Indian investigators are preparing to release a report on the crash involving a London-bound Air India flight that killed 260 people last year.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner carrying 242 people crashed in western India seconds after taking off on 12 June 2025, slamming into a medical college’s hostel outside the Ahmedabad airport and breaking up. One British passenger miraculously survived. Everyone else on the plane was killed, as were 19 people on the ground.
Investigators are required by international regulations to produce a final accident report within a year of a crash, revealing the probable cause and giving recommendations on how to avoid similar incidents in the future. If they can’t do so, they must release an update to their investigation on each anniversary of the disaster.
In this case, however, it appears highly unlikely that Indian aviation authorities will publish the final report on 12 June.
Several questions remain unanswered about what went wrong with Air India Flight 171. Families of the dead as well as people who were injured are anxiously awaiting the accident report, not least because a number of lawsuits filed against Air India and Boeing are now proceeding through the courts in the UK and the US, alleging culpability on the part of the airline and manufacturer.
India's civil aviation minister said last month the investigation was in the “last stage” and that the report would “mostly” be ready by the anniversary. “However, the investigation is being done by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau and we don't interfere in it,” Ram Mohan Naidu told reporters. “We are giving them all the resources they need.”
When will the Air India report be released?
Indian authorities were prompt in releasing a preliminary report into the crash last year, exactly 30 days after the incident, in line with their international obligations.
Last month, Mr Naidu said investigators were trying to complete their work “as soon as possible”, while the AAIB said that its report would be released “as soon as the investigation is completed and accepted for publication”.
They didn’t commit to releasing their final findings by 12 June, however, and news reports earlier this month indicated it was more likely that an “interim” report would be produced instead. An unnamed source told Reuters it would not be the final report because “it is a very complex investigation and is taking time”.
The timeline for the final report was unclear.
There is precedent for final crash reports taking longer than the ideal target of one year stipulated by the UN’s aviation body. The final safety report after the 2014 disappearance of MH370 was published four years later, for instance, while a revised final report into 1991 crash of United Airlines Flight 585 was released over 10 years later.
Reuters cited sources saying the final report would be delayed because of the need to "complete an analysis of the plane's engines".
This followed a Bloomberg report claiming the final report was expected within three months, once studies of the engines were concluded.
Investigators conducted engine tests in April before travelling to France last month to analyse the engine management unit, reports noted.
The investigation’s shortcomings were further exposed after it was revealed that the sole survivor, Vishwashkumar Ramesh, was formally interviewed eight months after the incident.
The survivor had stayed in India for weeks after the crash but he wasn’t interviewed until 29 March this year, which could have further delayed the investigation, the Free Press Journal reported.
On 5 June, the Federation of Indian Pilots wrote to the prime minister’s office, the civil aviation minister and the aviation regulator requesting that an interim report not be released.
What did the preliminary report say?
The preliminary report released last year stuck to providing the factual sequence of events, stopping short of any causal analysis and leaving deeper questions unanswered. It claimed that three seconds after taking off, both the aircraft’s fuel control switches almost simultaneously flipped from “run” to “cutoff”, starving the engines of fuel.
The switches returned to the “run” position after about 10 seconds. It was too late. Moments later, one of the pilots transmitted a “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday” call.
The aircraft immediately began to lose thrust and sank. One pilot could be heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he had cut off fuel.
"The other pilot responded that he did not do so," the report said. An auxiliary power unit intended to provide power to the aircraft in the event of engine failure deployed automatically, but did not supply enough lift to prevent a catastrophic crash into a hostel at Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College.
The 15-page preliminary report assigned no blame, identified no cause and didn’t conclude whether the crash was the result of technical failure, human error, maintenance issues, or systemic oversight gaps.
It still triggered a media trial of the two pilots, first officer Clive Kunder, 32, who was flying, and captain Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, who was observing.
US officials later said the cockpit recording supported the view that it was the captain who cut the flow of fuel to the engines. The captain’s family petitioned India’s top court to try and clear his name.
What will the report uncover?
The AAIB says its investigation “is looking into each and every factor” to determine what caused the crash. It also says the final report will issue safety recommendations to avoid such an accident in the future, although it’s not immediately clear how much this point will be covered in the interim report.
Independent aviation experts hope the report will shed more light on theories beyond pilot action, including a possible electrical fault. The lone survivor previously described how the lights flickered inside the plane just before it started to fall, and some experts said this could point to a water leak.
According to the Foundation for Aviation Safety, an advocacy group in the US, the specific Boeing plane involved in the crash had a record of technical and electrical failures.
It entered service with Air India in 2014 and went on to suffer a series of system failures, including an electrical fire in 2022 which led to the replacement of core system components, the group said in a submission to the US Senate.
The issues, it alleged, were caused by "a wide and confusing variety of engineering, manufacturing, quality, and maintenance problems throughout its 11-year life".
Boeing’s chief executive Kelly Ortberg had offered the manufacturer’s “deepest condolences” to the victims after the crash, and said that Boeing “stands ready to support the investigation led by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau”.
The Independent has reached out to Air India, Boeing and AAIB for comment. Boeing has previously referred media inquiries to Indian authorities, citing the ongoing investigation.
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