Over a month after the tragic crash of Air India flight AI 171 shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad — a disaster that claimed 241 lives — aviation professionals are voicing serious concerns over the official investigation’s early findings.
Retired IAF officer and aviation expert Sanjeev Kapoor has voiced strong reservations about the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau's (AAIB) initial 15-page report. He criticized it as lacking depth and being delayed unnecessarily. “Pilots do not declare a Mayday without extreme cause. Clearly, both engines failed — but the explanation for how that happened is glaringly absent,” Kapoor told India Today TV.
The AAIB stated that the cockpit voice recorder captured a disturbing conversation in which one pilot asked the other why the fuel flow had been stopped — a detail suggesting a manual shutdown. According to the report, both fuel control levers were moved from 'RUN' to 'CUTOFF' within a second, leading to a sudden and severe drop in altitude.
Kapoor found the scenario implausible. “No competent pilot would ever intentionally switch off the engines immediately after liftoff. It makes no sense to perform a sharp 170-degree turn only to disable both engines,” he said, questioning the logic behind such actions.
He also expressed frustration over the delay in publishing the preliminary findings, especially since the cockpit data was retrieved weeks earlier. “It shouldn’t take 20 days to release a report that still lacks key details,” he said.
The Boeing 787 reportedly began to lose power right after leaving the runway. While the AAIB noted that the emergency Ram Air Turbine (RAT) automatically deployed to provide basic hydraulic support, only one engine could be restarted in time. The aircraft continued losing speed and height, ultimately striking trees beyond the airport before crashing into a student hostel.
