Air India 171: what investigators have said, and what is still open

On June 12, 2025, Air India flight AI171, a Boeing 787-8 registered VT-ANB, crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad on its way to London Gatwick. According to India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), 229 passengers and all 12 crew died, one passenger survived, and 19 people on the ground were killed.

More than fifteen months later, there is no final report. What follows is what investigators and regulators have published, what they have left unpublished, and what the public has argued about. Why the airplane crashed is for the investigation to answer, and nothing here tries to.

What the preliminary report says

The AAIB released its preliminary report on July 12, 2025. Its foreword says the information is "preliminary and subject to change," and the purpose of the investigation is prevention, "not to apportion blame or liability."

The key facts, all from the report:

• The co-pilot was pilot flying and the captain pilot monitoring. Both had adequate rest and passed the preflight breath test.
• Takeoff weight was within limits, the flaps were set at 5, the wind was 250/07, and no significant bird activity was seen near the flight path.
• Liftoff was at 08:08:39 UTC. The aircraft reached its maximum recorded airspeed of 180 knots at about 08:08:42, and "immediately thereafter" the engine 1 and engine 2 fuel control switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF, one after the other, one second apart.
• On 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 report does not say which pilot said what.
• The ram air turbine deployed. The engine 1 switch went back to RUN at about 08:08:52 and engine 2 at 08:08:56. Both engines showed signs of relight; engine 1 began to recover, while engine 2 relit but could not stop its core speed from falling.
• A MAYDAY call was transmitted at about 08:09:05. The recording stopped at 08:09:11.
• At the wreckage, both fuel control switches were found in RUN.

The report also records that the FAA had issued Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin NM-18-33 in 2018 about fuel control switches installed with the locking feature disengaged, that the switch design is similar on the 787, and that Air India had not carried out the suggested inspections because the bulletin was advisory. The throttle control module on VT-ANB had been replaced in 2019 and 2023 for reasons not linked to the switches.

The report ended: "At this stage of investigation, there are no recommended actions to B787-8 and/or GE GEnx-1B engine operators and manufacturers."

Where the investigation stands

ICAO Annex 13 asks states to publish a final report "if possible, within twelve months," and otherwise to publish an interim statement on each anniversary. The AAIB missed the first target and met the second on June 12, 2026. Its interim statement said the team had examined technical, operational, organizational and human factors, that the evidence was being analyzed as a whole, and that the final report would follow the international consultation Annex 13 requires. It gave no date and no findings.

Since then, the timeline has come mostly from the Supreme Court of India, where the captain's father and the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) have petitioned for a court-monitored inquiry. In July 2026 the AAIB told the court its remaining work would take about six weeks, putting the draft final report around October, and argued in an affidavit that cockpit voice recordings and other protected records cannot be released. At a July 28 hearing the government said it would file the report in a sealed cover; the next hearing is set for October 13, 2026. On September 2, Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said the probe was in its final stage: "We are all waiting."

A draft is not the end. Under Annex 13 it goes to the states that took part, including the United States as state of design and manufacture, which have 30 days to comment, extendable to 60. India must then amend the report or append their comments.

Timeline

The fuel control switches: what regulators have said

The 787's fuel control switches have a locking feature: the switch must be lifted before it can move between RUN and CUTOFF. The FAA's 2018 SAIB NM-18-33 covered several Boeing models, including the 787, and suggested checking that the switch cannot move without being lifted. It was explicit that the concern "is not an unsafe condition that would warrant airworthiness directive (AD) action."

After the preliminary report, the FAA sent other aviation authorities a Continued Airworthiness Notification on July 11, 2025, saying it did not consider the issue an unsafe condition requiring an airworthiness directive. Reuters reported that Boeing referred to that notification in a message to operators and was not recommending any action. On July 24, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told reporters, according to Reuters: "We can say with a high level of confidence it doesn't appear to be a mechanical issue with the Boeing fuel control unit."

We found no EASA airworthiness directive on these switches.

India's DGCA ordered its operators to inspect the switch locks on 787s and 737s by July 21, 2025. Air India reported that "no issues were found."

