Locator: 48715AIRINDIA171.
Preliminary report -- required by regulators to be published within 30 days of mishap:
Preliminary report for Air India is out. Here are main excerpts, time elapsed from 08:08:42 to 08:08:56 is fourteen seconds; from shutoff at 8:42 to crash at 9:11: 29 seconds.
- 08:08:42: Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 second
- 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.
- 08:08:52: Engine 1 fuel cutoff switch transitioned from CUTOFF to RUN
- 08:08:56: the Engine 2 fuel cutoff switch also transitions from CUTOFF to RUN The EGT (exhaust gas temperature) was observed to be rising for both engines indicating relight. Engine 1’s core deceleration stopped, reversed and started to progress to recovery. Engine 2 was able to relight but could not arrest core speed deceleration and re-introduced fuel repeatedly to increase core speed acceleration and recovery.
- the EAFR recording stopped at 08:09:11 UTC
Updates
July 13, 2025: over on social media, folks are starting to ask -- why is this story getting so little media attention. Three reasons:
- it happened overseas, in India, third world country;
- armchair wanna-be aviators knew this from the beginning; it was the only explanation that made sense;
- it completely absolves Boeing of any "complicity" -- haters so much wanted to see another Boeing "defect." In other words, nothing to see here.
July 12, 2025: there is one huge story not being reported by mainstream media or anyone for that matter. Although one analyst on YouTube did mention it in passing, he did expand on what it really means.
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A Most Gallant Effort
The most remarkable story not being told with regard to the Air India 171 crash: the “gallantry” of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s effort to recover and avert the disaster. After both engines came to a stop after the fuel cutoff had occurred, both engines relit when the fuel switches were returned to the “RUN” position. The Boeing aircraft fought magnificently and struggled to remain airborne and attempted to start climbing once again. When one looks at the timeline, it appears that the plane came within perhaps five seconds of recovering. I know that’s giving “human qualities” to a machine, but I was astounded to see how incredible that jet was in doing what it was designed to do and almost averted the disaster. Boeing gets a lot of grief, a lot of it well-deserved perhaps (I don’t know), but in this case, the Dreamliner proved its airworthiness “in spades,” as my dad would say.
It goes unsaid, of course, these planes are incredibly sophisticated. Just the toggle switches themselves— turning off the fuel flow and turning it back on — amazing design. Having said that, one wonders if designers of commercial airliners might learn something from the USAF / USN when it comes to two-key authentication needed to launch a nuclear weapon. I don’t know the process in the current nuclear-capable aircraft, but in the FB-111, pilots sitting in tandem in the cockpit each had to be involved in the process of dropping a nuclear weapon and neither pilot could do it by himself or herself. Had one toggle switch been placed on the far left side of the aircraft and the other toggle switch placed on the far right side of the cockpit, this particular type of event could not have happened. I assume under the toggle switches, it’s all electrical cable. I can’t imagine it being a mechanical connection from the middle of the cockpit to the engines hanging under the wings
But, then, of course, is for any reason, one of the commercial pilots becomes incapacitated, one of the fuel flow switches to one of the engines would be out of reach.
The 30-day preliminary reports, required by regulators (ICAO) failed to record some things that were definitely known. There must have been a lot of discussion about what to put in that report, how to report that information, and what other leave out.
We know who was flying the plane and YouTube analyses are superb in explaining how all that occurs, how the pilots share duties. What we’re missing from the report is which pilot said what in the audio recoding. That’s obviously known — at least one would think so. My hunch is that if that information was released, the public might focus on one of the two pilots who would be doxxed and his family would be put at risk. As it is, families of both pilots may now be at risk.
Original Post
That was my first thought posted on the blog some time ago. If I can find the post, I will re-post it. But it was the only obvious possibility based on information provided. Analysis on YouTube by "most-experience" active pilot posting on this subject mentioned that as one of three possible explanations but was so incredibly unbelievable, he would not touch it, and he threw that possibility into "the waste bin of possibilities" and said he would not even discuss it.
The only two other possibilities:
- fuel contamination (not possible); and,
- full electrical failure (also, not possible). (I forget if this was the third possibility; I believe it was but will see if I can find original post; regardless the third possibility had to do with sudden mechanical catastrophic failure involving both engines, also a statistical impossibility).
But, it all makes sense. The first question/answer: it explains why the Boeing planes were not grounded after this and it suggests the investigators knew from the beginning and it will be confirmed on the voice recorder.
If any analogy: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles.
I haven't read the full article yet, but I'll explain how this could have happened. There is a logical explanation and the NTSB folks knew it from the beginning and that's why these Boeing a/c weren't grounded in the first place.
Immediately after the crash, Indian authorities started changing scheduling routines and pilot training for Indian pilots. There will be a cultural component to this.
