Captain Kishore Chinta, a former investigator with India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), calls this "the rarest of the rare" crashes - a controlled flight into terrain just 30 seconds after take-off. "To my knowledge, nothing quite like this has ever happened," he told the BBC.

Black box data has been decisive in solving major aviation disasters globally, ranging from the 2015 Germanwings crash to various Malaysia Airlines incidents. In India, the investigation into the 2020 Kozhikode crash relied heavily on these recordings to establish pilot decisions and runway conditions during the failed landing attempt.

The crash of an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad city, killing all but one of the 242 people on board, is the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade. At least 30 people were also killed on the ground as the airliner crashed into a medical college hostel near the airport.