Air India AI-171 Crash Report Delayed as GE Engine Review Drags

The final report on the Air India Boeing 787 crash that killed 260 people on 12 June 2025 is being held up by an unfinished engine review at GE Aerospace‘s Ohio facility, forcing India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau to prepare an interim statement at the one-year mark instead of the conclusions families have been waiting for. Investigators in Delhi say most of the report is done. The missing piece is sitting in a hangar in Cincinnati.

The Air India aircraft, operating as AI-171 from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, crashed 32 seconds after take-off and struck the hostel block of a medical college before catching fire. Of the 242 people on board, 241 died. Nineteen people on the ground were also killed. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, registered VT-ANB, was powered by two General Electric GEnx-1B70 engines that had been installed less than three months before the crash.

The Engine Review Holding Up the Final Report

Three officials familiar with the matter told the Hindustan Times that the engines recovered from the wreckage have been shipped to GE Aerospace’s facilities in Ohio for detailed examination. The components, burnt and damaged but largely intact, were dispatched “sometime back,” according to one official, who added that the final investigation report “cannot be released before the examination is completed.”

The civil aviation ministry did not respond to questions on when the engines were sent or when a response from GE is expected. A second official told the Hindustan Times that “most of the work on the final report has been completed, but the results of the engine examination are still awaited,” and that “at this stage, it is difficult to estimate when the report will be released.” A third official confirmed the inquiry itself is approaching completion, with only the technical review of the engines outstanding.

• 260 people killed in the AI-171 crash (241 on board, 19 on the ground)
• 32 seconds total airborne time before impact, per AAIB preliminary report
• 53 British nationals among the dead; sole survivor Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, seat 11A
• ~28,000 and ~33,000 operating hours on the two GEnx-1B70 engines, both installed <3 months before the crash
• 52 British dead is the figure that triggered UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch participation in the probe

Why the Switches Moved Remains Unresolved

The 15-page preliminary report released by the AAIB on 12 July 2025 established that both fuel control switches flipped from “run” to “cutoff” within about a second of each other shortly after take-off, starving both engines of fuel. A cockpit voice recording captured one pilot asking the other why he had cut off the fuel. The other pilot responded that he had not. The report stopped there, assigning no cause, no blame and no recommendation.

Investigators have not determined what caused the switches to move. That gap is exactly the territory the GE engine review is meant to fill, since the switches sit on the throttle control module just below each engine’s throttle lever and govern fuel flow to the engines themselves. The preliminary findings leave open whether the movement was physical, electronic, deliberate or the product of a wider system failure, a question that has since hardened into an open public dispute (the dispute over what caused the AI-171 crash).

The Fight Over Who Pulled Them

Within days of the preliminary report, The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said recordings of dialogue between the pilots suggested it was the captain, Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, who had flipped the switches. The 32-year-old first officer, Clive Kunder, was the pilot flying; Sabharwal was the pilot monitoring. Former NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt told CBS News the report showed “this was not a problem with the airplane or the engines. Instead… somebody in the cockpit shut the fuel off to those engines.”

The AAIB issued a statement condemning “selective and unverified reporting” in the international press as “irresponsible” and urged the public to “refrain from spreading premature narratives that risk undermining the integrity of the investigative process.” The Federation of Indian Pilots, representing around 6,000 pilots, called the preliminary report “irrevocably compromised” and, together with Sabharwal’s 91-year-old father, petitioned India’s Supreme Court for a judicial investigation.

Safety campaigners and lawyers for victims’ families have argued the opposite, pointing to a 2022 incident of “burning” in one of the plane’s main power panels, a known fault in the aircraft’s “core network” that the preliminary report noted had been permitted to fly with, and simulator tests suggesting the Ram Air Turbine deployed well before the fuel was cut off. Beasley Allen, a US law firm, says it represents the families of 135 victims.

When a pilot is alive he can defend himself. When the pilot is dead, all the agencies can collude, and they put the blame on the pilot, to save the manufacturer. And this is seen the world over. It’s not the first time.

What India’s Interim Statement Is Expected to Cover

AAIB is expected to publish an interim statement on or around 12 June 2026, the first anniversary of the crash, in line with its obligation under Annex 13 of the International Civil Aviation Organization convention. A source told Reuters the document will be “more comprehensive” than the preliminary report and will examine possible primary and contributing factors. The Independent reported on 20 May that the AAIB said the report will be published “as soon as the investigation is completed and accepted for publication.”