The switches came back into the news in February 2026. On February 1, before AI132 left London for Bengaluru, the crew of the 787-8 reported that a fuel control switch twice failed to stay latched in RUN when light pressure was applied during engine start. Air India grounded the aircraft. Within days, DGCA said the left and right switches had been checked and found satisfactory, and asked for correct switch-handling technique to be reinforced with crews. In May 2026 it nonetheless ordered a further inspection at the manufacturer's facility with DGCA officers present.

On July 29, 2026, Minister of State Murlidhar Mohol told the Rajya Sabha that a detailed examination of the fuel control switch, including the structural integrity of its locking detents, found no abnormality, and that "Inspection of the complete Thrust Control Module at the OEM's facility is underway." Several headlines presented this as a finding about AI171. Business Standard's account of the answer ties it to the aircraft grounded in February, examined on DGCA's orders as part of continuing airworthiness checks. It is not a finding of the AI171 investigation.

None of this explains why the switches moved on AI171. The AAIB has not said.

Pilot groups and the fight over speculation

Within days of the preliminary report, news outlets published accounts attributed to unnamed sources that pointed at the captain. Investigators and pilot groups pushed back hard.

ALPA India went first. On the day the report came out it said "the tone and direction of the investigation suggest a bias towards pilot error," rejected that presumption and asked for observer status. Two days later IFALPA said any extrapolation from the report "can only be regarded as guesswork." The Indian Commercial Pilots' Association said that to casually suggest pilot suicide without verified evidence was "a gross violation of ethical reporting."

The investigators joined in. On July 17 the AAIB asked the media and public to stop spreading "premature narratives", and NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy called recent reports "premature and speculative", adding that investigations of this size take time. The Federation of Indian Pilots went further and sent legal notices to The Wall Street Journal and Reuters over their reporting.

In November 2025, hearing the petition by the captain's father and FIP, Justice Surya Kant told the father, "Nobody can blame him for anything," and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said of the preliminary report, "There's no suggestion of fault in that report." On September 25, 2026, FIP wrote to the minister asking to take part as an "independent technical participant" in any review of the draft report.

Recorders: 25 hours of audio, and the camera question

The 787 carries two combined voice and data recorders. The aft unit on VT-ANB was too badly damaged to download conventionally, but the forward one yielded about 49 hours of flight data and two hours of audio covering the event. Recording length was not the limit here. What the preliminary report did not do was identify which pilot said what.

That gap revived an old argument. The NTSB first recommended cockpit image recorders in April 2000, citing EgyptAir 990 among other investigations, but the FAA has not required them on airliners. After the Air India report, IATA Director General Willie Walsh told Reuters there was a strong argument for cockpit cameras. In the same report, ALPA and the Allied Pilots Association said voice and data recorders already give investigators enough, and that cameras would invade privacy and could be misused; ALPA said current recorders should capture higher-quality data instead. IFALPA warned that the protection of image recorder data would not be ensured either.

Annex 13 already treats "airborne image recordings" the same way as voice recordings: they may not be used for anything other than the investigation unless a designated national authority decides the benefit of disclosure outweighs the harm, and their image and audio content is not to be released to the public.

The 25-hour cockpit voice recorder is a separate change. EASA and ICAO require it on large airplanes (over 27,000 kg) first certificated from January 1, 2021. The FAA's final rule, published February 2, 2026, applies it to newly manufactured aircraft, and the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 requires the existing airline fleet to be retrofitted by May 2030, six years after the law was signed. ALPA and other pilot groups commented with concerns about misuse of the recordings and discipline.

What pilots and passengers can take from this

For pilots, start with the switch itself. The 2018 FAA bulletin covered the 787 and most other Boeing types, the 737, 757 and 767 among them. The switch should not move without being lifted. If one does, or will not latch in RUN, write it up: a line crew's report in February 2026 led to a grounding and a test at the manufacturer. DGCA also told Air India to remind crews of Boeing's handling technique, so use the manufacturer's procedure.

