DUSHANBE, March 18, Asia-Plus — Black Boxes of the helicopter Mi-8, which crashed in the Shugnan district, Gorno Badakhshan on March 8 were seriously damaged that make deciphering them difficult, according to specialists from the CIS Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), which is investigating the helicopter’s Black Boxes.
In aviation, the term Black Box refers to the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder responsible for recording the last minutes of an aircraft flight. The phrase has become popularized by modern media while reporting aircraft crashes, despite the fact that the devices are usually not black.
According to information posted n the IAC official website, the flight recorders were seriously damaged by a fire that occurred after the crash. Experts are currently working on deciphering the cockpit voice recorder.
The IAC commission for investigating aviation accident is continuing work at the crash site.
We will recall that one person was killed and at least five others were injured on March 8 as a helicopter with foreign mountaineers aboard crashed in GBAO’s Shugnan district. The accident took place in the afternoon some 80 kilometers east of Khorog, the capital of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (Gorno Badakhshan or GBAO). The Mi-8 helicopter owned by Tajik national air carrier TajikAir departed the Dushanbe airport at 10:47 a.m. In Shugnan’s village of Vir, the helicopter took eleven mountain climbers from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, France, Russia and Switzerland and interpreter (Tajik national), who were making a trip to the area. The helicopter went down in the mountains some 80 kilometers east of Khorog, and as a result of the crash, the helicopter commander Tolib Sardorov was killed, while two crewmembers Rahim Rahimov and Rahmon Homidov, interpreter Bobojon Jourayev and two mountain climbers – one French, the other one Russian – got injuries of different degrees of severity.
