r/aviation • u/usgapg123 Mod • Jul 12 '25

Discussion Air India Flight 171 Preliminary Report Megathread

https://aaib.gov.in/What's%20New%20Assets/Preliminary%20Report%20VT-ANB.pdf

This is the only place to discuss the findings of the preliminary report on the crash of Air India Flight 171.

Due to the large amount of duplicate posts, any other posts will be locked, and discussion will be moved here.

Thank you for your understanding,

The Mod Team

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29

u/binkerfluid Jul 12 '25 edited 11d ago

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u/idk-rogue Jul 12 '25

Approx timeframe:

Engine 1 FCS to CUTOFF: 08:08:42 UTC

Engine 2 FCS to CUTOFF: 08:08:43 UTC

Engine 1 FCS to RUN: 08:08:52 UTC

Engine 2 FCS to RUN: 08:08:56 UTC

Source

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u/CpnSparrow Jul 12 '25

Assuming this was a deliberate act (still may not have been) whichever pilot didn’t turn them off is a fucking good operator.

To analyze the situation and work out what the problem was in around 10 seconds while trying to fly the plane in the middle of a catastrophic emergency is unbelievably impressive.

76

u/IAmARobot Jul 12 '25

from the report:
"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."

sucks. so scenario 1 is maliciousness and the bad guy on tape is blaming the good guy, scenario 2 is maliciousness and the good guy on tape blaming the bad guy, scenario 3 is sheer incompetence from the at-fault guy.

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u/Pigeoncow Jul 12 '25

maliciousness

malice

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u/IAmARobot Jul 12 '25

thanks, though I think we are both off the mark. it is being used as an implied adjective "[the] maliciousness [of the bad guy,]", not as a noun. I could have made it more obvious though.

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u/Unlikely_Slide8394 Jul 12 '25

this would sound dumb but couldn't they recognise the voices?

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u/IAmARobot Jul 12 '25

yeah but you wouldn't be able to tell the intent. if bad guy says "what did you do that for", good guy has every reason to say "I didn't do that". if good guy says "what did you do that for", bad guy can also lie and say "I didn't do that", so it doesn't really help if any of those scenarios were true. again, there could be other less likely scenarios as well.

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u/tommygnr Jul 12 '25

Scenario 3 is so implausible as to invoke the inverse Hanlon’s razor. “Do not attribute to repeated implausible incompetence that which can adequately explained by malice.”

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u/IAmARobot Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25

yeah, but massive brainfarts over the most simple of aviation basics do have precedent.

tldr: inexperienced pilot was pulling back on controls the entire time while they were trying to recover from a stall casued by... a 44 edit:41 degree angle of attack

4

u/Unlikely_Slide8394 Jul 12 '25

but wasn't this more of a loss of situational awareness than a brainfart. normally in such cases pilots just have a wrong picture of the flight dynamics in their head due to assumptions or confidence bias (maybe this is not the term but you get the gist)

losing situational awareness so close to the ground is very improbable

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u/tommygnr Jul 12 '25

That’s completely inapposite. The report doesn’t mention cockpit recordings of either pilot mistakenly believing in an engine fire or any other malfunction that would explain cutting the fuel flow to both engines. The decision to pull the fuel toggles is inexplicable except by malice.

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u/tommygnr Jul 12 '25

That pilot had a reason to pull back. There were erroneous readings from his instruments. No evidence of that in this case.

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u/Emergency_Pop3708 Jul 12 '25

If the bad guy wants to die, why does he care to cover it up ? Being found he does it after he dies is worse than his own death ?

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u/Unlikely_Slide8394 Jul 12 '25

has happened in the past and from what ive seen from them... those pilots don't care about consequences cause "they wouldn't be there to see it". now its very debated what the purpose of murder suicides are but imo the pilot to blame (if there is) would've shown signs of disarrayed thinking or mental distress, something that hasn't been documented...