Read a preliminary report for what it is. It records early facts, and the AAIB, IFALPA and the NTSB all asked people not to read conclusions into this one. That applies in crew rooms too.

Know the rules on your recorders. Longer voice recordings are coming to US fleets, and the camera debate is not over. How recordings may be used in your operation is set by regulation and your contract, so ask your union or company.

For passengers, the regulatory record so far points away from a fleet-wide hardware problem. The FAA said the switch issue was not an unsafe condition, Boeing recommended no action, Indian inspections found no defects in the switch locks, and the AAIB made no recommendations to 787 operators at the preliminary stage. If the final report finds otherwise, regulators can act then.

Two hundred and sixty people died, 19 of them on the ground, and their families are still waiting. Today the investigators have published facts, not causes.

Sources

1. Preliminary Report: Accident involving Air India's B787-8 aircraft bearing registration VT-ANB at Ahmedabad on 12 June 2025, AAIB India, July 12, 2025
2. AAIB Interim Statement on the Progress of Investigation into the Accident Involving Air India Flight AI-171, Press Information Bureau, Government of India, June 12, 2026
3. Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation: Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation, Thirteenth Edition, ICAO, July 2024
4. Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin NM-18-33: Engine Fuel and Control, FAA, December 17, 2018
5. US FAA, Boeing affirm fuel switch locks safe amid Air India crash probe, Reuters via Investing.com, July 13, 2025
6. Amid Air India probe, US FAA, Boeing notify fuel switch locks are safe: report, Deccan Herald (Reuters), July 13, 2025
7. FAA's Bedford Rules Out Mechanical Problem With Boeing Fuel Switches in Air India Crash, AirlineGeeks, July 25, 2025
8. DGCA orders fuel switch checks on Boeing 787, 737 aircraft by July 21, News On AIR, July 14, 2025
9. Statement on completion of Fuel Control Switch inspections, Air India, July 22, 2025
10. AAIB appeals media to refrain from spreading premature narratives regarding AI plane crash, News On AIR, July 17, 2025
11. Reports on Air India crash 'premature and speculative', says NTSB's Homendy, Business Standard, July 19, 2025
12. Global Pilots on Air India 171 Preliminary Report (25PRL08), IFALPA, July 14, 2025
13. Pilots' group ALPA India seeks fair, fact-based probe into AI plane crash, Business Standard, July 12, 2025
14. Pilot unions criticize Air India AI171 crash speculation, AeroTime, July 14, 2025
15. Pilots' body sends legal notice to Wall Street Journal, Reuters over AI crash reports, The Tribune, July 20, 2025
16. 'No one can blame him': SC tells father of pilot in Air India crash, Business Standard, November 7, 2025
17. 'Left, right switches checked, found satisfactory': DGCA rejects fuel switch malfunction claims on Air India Boeing 787, Business Today, February 3, 2026
18. DGCA orders OEM-level inspection of Air India Boeing 787 fuel control switches in presence of its officers, News On AIR, May 20, 2026
19. Why AAIB won't release AI171 cockpit recordings as probe nears end, Business Standard, July 16, 2026
20. Centre Assures SC on AI-171 Probe Report; Hearing on Oct 13, Deccan Chronicle, July 28, 2026
21. No fuel switch defect found in AI-171 crash probe: Govt tells Parliament, Business Standard, July 29, 2026
22. No defect found in fuel control switch of Air India plane, thrust control module being examined: Govt, IANS, July 29, 2026
23. AI-171 Probe in Final Stage, Report Being Finalised Under International Rules: Ram Mohan Naidu, NewsGram, September 2, 2026
24. Air India AI 171 crash: Pilots' body seeks role in review of draft AAIB report, Business Today, September 26, 2026
25. In Air India's wake, revisiting the case for cockpit video recorders, The Air Current, July 13, 2025
26. Air India crash rekindles debate over cockpit video recorders, The Kathmandu Post (Reuters), July 16, 2025
27. 25-Hour Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) Requirement, New Aircraft Production (final rule), FAA, Federal Register, February 2, 2026