions rocked Tehran, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced it had launched preemptive strikes against Iran’s nuclear program.

It said it used jets to strike “dozens of military targets, including nuclear targets in different areas of Iran.”

The statement came at 3:44 a.m. in Israel, which is 30 minutes behind Iran’s time zone.

4:35 a.m.: Rubio distances US

Within minutes, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed that the US was “not involved” in Israel’s strikes and that Israel’s actions were “unilateral.”

“Let me be clear: Iran should not target US interests or personnel,” Rubio said in a statement on X, anticipating a potential Iranian response.

Sunrise: Strikes continue

Just one mile west of the strikes on Chamran Town, daylight video showed the aftermath of a strike on Tehran’s Chizar neighborhood. A huge hole had been blown in the top two floors of a building, with twisted iron bars hanging from the concrete structure.

A 17-year-old Iranian, who asked to remain anonymous, said people were “screaming” in the streets. “I didn’t know what was happening. It was really scary,” the teenager said.

5:17 a.m.: Netanyahu announces Operation ‘Rising Lion’

As evidence of Israel’s strikes began to pour in, Netanyahu gave a televised address, saying that Israel had acted to “roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival.” He said the operation would continue for as long as it takes “to remove these threats.”

Netanyahu claimed Iran had produced enough highly enriched uranium for nine nuclear weapons. In a report sent to member states May 31, the IAEA also judged that Iran had enough uranium enriched to 60% purity, near weapons-grade, potentially to make nine nuclear weapons.

“Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year. It could be within a few months,” Netanyahu said. “This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s survival.”

The prime minister claimed Israel had struck Iran’s main enrichment facility in Natanz, which was corroborated by video of the site.

Past 6 a.m.

As the sun rose, the full scope of Israel’s attack became clearer. Videos published after 6 a.m. showed the aftermath of a strike on a military base and a cargo terminal in the western Kermanshah region, which borders Iraq, over 250 miles from Tehran and 167 miles from Baghdad.

6:26 a.m.: IAEA ‘concerned’

After Netanyahu claimed Israel had targeted the nuclear facility at Natanz, the UN nuclear watchdog confirmed that Natanz had been hit.

“The IAEA is closely monitoring the deeply concerning situation in Iran,” it said.

The agency said it was in contact with Iranian authorities regarding radiation levels in the area. In a later statement, it said it had not observed an increase in radiation.

8:35 a.m.: IDF announces killings

The Israeli military said it had killed three of the most senior men in Iran’s military and its nuclear program.

Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the secretive Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was the highest-profile of those killed. In its initial statement, Israel also said it killed Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, and Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, leader of Iran’s emergency command.

Later, the IDF said it had killed Ali Shamkhani, a close aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC’s air force.

Many of the strikes on Tehran appear to have been targeting these senior officials. Last year, Israel demonstrated its ability to assassinate its adversaries in highly targeted attacks on Iranian soil. In July 2024, it killed Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas – the Iran-backed militia in Gaza – by remotely detonating a bomb that had been hidden in his room in Tehran.

While Friday’s strikes appeared extremely targeted, there have been reports of civilian casualties.

8:48 a.m.: Iran responds

The IDF said that Iran had launched more than 100 drones towards Israeli territory, and that Israel’s air defenses were preparing to intercept them.

“We’re expecting difficult hours,” it said.

Following previous Israeli attacks against Iran and its proxies in the region, Tehran fired back with huge salvos of ballistic missiles.

The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, DC, said it was “possible that Israel somehow disrupted Iran’s response by targeting Iran’s ballistic missile launch sites and stockpiles.”

Around midday

Early afternoon, Iranian media reported that Israel had launched a fresh strike on the northwestern city of Tabriz. Tamsin news agency said the Tabriz Airport had come under “heavy Israeli attack.”

12:26 p.m.: Trump posts

After learning the extent of Israel’s attack, Trump urged Iran’s leaders to agree to a new nuclear deal “before there is nothing left” of their country.

Trump said he had given Iran “chance after chance” to make a deal. “JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” he wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.

Under a 2015 nuclear deal struck by President Barack Obama, Iran agreed to drastically limit its number of centrifuges and cap uranium enrichment at levels far below those required to make weapons, in exchange for sanctions relief.

But during his first term as president in 2018, Trump withdrew from the deal, saying the “rotten structure” of the agreement was not enough to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. He ramped up sanctions on Iran and threatened to sanction any country that helped the regime obtain nuclear weapons.

In his second term, Trump has revived efforts to strike a new nuclear deal with Iran.

Just hours before Israel’s attack, the president on Thursday cautioned Israel against launching a strike while talks are ongoing. US officials have held several rounds of high-stakes nuclear talks with Iran in recent weeks, demanding that Tehran stop all uranium enrichment activity.

Iran has long claimed that its nuclear program is peaceful. It has said it wants to keep enriching uranium for civilian purposes, like building a nuclear reactor, and not for weapons.

“Zero nuclear weapons = we DO have a deal. Zero enrichment = we do NOT have a deal,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an X post last month, setting out Tehran’s red lines in the talks.

The Israeli military has warned that “all of Israel is under fire” after Tehran launched retaliatory strikes on Friday, following Israel’s attacks on Iranian military and nuclear targets.

Iran confirmed Friday evening local time that it had fired “hundreds of various ballistic missiles” towards Israel, in what it called the “beginning” of its “crushing response.”

“Moments ago, with the launch of hundreds of various ballistic missiles toward the occupied territories, the operation of decisive response to the savage attack of the Zionist regime has begun,” Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, reported.

Iranian munitions have fallen on at least one community within Tel Aviv, but no injuries have been reported so far, according to an Israeli police spokesperson.

“A short time ago, the Israel Police received reports of fallen munitions in one of the communities within the Tel Aviv District. At this stage, no injuries have been reported, but property damage has occurred,” the spokesperson said.

“Police officers and bomb disposal experts are currently working to isolate the impact sites,” the spokesperson added.

The Iranian barrage comes after Israel launched a massive two-pronged attack on Iran early Friday morning local time, with strikes aimed at destroying Iranian nuclear sites and decapitating its military leadership in Tehran.

Israel’s attack culminated years of threats and days of heightened speculation – but was executed without the blessing of Israel’s closest ally: the United States. The Trump administration has stressed that Israel acted unilaterally and that Washington was “not involved.”

Iran’s retaliation Friday evening began just as a press briefing with Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials was underway.

Effie Defrin, spokesperson for the IDF, was answering questions from journalists when an announcement was played over a speakerphone. The broadcast of the briefing was then cut short.

Defense systems are operating to intercept the missiles, a statement from the Israel Defense Forces read. It has instructed the public to seek shelter.

This is a developing story and will be updated.