What has preliminary crash report uncovered?

The story to this point:

Leaks within the western media with particular particulars about technical points and ‘human intervention’ referring to the crash of Air India flight AI 171 have led to a written attraction by the Director-Basic of India’s Plane Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), Ministry of Civil Aviation, Authorities of India, to await the publication of the ultimate investigation report. The leaks got here days earlier than the discharge of the AAIB’s preliminary report on July 12, a month after the air accident at Ahmedabad on June 12.

What else has the AAIB’s attraction stated? What are the opposite reactions?

The letter, dated July 17 and signed by G.V.G. Yugandhar, Director-Basic, AAIB, stated that the AAIB works in accordance with the Plane (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Guidelines 2017, and is accountable for fulfilling the obligations of the Authorities of India in direction of the Worldwide Civil Aviation Group Annex 13. It highlighted “its flawless document within the investigation of 92 accidents and 111 severe incidents since its inception in 2012”. The assertion drew consideration to sure sections of the worldwide media repeatedly trying to attract conclusions by selective and unverified reporting and referred to as such actions irresponsible. It added that the AAIB’s investigation and preliminary report are to supply details about “what” occurred, and that the ultimate report would come out with root causes and proposals. It added that the AAIB would publish updates as and when required, which have technical and public curiosity.

On July 18, in an announcement on X, the U.S. Nationwide Transportation Security Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer L. Homendy stated that “current media reviews on the Air India 171 crash are untimely and speculative…”, ending with “investigations of this magnitude take time. We totally help the AAIB’s public attraction….”

Days earlier than the AAIB launched a 15-page preliminary report, aviation information service The Air Present had a report on July 8. It stated “Air India crash investigation focuses on motion of engine gas management switches” with a blurb that “knowledge from the Dreamliner’s black field factors investigators in direction of improper, inadvertent or intentional pilot actions”. On July 10, the Wall Road Journal (WSJ) had a report, “Air India probe Places Early Concentrate on Pilots’ Actions and Aircraft’s Gas Switches”. Once more, on July 17, theWSJ had an unique report titled “New Particulars in Air India Crash Probe Shift Focus to Senior Pilot”. On July 18, an Italian day by day, the Corriere della Sera (based in 1876), revealed a report which claimed it had extra particulars from the cockpit voice recorder (CVR).

The reviews within the western media have led to a pushback by Indian pilot our bodies. A media report has stated that the Federation of Indian Pilots would “pursue all authorized cures out there for defamation, psychological anguish and reputational hurt”. The Worldwide Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations additionally cautioned towards hasty conclusions revealed by the media and social media primarily based on the preliminary report.

What has the preliminary report stated?

The report has targeted on the “engine 1 and engine 2 gas cutoff switches having transitioned from Run to Cutoff place, one after one other with a time hole of 1 second”, ensuing within the gas provide slicing off. There may be additionally one sentence which says that within the “cockpit voice recording, one of many pilots is heard asking the opposite why did he cutoff. The opposite pilot responded that he didn’t accomplish that.” The report has an image of the plane with its Ram Air Turbine — which is on the coronary heart of an plane’s emergency energy system — having deployed through the preliminary climb.

The engine 1 gas cutoff swap then transitioned from Cutoff to Run about 10 seconds after the cutoff, resulting in a thrust restoration. 4 seconds later, the same transitioning for the engine 2 gas swap led to the complete authority digital engine management of every engine routinely managing a relight and thrust restoration sequence. One of many pilots then transmitted a Mayday name.

The report has stated that it has no advisable actions in regards to the plane sort, the engine (GE’s GEnx-1B70/P2), and the producers — this has drawn criticism from pilot our bodies for ignoring ‘systemic vulnerabilities’.

The report’s lack of a full and uncooked CVR transcript with timestamps is what has drawn probably the most criticism.

The guts of the thriller now lies within the actions across the handbook gas selector switches.

Captain Matthew Buckley, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and a former first officer at FedEx and American Airways, has advised The Hindu that the Boeing 787 is a data-linked, extremely networked plane, with its crucial flight techniques — particularly gas administration — digitally and bodily remoted. Though the plane makes use of Ethernet-style spine techniques for a lot of avionics capabilities, the gas selector switches themselves are mechanical-electrical hybrids that can’t be remotely accessed or altered from outdoors. He provides that had there been any software program anomaly, Boeing and the engine producer would have detected it by Plane Well being Monitoring Programs. These techniques document and transmit real-time diagnostics, he stated.

He stated that the Boeing 787 has centralised digital techniques and knowledge streaming to floor techniques in actual time. If there was an engine-related problem, both mechanical or systems-based, the engine producer would know immediately, as diagnostic updates can be despatched throughout flight.

What are the security checks being executed by airways?

Final month, on June 13, the Directorate Basic of Civil Aviation (DGCA) directed Air India to hold out further security inspections on its Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 fleet. Professor Man Gratton, Affiliate Professor of Aviation and the Surroundings, School of Engineering and Utilized Science at Cranfield College, U.Ok., has advised The Hindu that these suggest enhanced checks of {the electrical}, hydraulic and/or propulsion techniques.

The DGCA has additionally issued a directive (with inspection reviews by July 21, 2025) to examine the locking mechanism of the gas management switches on the Boeing 737 and 787. Quite a few airways have carried out precautionary checks of the gas selector switches of their Boeing 787 fleets. They embody Singapore Airways and Scoot (Singapore), Qantas (Australia), Etihad (UAE), Korean and Japan. This additionally flows from an advisory by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2018 of the ‘potential for disengagement of the gas management swap locking function’ on a number of Boeing plane households. Individually, Indian pilot our bodies have urged intensive checks of the 787’s engine management techniques.

What number of 787s are there on this planet?

In an electronic mail reply to The Hindu, Boeing has stated that the worldwide Boeing 787 fleet contains over 1,175 plane, having operated practically 5 million flights and logged greater than 30 million flight hours.

Can there be a greater investigation?

In an interview with Singapore’s media on July 16, whereas commenting on the AAIB’s preliminary report, Worldwide Air Transport Affiliation chief Willie Walsh stated that there’s a robust argument to be made for video recorders to be put in in plane flight decks to assist accident investigators. This revives an virtually 25-year-old debate on the difficulty between the NTSB and the FAA.

The ultimate line is that there must be a good and clear investigation with irrefutable findings. And this might take time.

Revealed – July 20, 2025 05:20 am IST