Need for a revamp: On the Ahmedabad air crash probe, aviation safety 

The preliminary report flowing from the investigation into the crash of an Air India Boeing 787-8 at Ahmedabad, on June 12, 2025, has a focal point now. Released in the early hours of July 12, 2025, a month after the accident, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s 15-page document has highlighted the fuel control switches of “Engine 1 and Engine 2” having “transitioned from the ‘Run’ to the ‘Cutoff’ position, one after another, with a time gap of one second”. That this happened just after flight AI171 had begun to lift off from the 3,505-metre-long runway, leading to the engines beginning to decrease from their take-off values as fuel starvation hit, has accentuated another detail. How did two separate switches that are guarded by brackets, feature a metal stop locking mechanism and have separate systems for redundancy move to ‘cutoff’? And why? The element of bafflement by one crew member, and denial by the other pilot, over the cutoff, has compounded the issue, more so in the absence of the full and raw transcript of the cockpit voice recording. However, in the midst of the crisis, what must be acknowledged was a display of airmanship, with a partially successful relighting of the GEnx-1B70/75/P2 engines, which ended with the call of May Day.

While the key details in the report have evoked appeals by a pilot body for a revamped probe, especially to ‘stop the bias towards pilot error’, the investigation team must now stay the course to ensure that there is a sound, comprehensive and transparent investigation. There has also been focus on an FAA Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin of 2018 that concerns the potential for disengagement of the fuel control switch locking feature, and applicable to the Boeing 787 aircraft family. In a reaction to the preliminary report and its findings, there has been some expert commentary on the topic of crew well-being, but in a counter to this, the Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association has said that “pilots undergo extensive psychological and professional screening… and operate under the highest standards of safety”. However, the subject of Crew Resource Management and Line Oriented Flight Training may need to be revamped, more so with this being an unusual incident of dual engine failure. Finally, despite the preliminary report’s pitch of there “not being recommended actions that concern the aircraft type and the engine manufacturer”, India’s expanding civil aircraft fleet requires greater vigilance in terms of maintenance and operations. Airport funnel zones and obstacle limitations must be reviewed too as it is a given that air crew and passengers have safer flights.