Air India crash report delayed due to unfinished engine examination
A fire official stands next to the crashed Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, in Ahmedabad, India, on Jun 13, 2025. (Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi)
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Investigators will miss Friday’s (Jun 12) one-year deadline to explain why an Air India jet crashed because an examination of the Boeing 787 plane’s engines in the United States still needs to be completed, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) will likely issue a status report this week focused on the reasons behind the delay, the report added, citing people familiar with the matter.
India is expected to cite the need to complete the engine examination as the reason for the delay in issuing a final report, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on the condition of anonymity because the information is not public.
The Air India 787 headed to London crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad on Jun 12, 2025, killing 260 people in the world’s deadliest air disaster in a decade.
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A preliminary report released last year showed the 787’s engine fuel control switches moved almost simultaneously from “RUN” to “CUTOFF”, starving both engines of fuel shortly after the flight took off.
A final report is expected within three months, by when studies of the GE Aerospace engines should be concluded, Bloomberg News said, adding that the examination was occurring in the US because there were only a few places globally that had the necessary tools and could dismantle engines properly.
Reuters first reported last month that Indian officials investigating the crash were preparing an interim report rather than a final one ahead of the first anniversary because the investigation was deemed complex and time-consuming.
Under international rules, a final report is due within a year of an accident, but sometimes investigations take longer, so if that is not completed, an interim statement should be issued on each anniversary.
The AAIB, India’s aviation ministry, Air India, the US National Transportation Safety Board, Boeing and GE Aerospace did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The crash hit Air India at a sensitive stage of its post-privatisation turnaround, which has been slowed by supply-chain snags, the Iran war and an airspace ban imposed by Pakistan on Indian carriers.
PILOT ACTIONS EXAMINED
A cockpit recording of dialogue between the two pilots of the Air India 787 before it crashed supported the view that the captain cut the flow of fuel to its engines, according to US officials’ early assessment reported by Reuters last year. The AAIB said at the time it was “too early to reach any definite conclusions”.
The father of the captain asked India’s top court to order an independent investigation that took into account causes other than deliberate pilot action, which has been suspected in some other fatal crashes and confirmed in the case of Germanwings in 2015.
The Federation of Indian Pilots wrote to India’s civil aviation minister, aviation regulator and the prime minister’s office on Jun 5 requesting that an interim report not be released, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The pilots’ group also pushed for investigators to seek more technical data on the plane from Boeing and Air India to allow for a “rebuttal of the pilot suicide theory being explored by the AAIB”.
The preliminary report did not make any safety recommendations to Boeing or GE, indicating no technical issues had been discovered at that time.
It was the world’s first crash involving a 787 Dreamliner, a Boeing model that has been in service since 2011.
Source: Reuters/ec/dc
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