A preliminary report into he Air India Flight 171 crash on 12th June 2025, killing 260 people, including 241 people on the aircraft, has found that fuel to the engines was cut off shortly after take-off.
According to data from the flight recorder both the fuel control switches, which are normally used to switch the engines on or off when on the ground, were moved from the run to the cutoff position shortly after takeoff. This caused both engines to lose thrust.
This caused confusion in the cockpit, with the voice recording catching one pilot asking the other why he “cut off” – The other pilot responded that he didn’t do it.
“The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec,” an excerpt from the report stated.
“The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cutoff.
“In 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 aircraft was set to travel from Ahmedabad to London but crashed shortly after take-off, with the pilots of the 787-8 Dreamliner giving a mayday signal before the plane crashed into a building that was being used as accommodation for doctors at a nearby hospital.
There was only one survivor on the plane, which had been carrying 169 Indian citizens, 53 British citizens, seven Portuguese citizens, one Canadian and 12 crew members. Five buildings were destroyed when the aircraft crashed into a populated residential area and nearly 30 people died on the ground.
The preliminary report doesn’t give a conclusion on how the switches moved. “At this stage of investigation, there are no recommended actions to Boeing 787-8 and/or GE GEnx-1B engine operators and manufacturers,” India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) said in the report.
The wreckage has been moved to a secure area near the airport. “Both engines were retrieved from the wreckage site and quarantined at a hangar in the airport,” the report said. “Components of interest for further examinations have been identified and quarantined.”