India’s civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu told reporters the investigation was in the “last stage” and that the report would “mostly” be ready by the anniversary, while adding that “we don’t interfere in it.” The areas the interim is expected to touch:

• Confirmation of completed investigative work, including wreckage distribution, flight recorder decoding and recorder timing
• Engine and component analysis status, with the GE review of the GEnx-1B70 engines flagged as still in progress
• Possible primary and contributing factors, going beyond the bare factual sequence of the preliminary report
• Safety recommendations only if and where findings already support them

Boeing, GE and the Quiet Around Annex 13

GE Aerospace, whose engine review is the actual reason the final report is not landing, declined to comment. “GE Aerospace declines to comment per Annex 13 rules governing active investigations and directs the reporter to AAIB/NTSB,” a spokesperson told the Hindustan Times. Boeing pointed to the same protocol: “The investigation is being led by India’s AAIB and, consistent with the UN International Civil Aviation Organization protocol known as Annex 13, we will defer to the AAIB to provide information about the investigation.”

Both companies have technical experts embedded in the US National Transportation Safety Board delegation supporting the Indian probe, alongside the Federal Aviation Administration. The structure means the two manufacturers with the most to lose from the report’s conclusions are formally deferring to the same agency that is still waiting on GE’s own analysis.

Former AAIB director general Aurobindo Handa framed the delay in wider terms, citing IATA data showing only 57% of accidents between 2018 and 2023 have publicly available final investigation reports, a gap he said “limits the industry’s ability to draw lessons from major safety events.”

When it comes to Defect Investigation Analysis of components, it is a highly technical job requiring a specific test bench and necessary infrastructure, and the completion of the Final Investigation report hugely depends on the respective OEM.

A Year of Mourning for Families the Report Cannot Reach

For the families of those who died, the delay is the second loss. In Mumbai, Imtiyaz Ali’s brother Javed, his sister-in-law Mariam and their two children Zayn and Amani were among the 241 who did not come home. Javed had moved to the UK, married Mariam, who worked at Harrods in London, and brought the children to India for the first time on the trip that ended at the B. J. Medical College hostel. A year on, Ali says Air India and Tata Group officials spent months giving the family vague or delayed responses on the investigation, the return of belongings and promised medical support, and that action came only after media attention or public pressure (a Mumbai family’s year of unanswered grief).

The sole survivor, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He has described how the cabin lights flickered just before the plane began to fall, a detail some independent experts say could point to a water leak in the aircraft’s electrical systems.

I don’t care about the report anymore. Can any report bring my son back?

Javed’s mother Farida Bano, who carries food to her son’s grave most evenings, has had three more cardiac stents inserted since the crash. “We trusted them,” Ali told the BBC. “We thought they would stand with us.”

The Annex 13 Clock and What Comes Next

Under Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention, states are expected to publish a final accident investigation report within 12 months. Where that target is missed, the same rule obliges annual status updates. On 27 May, UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch principal inspector Geraint Hebert wrote to bereaved families saying he had sought a publication timeline from AAIB India but had received no date, according to the Free Press Journal, as reported by the Hindustan Times. The British agency is a party to the probe because 52 British nationals died.

Air India, the airline at the centre of the investigation, is itself in turmoil. Chief executive Campbell Wilson resigned midterm, with losses for the year ending March 2026 reported at $2.4 billion, and India’s aviation regulator uncovered 51 safety violations at the carrier in its most recent annual audit, seven of them at the highest severity level. India’s civil aviation ministry told the Hindustan Times it would not comment on when the engines were sent or when a response from GE is expected, and the interim statement, not the final report, is what the 12 June 2025 anniversary is now expected to deliver.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the Air India AI-171 final report delayed?

AAIB is still waiting on a detailed engine analysis being carried out by GE Aerospace at its Ohio facility. The two GEnx-1B70 engines recovered from the wreckage were shipped there “sometime back,” and officials told the Hindustan Times the final report “cannot be released before the examination is completed.”

What did the AAIB preliminary report find?

Both fuel control switches moved from “run” to “cutoff” about three seconds after take-off, starving both engines of fuel. One pilot asked the other why he had cut off the fuel; the other replied that he had not. The 15-page report assigned no cause, no blame and no safety recommendation.

When will the final report be released?

AAIB said on 20 May that the report will be published “as soon as the investigation is completed and accepted for publication.” An interim statement is expected on or around the 12 June 2026 anniversary. A timeline for the final report is unclear.

How many people died in the Air India AI-171 crash?

241 of the 242 people on board plus 19 people on the ground, a total of 260. The passengers included 169 Indians, 53 Britons, 7 Portuguese and 1 Canadian. The sole survivor was British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, seated in 11A.

What is Annex 13?

Annex 13 is the International Civil Aviation Organization’s protocol governing aircraft accident investigations. It sets the 12-month target for final reports, obliges annual status updates when that is missed, and has been cited by both GE Aerospace and Boeing for declining to comment on the AI-171 probe.