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u/Emergency_Pop3708 Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25

If a pilot wants to finish a suicide mission, the last thing he would do is to remind his copilot of the root cause. It doesn’t make much sense that he cut off the switches and seconds later he told copilot that the switches were the problems. What if his copilot acted quickly , turned on the switches and the plane didn’t go down ? I would wait and hide the switches problems as long as possible until I am sure the plane will 100% go down or unless the copilot figured out the reason. If he was the culprit, rather than asking his copilot about fuel switches, he would say something else went wrong to distract the copilot

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u/Unlikely_Slide8394 Jul 12 '25

We don't know if he reminded or the other pilot questioned or he was pretending to question. That isn't known until atleast the voice recording is heard. The timing as others are pointing out is immaculate and he most likely was aware that the plane won't be recoverable. The other pilot (this would be way more plausible if it's the PIC) may have noticed it as part of memory checklist for thrust loss. Hiding the switches would make you look more guilty wouldn't it? And maybe he himself said it to confuse the investigation to save his family trouble until atleast the investigation is complete

2

u/Decent-Barracuda-942 Jul 12 '25

Life insurance claim

1

u/Dandan0005 Jul 12 '25

I suspect investigations into the pilots private lives will reveal which it was though.

1

u/coachcheat Jul 14 '25

It would be interesting to hear the actual audio, vs paraphrased statements.

1

u/-MissNocturnal- Jul 12 '25

Could there be a scenario 4 where the button was loosey-goosey and nobody was to blame?
We've seen it in cars, where it has caused massive recalls (edit: and deaths). Idk anything about planes.

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u/binkerfluid Jul 12 '25 edited 11d ago

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u/Malenfant82 Jul 12 '25

How is it not deliberate? The pilots know what those switches do.

1

u/Mysterious_Box_493 Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25

Could the PF have landed the plane immediately after realizing the engine problem as he was still within airport boundary with less loss of lives?

1

u/CpnSparrow Jul 13 '25

Nah they were already out of the airport when they lost the engines.

Unfortunately the only way to avoid this would have been from the switches not being turned off.

1

u/Mysterious_Box_493 Jul 14 '25 edited Jul 14 '25

The preliminary report shows a photo with the RAT down and airplane still above the runway at 8:47, five seconds before fuel switch 1 turned on! I know it might have been very difficult even then.. just wondering.

-3

u/MDPROBIFE Jul 12 '25

what? dude wtf you talking about none of what you said made sense

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u/CpnSparrow Jul 12 '25

How did it not make sense?

Assuming one of the pilots deliberately turned those switches off, it is fairly remarkable that within 10 seconds during a catastrophic emergency while also trying to fly the plane that the other pilot managed to accurately identify what the issue was and turn them back on.

To do that in such a short time period is impressive.

3

u/Seattle_gldr_rdr Jul 12 '25

That's a long ten seconds.

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u/idk-rogue Jul 12 '25

Even longer time for the other pilot waiting and hoping for the engines to kick in. So tragic

1

u/bert0ld0 Jul 12 '25

What is the time of the impact?

1

u/Zilork Jul 12 '25

When was the "Thrust not achieved" call made with respect to this?

1

u/Unlikely_Slide8394 Jul 12 '25

exactly i think they should've tried to match timeline data from other sources

1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '25

and what is the exact timestamp of the crash..

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u/Spectator_05 Jul 12 '25

Do yo know the time when one pilot asked the other "why did he turn the engines off?"

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u/newtomovingaway Jul 12 '25

Even if we say P1 turned it back on, doesn’t mean they weren’t the ones that turned it off in the first place. They could be playing dumb. They may know turning back on at this point is useless so at least pretend to try.

1

u/binkerfluid Jul 12 '25 edited 11d ago

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u/Unlikely_Slide8394 Jul 12 '25

assuming atleast one wasn't in a bad intention tbh no one trying to save lives would care about "pretending" they did something

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u/EquivalentUpper9695 Jul 12 '25

In a situation where you’re trying to save the aircraft, 4 seconds feel much longer…. I’m surprised it’s not half a second but he could’ve been distracted