Raises more questions than answers: Aviation expert on Air India crash preliminary report

Aviation expert Sanjay Lazar on Sunday said that the preliminary report by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) on the Air India flight 171 crash raises more questions than answers, and expressed that the investigative authority should have made the transcript of cockpit voice recorder (CVR) public.

He said that informing the public about only "one line" from the cockpit conversations about "switches" raises more questions.

"The AAIB report raises more questions than it answers. There are a lot of gaps, which might be filled once the investigation goes further. However, I've had a few issues. How was the US media alerted three days ago? Everyone carried it out, and something does seem correct here. The AAIB should have made the entire CVR transcript public. By just informing the public about one line, it leaves a lot of questions hanging, when they talk about the switches," Lazar told ANI.


The expert suggested that it wasn't appropriate for the AAIB to say that there are no safety recommendations for Boeing or General Electric since the investigation has not been completed.

"I do not believe that, when the investigation was not complete, it was the most appropriate thing for the AAIB to have said in the last line of the report, that there are no safety recommendations for Boeing or General Electric. That means that you have washed your hands, or you have decided that there is something else afoot here. In that case, they could have been more transparent," Lazar asserted.

On Friday, India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) released the preliminary report into the tragic crash of Air India flight AI171, a Boeing 787-8 aircraft, which crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport on June 12.

The AI-171 flight, which was bound for London's Gatwick airport, crashed soon after takeoff from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel airport. 260 people lost their lives in the accident, which included 229 passengers, 12 crew members and 19 people on the ground.

The report outlines a harrowing sequence of events that unfolded within 90 seconds of takeoff, as both engines of the aircraft shut down unexpectedly during the initial climb, leading to a catastrophic loss of thrust and rapid descent.

Flight data recovered from the aircraft's Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorder (EAFR) revealed that the fuel cutoff switches for both engines were inadvertently moved from RUN to CUTOFF, one after the other within a 1-second interval, at an altitude just moments after liftoff. One pilot was heard asking the other, "Why did you cut off?" to which the response was, "I did not."

This uncommanded shutdown triggered the deployment of the Ram Air Turbine (RAT), and the aircraft began losing altitude almost immediately, unable to sustain powered flight.

According to the AAIB, the pilots re-engaged the fuel switches in an attempt to relight both engines. Engine 1 showed signs of recovering thrust, but Engine 2 failed to stabilise. The aircraft, which had briefly reached a speed of 180 knots, was already descending and failed to regain altitude. The final distress call, a "MAYDAY", was transmitted at 08:09 UTC, just seconds before the aircraft crashed into residential buildings outside the airport perimeter.