Air India 171 needs answers, not another year of speculation
Three seconds after Air India Flight 171 lifted off from Ahmedabad, two fuel switches in its cockpit moved to the cut-off position, starving both engines
Three seconds after Air India Flight 171 lifted off from Ahmedabad, two fuel switches in its cockpit moved to the cut-off position, starving both engines of fuel. Half a minute later, the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into a medical hostel complex, killing 260 people. It was India's deadliest aviation disaster since the 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision, the world's deadliest air accident in a decade, and the first crash in which a Dreamliner was destroyed. Read Full Story Of the 230 passengers and 12 crew members, all but one (British national Vishwashkumar Ramesh, sitting on the now-famous seat 11A next to an emergency exit) died. Another 19 people, at the medical hostel complex into which Air India 171 crashed, were killed on the ground. The crash resulted in an inferno reaching temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius and left many bodies so badly mutilated that identification took weeks of painstaking DNA matching. In the year since, Air India 171 has existed in a space between two nightmare theories, both linked to those two fuel switches. One is human: Deliberate or inadvertent action in the cockpit moved the fuel switches and cut fuel to both engines seconds after take-off. The other is technical: A modern Boeing 787 Dreamliner, built with multiple backup systems, suffered a catastrophic mechanical or electrical failure or failures that starved both engines of fuel at the worst possible moment. An aerial shot of the Air India 171 crash site (Photo: AAIB) Neither theory has been established. But both have been intensely argued over in media reports and social media. One theory can destroy the reputation of a dead pilot who cannot defend himself and raise troubling questions for the aviator community at large. The other poses multibillion-dollar consequences for the US-based Boeing, Air India, and the wider aviation industry. That is the high-pressure backdrop against which the first anniversary of the crash arrives on June 12. AIR CRASH PROBES To understand why the anniversary matters, it helps to know how air crash investigations are supposed to work. Under protocols laid out by the International Civil Aviation Organization The country where the crash happens leads the investigation. Other countries may take part and comment on the final findings if the aircraft was designed, manufactured, registered or operated there, or if their citizens were killed or seriously injured. A preliminary report is expected within 30 days. A final report is expected as soon as possible and, ideally, within 12 months.
If the final report is not ready by then, the investigating country is expected to issue an interim statement on each anniversary, detailing the progress of the investigation and any safety issue uncovered. The purpose of an air crash investigation is not to apportion blame. It is to prevent future accidents. That means India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is expected to release either a final report or an interim update around the anniversary. What we have for now is last year's preliminary report, and the furore it generated. The report did not provide conclusive answers regarding the crash. It was not meant to; preliminary reports are generally meant to set out the factual matrix of an air crash. But it did raise troubling questions. According to the report, around three seconds after Air India 171 took off from the Ahmedabad airport, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches "transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF" within a gap of one second. Thrust in both engines started reducing as the fuel supply was cut off. The report then says, "In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff. The other pilot responded that he did not do so." The switches were later recorded moving back to RUN, but by then the aircraft had lost too much power and altitude. Moments later, one of the pilots transmitted a "MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY" call before the jet crashed and erupted into a fireball. THEORY VS THEORY The comparatively detailed preliminary report, released on July 12, 2025, sparked a firestorm of speculation and counter-speculation that has continued for the past year. One side focused on the cockpit. The movement of the fuel switches described in the preliminary report, and the pilot exchange that followed, became the basis for theories about deliberate or mistaken pilot action. The switches are guarded and are not routine in-flight controls. That was used to argue that the movement described in the report would be hard to explain without human involvement. Some media reports went further. News agency Reuters reported in July 2025 that an early informal assessment by US officials (the US was participating in the probe as the country where the aircraft was designed, manufactured, and certified), based on the cockpit recording, supported the view that the captain had cut off fuel flow and that the first officer had challenged him. In February 2026, after another report claimed investigators were preparing to call the crash an intentional act, the AAIB pushed back and called such reporting incorrect and speculative.
The BriefWire