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.

Investigators have begun analyzing data from the black boxes recovered from the Air India Boeing 787 jet that crashed earlier this month, killing 270 people.

Analysis of flight recorder data from the deadly Air India crash two weeks ago was underway in India after investigators successfully retrieved the information from the two black boxes on board.