Investigators have downloaded flight recorder data from an Air India crash this month that killed 260 people, India's civil aviation ministry said on Thursday, a long-awaited step towards understanding the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade.

The recent crash ofAir India Flight AI171 outside Ahmedabad has sent shockwaves through the aviation world, with questions about what caused the tragic event still unanswered. The recovery and analysis of the aircraft'sblack boxes may finally shed light on the true sequence of events.