Director of Air Safety V K Chandanna has undertaken the investigation along with an Air France technical team.

He would submit his report in two months highlighting the factors that led to crash-landing, the Director General of Civil Aviation, H S Khola, told newsmen here.

Khola and Chandanna, who arrived here last night from Mumbai, immediately visited the accident spot and also spoke to the Air France freighter's crew.

Khola said the Black Box (digital flight data recorder),which was recovered along with the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), had been damaged in the fire. ``But we hope the tape inside is okay,'' he said.

The Black Box was useful but more information was expected to be obtained from the Cockpit Voice Recorder.

Khola said the issue of the nose wheel notopening up was not `unprecedented' as there were many ways to get it opened. Preliminary investigations had so far indicated that the issue was basically confined to a problem in the nose gear.

Khola said fortunately, the nose portion, despite the devastating fire, was intact. ``We have already examined it and are going to carry out further technical tests with the help of the Air France technical team,'' he said.

An examination of the nose section indicated that the locking system of the landing gear was intact.

Khola confirmed that the pilot of the freighter had a `missed' approach following which he circled once more before landing the second time.

While circling, the pilot had asked a flight engineer aboard to check the landing gear and the latter could not find any defect. Following this, the Pilot touched down only to realise later that he had made a `body' landing.

After landing, the Pilot had not strayed but kept the aircraft on the centre line of the runway, Khola said, adding that marksfound on the runway indicated that the nose wheel had not opened up. When the aircraft finally halted, the Pilot noticed smoke in the cockpit from the nose wheel area, but could not locate its origin, he said.

The cockpit crew then walked to the rear exit of the plane, which showed that there was `enough time' for them to get out of the aircraft before it burst into flames. The plane did not have any snag when it left Bangalore, Khola said.

He said blood samples of the cockpit crew had been taken and a report was awaited.

The Pilot had nearly 2000 hours of flying experience as a commander.

Khola also had a word of praise for the Chennai Air Traffic Control (ATC). He said when the Pilot `missed' his first attempted to land, the ATC had asked him if he needed assistance to which the former had replied in the negative.

``Normally it is the pilot who seeks assistance but in this case it is reverse''.

He also commended the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for its work in speeding up repairs of the`slight' damage to the runway and throwing the runway open for all aircraft at the earliest. Meanwhile, the seven-member specialist technical team of Air France which is to assist investigations arrived here from Paris this morning.