🕒 What happened?
Thus, on June 12, 2025, Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, just managed to take off in Ahmedabad before disaster struck. Shortly after take-off, the aircraft, end route to London Gatwick, crashed directly into a medical college dorm.
🕵️ Why caused it to crash?
The simultaneous shutdown of the fuel control switches on both engines shortly after take-off appears to have resulted in fuel starvation, according to preliminary AAIB findings.
Although it is unlikely that these switches will be accidentally activated due to their mechanical guarding, voice recordings from the cockpit showed one pilot asking the other, “Why did you cut off the fuel?” Both pilots denied any responsibility.
🧑 Who was involved?
The flight crew: Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, with ~15,600 flight hours; First Officer Clive Kunder, 32, with ~3,400 hours.
The sole survivor: British‑Indian passenger Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, seated in row 11A
🏢 Where did it happen?
The disaster happened in a residential area near Ahmedabad Airport, where the plane collided with a medical college hostel shortly after take-off. The departure time on June 12 was around 1:39 p.m. IST. The jet crashed into tragedy when the engines failed within 32 seconds of take-off.
🛠 How did the disaster unfold?
Picture this: barely off the runway, both fuel cutoff switches slam to “CUTOFF”. No more juice for the engines. The crew tries to restart, but it’s a lost cause at that point. MAYDAY goes out right before impact. The black boxes got pulled from the wreck and sent to the AAIB, with the whole alphabet soup of aviation agencies—NTSB, FAA, Boeing, GE—all poking around.
🔍 What’s the investigation saying?
So, was it a screw-up or a system glitch? That’s the million-dollar question. People are arguing over whether the switches got flipped by accident, on purpose, or if the hardware just glitched out. Funny thing—the FAA warned about dodgy switch designs back in 2018 but didn’t make airlines fix them, and Air India didn’t bother with the optional check. Classic.
No evidence so far that the engines or the airframe were faulty, so Boeing and GE are (at least for now) off the hook. The final report’s not dropping for a year, so everyone’s left guessing and side-eyeing their own cockpit switches.
📌 Aftermath & fallout:
This jet—an almost 11-year-old 787 (VT-ANB) with GE engines—was totally up to date on maintenance. No red flags, nothing. This is the first fatal crash for a 787 since the Dreamliner hit the skies in 2011. Also, India’s worst aviation disaster in a decade.
Air India’s under the microscope (again), with the EU poking into their safety practices too. Nobody’s loving this.
Bottom line?
The investigation has revealed something shocking—both engine fuel switches were turned off, either by mistake or on purpose, causing the plane to lose power and crash. While the final report is still pending, this raises big questions about cockpit safety, aircraft design, and whether it was human error or something more.
The investigation is still open. Was it a tragic mistake, sabotage, or mechanical issue? No final answers yet. But one thing’s clear—this wasn’t just a crash.
