The aviation ministry on Saturday said that the flight data recorder of the Air India plane that crashed in Ahmedabad on Thursday has been found, adding that the flight had climbed 650 feet in the air before it started descending.

One of the black boxes of the Air India Boeing 787-8 aircraft has been recovered from the crash site in Ahmedabad by the on-site team of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), which is leading the investigation into the worst aviation disaster involving an Indian airline in decades.

Black boxes, crucial flight data recorders painted bright orange, play an essential role in aviation safety. They capture uninterrupted flight data, aiding investigations after crashes, like the recent Air India incident.

Upstream Aviation Director Tim Collins says the Boeing 787 Air India crash could be due to “several things” which will only be discovered once all data has been collected.

With the data retrieved from the DFDR, investigators can generate a computer animated video reconstruction of the flight