One year after Air India Flight 171 crashed seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad, killing 260 people in the deadliest air disaster in a decade, families gathered at the crash site on Friday to mourn — still without a final answer on what brought the aircraft down. India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is preparing an interim update rather than final conclusions, with engine analysis by GE Aerospace still delaying the full report.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, bound for London Gatwick on June 12, 2025, came down roughly 32 seconds into its flight, striking the BJ Medical College hostel complex in the city's Meghaninagar area. Of the 242 people aboard, 241 were killed — 169 Indian nationals, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian among the passengers — along with 19 people on the ground. The sole survivor, Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin, lost his brother Ajay in the crash. Former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani was among the dead.
The AAIB's preliminary report contained the investigation's central puzzle: the aircraft's engine fuel control switches moved almost simultaneously from RUN to CUTOFF shortly after takeoff, starving both engines at the most critical phase of flight. The report stopped short of assigning responsibility or identifying a definitive cause, and issued no safety recommendations to Boeing or GE Aerospace.
That restraint has fed a year of contention. Pilots' associations have publicly challenged readings of the preliminary findings that imply crew action, and families have pressed for a timeline. Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said the investigation 'continues with diligence and professionalism in accordance with established national and international procedures.'
Air India employees across the network observed a two-minute silence at 1:39 p.m. local time, the moment of the crash, with memorial events at company facilities in Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad and at London's airports. At the crash site, relatives laid flowers beside tributes painted by students and local artists.
The airline and its parent have largely completed interim payouts, and the crash remains the first fatal accident involving the 787 since the type entered service in 2011 — a record that has made the unresolved cause weigh all the more heavily on the global Dreamliner fleet.
For the families, the anniversary sharpened a simple demand: a final report. Until the AAIB completes its engine analysis and publishes its conclusions, both the litigation over the disaster and the safety lessons from it remain in suspension.