The exposé around the Air India 171 tragedy has just grown bigger and louder, with the US newspapers screaming about the fact that it was the AI-171 Commander who had allegedly turned off the Fuel Control switch as the first officer struggled to power them up again.
This shocking allegation originated from the WSJ and gradually spread to all streams of global media, making headlines as India awoke to a new dawn on July 17. The outrage at a press speculation in a foreign country, almost 10,000 kilometers away, was offensive and hurtful to the memories of the Pilots and Crew who perished with the passengers on June 12, 2025, but also showed the AAIB of India to be either incompetent or covering up.
Alarmed at the allegations, which until now were mere insinuations and spoken of in hushed tones earlier, were indicative of the blatant leaks that occurred whilst the government of India’s AAIB is conducting the investigation.
The WSJ reports alleged that it was the “Commander who pulled the switches,” and while the “First Officer Panicked,” the “commander reacted calmly,” which purports to describe a troubling scenario, allegedly within the cockpit that day, without a shred of evidence to support it.
The WSJ then detailed how the NTSB head Jennifer Homendy had called for the entire recording to examine it herself, and WSJ was speculating that some “US officials believed that criminal authorities should examine the matter, as would have been the case had this had happened on US Soil”, neglecting the fact that this accident was not on US soil or jurisdiction.
It is inexplicable that the day-to-day details of India’s highest Aviation accident investigation board were being leaked in the United States of America by US-based media. What was even more telling was that the AAIB Preliminary report, presented to the Government of India and Parliament, did not disclose any of these alleged facts!
Whilst one acknowledges that the preliminary report is not the final report, and is only a brief report of facts, to report the “what” and not the “why” and “how”, this preliminary report was full of holes, like Swiss cheese, and shorn of the actual details of the cockpit voice recorder, or timestamps of many relevant milestones during that short flight, it presented a distorted picture of an incident that was being covered up and consigned to the dustbin of history.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Board of India has, late in the evening, released a statement slamming “irresponsible international media over unverified claims” and “urged both public and media to refrain from spreading premature narratives that risk undermining the integrity of the investigative process”. A case of closing the stable doors after the horse had bolted, it was too little, too late.
The Air India flight AI-171 preliminary report was released by the AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Board) of India on July 12, 2025, a month after the crash. The 15-page report was a bundle of insinuations and innuendos, and seemed to balance the needs of big US corporations rather than thoroughly address all aspects of the truth. The Preliminary report was covered in detail in an earlier report of this publication.
On the very day the report had been released, we had indicated both on twitter and in the media, that it appeared as though the NTSB & AAIB knew more than they were disclosing, and were trying to break it to the public gently; and that the omission of the CVR transcripts from the preliminary report, was a critical failure of the report.
It could also have been that the AAIB was concealing something, to deflect attention elsewhere, as there are still many other technical, mechanical, and electronic possibilities that exist and need investigation.
These include the FAA notices of 2018, 2022 and UK CAA notice of 2015 and 2025, The (FOD) Foreign Object Debris risks of causing “Uncommanded Activation of the engine fuel shut off” as mentioned by Boeing and FAA in their May 02 2022 notice, and the confidential Boeing-GE 787 Test lab notes on possible TCMA malfunction in the EEC which caused automatic shutdown of the engines as in ANA.
Former US DOT Inspector General and prominent aviation attorney Mary Schiavo, speaking to E-Plane AI, has expressed serious concerns over a software-related thrust rollback malfunction, which could have played a role in the AI-171 crash.
The eplane report states, “that central to Schiavo’s warning is the Thrust Control Malfunction Accommodation (TCMA) system, mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration for the Boeing 787. The TCMA operates in conjunction with the Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) system, relying on computer inputs to determine whether the aircraft is airborne or on the ground. If these systems incorrectly classify the aircraft status, they may automatically adjust engine settings, potentially reducing thrust without any pilot intervention.
Her interview is available here: https://www.eplaneai.com/news/aviation-expert-suggests-boeing-787-software-may-have-contributed-to-ai-crash
The 2019 incident involving an All Nippon Airways (ANA) aircraft, where a similar dual-engine thrust rollback occurred, was identified as a software glitch.
Regarding the 2018 FAA SAIB, the report and the FAA have clarified that it was advisory and not mandatory. The UK CAA directives of 2015, which were reissued in May 2025 due to a change of emails. Notably, neither regulator has withdrawn the aforementioned Directives as of this date; they remain in effect. The fact that the UK CAA had to update the notice barely a month before the tragedy itself indicates that the substance of the circulars was still active and valid in law, albeit not seeking mandatory compliance. Had either regulator wished to signify that these circulars were withdrawn, the standard protocol would be to label them as withdrawn in bold on the website and on the document body itself, which was not done. In US legalese, these are enough to give rise to “reasonable doubt” and a basic tenet of aviation enquiries is that one must exhaust all other feasible technical possibilities before arriving at the “Suicide by Pilot”, or “Intentional Pilot actions”, or “pilot errors”.
This is without even considering the failure of the ELT, the massive damage to the EAFR units, the rumored battery fires, and numerous other issues. It must be noted that the Preliminary Report has stated that although Air India did not conduct an inspection of the B787 fuel cutoff switches, it did, however, replace the throttle quadrants of this Aircraft, VT-ANB, in 2019 and 2023, with no complaints regarding the fuel cutoff switches.
In the rush to push the Pilot conspiracy theory, most of these avenues remain unexplored so far, and thus require a deeper investigation, unless, of course, the CVR and DFDR evidence that the AAIB and NTSB are concealing are so brutally explicit and conclusive of intentional pilot action. The question then arises, “Why has that information not been disclosed so far, in a transparent manner?” Concealment and selective leaks by foreign media are harming India, and in my view, Indian aviation and Air India more so.
