A year later, India’s biggest Aviation mystery remains unsolved

One year ago today, Air India Flight AI-171 took off from Ahmedabad for London Gatwick. Thirty-two seconds later, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into the BJ Medical College campus, killing 241 of the 242 people onboard and 19 people on the ground. A year later, investigators have ruled out many of the explanations that typically emerge after an aviation disaster. The weather was favourable. Visibility was clear. Fuel quality tests were satisfactory. There was no evidence of a bird strike. The aircraft was properly configured for take-off. Investigators also found both engines were functioning normally before fuel supply was interrupted. Yet the central mystery remains unanswered. According to data recovered from the aircraft’s flight recorders, both fuel control switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF roughly three seconds after take-off. The switches moved one after the other, separated by just a tenth of a second. The significance of that action is enormous. Fuel control switches regulate the flow of fuel to an aircraft’s engines. When they moved to CUTOFF, fuel supply was interrupted and both engines began losing thrust. At that moment, the aircraft was only around 625 feet above the ground. The most debated evidence from the investigation is a brief cockpit exchange. According to the preliminary report, one pilot asked the other why he had cut off the fuel. The response came almost immediately: he had not done so. Within seconds, both switches were moved back to RUN. The crew attempted to restart the engines. Investigators found evidence that one engine showed signs of relighting while the other was attempting to recover. But the aircraft had almost no altitude left. Today, the same question remains where it was a year ago: why did both fuel control switches move to CUTOFF seconds after take-off?