A year on, six questions still haunt the Air India crash investigation

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A year on, six questions still haunt the Air India crash investigation

14 hours ago

Soutik Biswas India correspondent

Reuters

The Air India Boeing 787, which crashed in Ahmedabad in June last year, seen here over Melbourne in December 2024

A year after Air India Flight 171 to London crashed into a medical college campus moments after take-off from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, killing 260 people, investigators still cannot say with certainty why one of the world's most advanced passenger jets fell from the sky.

An update released by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) on the first anniversary of the disaster on Friday offered few new clues, saying only that analysis of flight recorder data, aircraft systems, engine components, maintenance records and human factors remains under way.

A preliminary report published last July found that seconds after take-off, the 12-year-old Boeing 787 Dreamliner's fuel-control switches abruptly moved to the "cut-off" position, starving both engines of fuel and triggering total power loss.

What could have caused Air India plane to crash in 30 seconds?

Why cockpit audio deepens the mystery of Air India crash

Cockpit audio captured one pilot asking the other why he had done it, only to receive the reply: "I did not." Investigators did not identify either voice, though many experts saw the exchange as a possible indication of deliberate action in the cockpit.

The crash remains highly unusual.

While take-off and landing are aviation's riskiest phases, fatal accidents immediately after lift-off are uncommon. Boeing found that just 14% of global jet crashes between 2004 and 2013 occurred during take-off and initial climb; Airbus puts the figure at about 5%.

So what brought down AI171 in 32 seconds?

As the investigation enters its second year, several key questions remain unanswered.

What is delaying the final report?

Reuters

Indian Army engineers prepare to remove wreckage of the Air India flight in Ahmedabad last June

John Cox, a former airline pilot and aviation safety consultant, told the BBC that India's AAIB was entitled under International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) rules to take more time if necessary.

"There is intense interest within India as to the cause," he said. "The insinuation that it was a deliberate act by the captain has drawn very strong criticism. The timing of the engine failure is key to determining the cause."

Cox said any report must establish precisely when the engines lost power, when the fuel-control switches moved and whether the aircraft experienced technical issues on the accident flight or preceding sectors. "Those questions must be resolved," he said.

The lack of answers after a year suggests investigators are still weighing multiple possibilities, according to Shawn Pruchnicki, a former accident investigator and aviation expert at Ohio State University.

"Air crash investigations are rarely straightforward," he told the BBC. "If investigators had already established a clear cause, the report would likely be out by now."

The continuing delay, he argues, points to competing hypotheses, unresolved leads and possible mechanical issues that have yet to be fully explained.

Not everyone believes the delay is simply a reflection of investigative complexity.

A veteran Canada-based air accident investigator, speaking anonymously to the BBC, said that final reports are sometimes delayed because their conclusions are "politically or institutionally sensitive".

But he warned that "continued speculation about the cause risks muddying the waters further, making it harder for investigators to complete their work - and for the final report, whenever it arrives, to command public trust".

Air-crash investigations often unfold in stages. The inquiry into Air France 447, which crashed in 2009, released a series of interim findings before a final report was published three years later.

Why has the probe become mired in controversy?

AFP via Getty Images

A man mourns while holding a portrait of a relative killed in the crash at the accident site in Ahmedabad last week

Air-crash investigations are usually dry exercises in fact-finding. The AI171 inquiry has become anything but.

The preliminary report's finding that the fuel-control switches moved shortly before both engines lost power prompted speculation in parts of the foreign media that a pilot's actions lay at the heart of the disaster. (At the time of take-off, the co-pilot was flying the aircraft while the captain was monitoring.)

That has triggered a backlash from pilots' groups, safety campaigners and lawyers for victims' families, who say the focus on the cockpit has raced ahead of the evidence.

Captain CS Randhawa, head of the Federation of Indian Pilots, argues investigators should pay closer attention to the aircraft's technical condition, including "encrypted health-monitoring messages [that routinely transmit data on engines, avionic…