Ironically, the biggest beneficiary in all this, according to the blog “The Aviation Brief,” is Boeing. “From a post-crash low of $203.75 on June 12, the Boeing Stock rose approximately $230.14 on July 14- a gain of over 13% in just one month”. After flatlining on June 13, 2025, at $203, Boeing Shares have now climbed towards 52-week highs following the preliminary investigation report’s clean chit, and have risen even higher with the WSJ’s leaked articles. Clearly, someone has benefited hugely from this shoddy report by the AAIB.
While the WSJ allegations still appear to be a remote possibility, only the release of the entire CVR transcript can provide clarity on this tragedy. We already know that the AAIB has downloaded 49 hours of DFDR data of 6 flights and 2 hours of CVR conversations, including the tragic flight. The bigger question is, when the investigators had all this data, why did they not release the CVR transcripts to paint a more accurate picture?
Why is the CVR transcript critical for the world to understand what went on inside the cockpit of AI-171? The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a highly electronic aircraft with multiple redundancies and warnings, all of which are recorded on the CVR and DFDR. The visual and aural warnings for milestone events and failures would have lit up the cockpit and both pilots’ screens like a Christmas tree, with most of these warnings accompanied by continuous chimes or high-low chimes and aural flashing warnings on the screens. In between all this, the Pilots would have to converse with each other, as described in the report, and also try to attend to each one of these emergencies, which had resulted in a dual engine failure, and try to restart them.
Sadly, no commentator has covered these thus far, nor did the preliminary report mention a single one of these. Given below in tabular form are only some of the Aural and Visual Warnings that would have occurred in the cockpit of AI-171 during the first few seconds: –
| TIMINGS | WHAT | VISUAL & AURAL | EFFECT |
| AS PER CVR-DFDR | RAT DEPLOYED | AURAL & VISUAL WARNINGS – ENG L+R FAIL, RAT DEPLOYED | ENGINE FAIL, MASTER WARNING HORN, ELEC BUS OFF, EPGWS OR TERRAIN ALERTS, – VISUAL WARNINGS- EICAS- (WHITE OR AMBER) RAT DEPLOYED, ELEC RAT AUTO DEPLOY, |
| AS PER CVR-DFDR | ENGINE FAIL | FADEC DETECTS THRUST DROP | MASTER CAUTION LIGHT & MASTER CAUTION CHIME |
| AS PER CVR-DFDR | CONFIG GEAR NOT DOWN OR CONFIG FLAPS WARNING | WARNING MAY SOUND IF AIRCRAFT CONFIG IS INCORRECT FOR FLIGHT POST ENGINE FAILURE | HORN AND FLASHING SIGNS |
| AS PER CVR-DFDR | DON’T SINK OR PULL UP | (EGPWS) FOR DUAL ENGINE FAILURE | ON DUAL ENGINE FAILURE WITH DESCENT NEAR TERRAIN |
| AS PER CVR-DFDR | FUEL PRESSURE LOW (WILL NOT DISPLAY IF SWITCH IS MOVED TO CUTOFF) | MASTER CAUTION CHIME, FUEL PRESSURE LOW | VISUAL- FUEL PRESS (L/. R) ENG , FUEL PUMP MESSAGE, SYNOPTIC DISPLAY, |
| AS PER CVR-DFDR | ENG (L) (R ) FAIL OR ENG (L/R) FAIL START OR THRUST LOSS ENG ( L/ R) | AFFECTED ENGINE SHOWS DROP IN N1, N2, EGT & FUEL FLOW
*START CUTOUT MESSAGE DISSAPEARS IF AUTO RELIGHT IS ATTEMPTED |
|
| AS PER CVR-DFDR | DUAL ENGINE FAILURE | N1, N2 DROP, FUEL FLOW ZERO, OIL PRESSURE DROP, | |
| *THESE ARE NOT AN EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF COMMANDS & WARNINGS IN THE COCKPIT, BUT ARE INDICATIVE OF THE SERIES OF EVENTS THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN CAPTURED ON THE CVR/ DFDR | |||
India is today the third-largest aviation market in the world and the fourth-largest economy in the world. It will add more than 250 airports and 2,000 new aircraft in the next few years. Was it too much to ask for professionals to handle one of the most significant and closely watched aviation accident investigations in aviation history?
Either way, Indian citizens, aviators, and passengers must get to the bottom of it. I had on the day after the tragedy, expressed the need for a Judicial Enquiry by a High Court Judge, I reiterate that again, In the interest of all Passenger, Pilot & Aviation organisations in India, the Government of India must ensure that there is a judicial enquiry by a sitting High Court Judge along with 787 Pilots and experts, with powers of a Court to subpoena and examine witnesses, to investigate AI-171, parallel to the AAIB report, or in the alternate parties should file a (PIL) Public interest litigation, to institute this judicial enquiry.
In conclusion, AI-171 is fast becoming the phantom that no one can find, while the American media plays the role of the whistleblower, the world’s largest democracy cannot even offer transparency in a proper report. As the first Dreamliner crash, the eyes of the world are on India.
It appears that the lack of Parliamentary oversight over Civil Aviation has led to significant slippage in oversight standards, and we need to address this issue. I hope that, for the sake of India, along with those 270 souls and their families, transparency and accountability are afforded; we hope that the truth is disclosed to us all.
Sanjay Lazar
Sanjay Lazar is an Analyst, Lawyer, Author & commentator, who writes on International relations, Aviation and law. He is @sjlazars on @x.
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