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Investigators at
the site of Saturday’s plane crash in India found the cockpit voice
recorder, which may help uncover the cause of the disaster as search
for the flight data recorder continues. The investigators scoured the
slopes of a ravine in southern India on Sunday looking for the black
box of the Boeing 737-800 that crashed off a hilltop runway, killing
158 people.

Crash site experts
sifted through the wreckage and collected some parts, but were still to
find the flight data recorder which could provide clues about
Saturday’s crash.

The Air India
Express flight carrying 166 people, including the crew from Dubai,
crashed while negotiating a tricky landing at Mangalore city’s
‘table-top’ airport overlooking a ravine. Eight people survived, mostly
by jumping out of the plane that broke into two after crashing.

“It is not
possible to give any reason for the crash unless we find the black
box,” Peter Abraham, Mangalore airport director, told news agency.

About a dozen
experts were seen examining the jet’s mangled hull. At a distance,
workers used bulldozers and metal-cutters to clear debris. A US
forensic team arrived in India to help the investigations, officials
said. A Boeing team is also expected.

“It is better to
have an independent view and understand what has happened,” said Arvind
Jadhav, chief of the state-run Air India. Air India Express is the
budget arm of Air India.

Although it was not clear what caused the crash, some Indian TV channels focussed on the possibility of human error.

India’s Civil
Aviation Minister Praful Patel said there were no indications of any
trouble during the plane’s landing. The weather and visibility was
good, he said.

“All other
parameters like the aircraft functions and the runway looked to be very
normal, so it should have been a normal landing,” he said. “But I do
not want to speculate on the cause.”

India has seen a
boom in private carriers due to growing demand from India’s middle
class. It was the first big crash in more than a decade but a series of
near misses at airports, including Delhi and Mumbai, have caused
concern India’s creaking infrastructure was failing to keep pace with
an economic boom.

Chaos at the morgue

Officials said all 158 bodies had been found.

At Mangalore’s A.J. hospital, two of the survivors were still to come to terms with their survival.

“I remembered when
a plane crashes it bursts into flames, so tried to get as far away as
possible,” Sabrina Haq, a 22-year-old medical intern told Reuters from
her hospital bed. “I don’t remember if someone picked me out or I fell
out of the plane. I didn’t want to die.” She suffered a broken leg and
had bruises on her face.

Some chaos was
seen at the hospital’s morgue. Wailing relatives crowded to claim the
bodies of their loved ones. But 12 bodies were still to be identified,
Jadhav said.

Doctors said they were conducting DNA tests on these bodies. Family
members of passengers killed in Saturday’s Air India plane crash are
being asked to give DNA samples as the grim task continues of
identifying the dead. Police kept away a crowd of reporters trying to
speak to the relatives. Dozens of grieving relatives of the victims
arrived on a special flight from Dubai.