AI 171 Crash: Fuel Cutoff and a Fatal Plunge
Now, a preliminary investigation points to a chilling cause: fuel to both engines was cut off just after takeoff. The engines lost thrust. The plane had neither the altitude nor the time to recover.
What happened in those final seconds? Was it a technical failure or human error?
Guest: Jagriti Chandra, Special Correspondent at The Hindu covering aviation
Host: Anupama Chandrasekaran
Produced and edited by Jude Francis Weston
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The Print
10 hours ago
- The Print
‘More careful than colourful'—ThePrint's reporting on the Air India crash put facts first
This Readers Editor column considers ThePrint's approach to its reporting on AI-171 and the subsequent preliminary findings of the investigation by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AIBB) released on 12 July 2025. When you're reporting on something as devastating, sensitive—and immediate—as the Air India-171 crash last month, it is crucial to remember the value of good journalism, amid the endless theories on the reasons for the accident. Good journalism requires good hygiene. That means you have to write clean copy and provide the audience with a clear picture of the events you report. You have to cut out all the frills, the speculation, the 'extras'—which might make your reporting more lively and interesting to read, but don't always give readers accurate, factual, verified information. ThePrint's coverage was descriptive but factual and based on reliable sources. When you go through the articles or watch the videos, you will notice that the reporters are being selective in their choice of words. After reading or watching most of the reporting, I'd say it was more careful than colourful. The day of crash The afternoon of 12 June was just another normal day at ThePrint. I remember that it was a Thursday because I was at ThePrint's office in New Delhi for my weekly meeting with colleagues. It was fairly quiet as afternoons go, with reporters out on assignments, and those in the office staring at the computer monitors or mobile phones. Suddenly, it came to life. I saw people rush to watch the television monitors, and as I joined them, I beheld a sea of serious faces around me. The AI-171 had crash-landed at Ahmedabad airport. Nisheeth Upadhyay, Editor News Operations, realised it was huge. 'Whenever a commercial flight crashes it is a huge deal. We knew this was a big story.' The immediate response was to put out a 'Breaking News' story with the little information available. Next was to check for an accurate reading of the flight's movements up to its fall to the ground. Since I don't work on the editorial side of operations at ThePrint, I began to feel a little redundant, and in people's way. So, I sat on the sidelines and watched. A quick edit meeting was convened and everyone present in the office came together to suggest immediate story ideas. 'We felt, instinctively, that we should report the news as it came through and could be confirmed, but also do stories that added value,' Upadhyay said. 'From the moment it happened, there was so much noise in the media and social media—everyone was playing expert. 'At ThePrint, we were clear: Be sensitive, give the information, don't analyse—just plain, simple facts and information that can be confirmed. No conjecture.'' The difficulty that arose was the lack of access to the facts of the accident—or to any immediate information from the site of the crash in Ahmedabad—ThePrint doesn't have its own correspondent in the Gujarat capital. In stepped, Rama Lakshmi, Editor, Opinion and Ground Reports, and her team to fill the void. 'We had to keep reader interest going,' said Lakshmi. She also had previous experience covering airplane crashes, which helped. 'I put on my reporter's cap and looked for different angles to the story until our reporters reached the accident spot,'' she added. The reporters in the Delhi Ground Reports team filed reports on past history and the context of the incident. From other commercial flight crashes in India and Air India's current fleet of aircraft, accounts of survivors in Ahmedabad, stories of people who suffered in similar plan crashes, to another sole survivor of an air crash, the revamp of Ahmedabad runway, and the last social media post of some victims—these were some of the early stories put out by ThePrint. Interviewing victims & tackling misinformation The most pressing concern was to get on-ground reporting from Ahmedabad. ThePrint's nearest reporting team was in Mumbai. 'We were unsure of flights taking off from Mumbai and being able to land in Ahmedabad,' recalled Manasi Phadke, Deputy Editor based in Mumbai, who reached the city the next morning. Luckily, the Delhi-Ahmedabad evening flight was on schedule, so National Photo editor Praveen Jain and Senior Correspondent Krishan Murari flew out. 'I have covered earlier air crashes—Charkhi Dadri, for example. So I knew what it was like on the ground,' said Jain. In 1996, a midair collision between two commercial aircraft over Charkhi Dadri outside Delhi killed 349 people. Krishan Murari had never reported on an air crash or any accident of this proportion. He'd reported on Operation Sindoor and the Pahalgam terrorist attack in May. AI-171 presented a different challenge. 'After Operation Sindoor, coming to this, I realised you need a completely different kind of vocabulary. You have to be far more sensitive. I'd call it compassionate journalism,' he said. Praveen Jain and Krishan Murari reached Ahmedabad within 12 hours of the crash and visited the site, the hospital, and the mortuary. 'It was very hot outside, and even inside, the temperature was higher than it should have been. There was an overwhelming smell of the charred bodies,' Murari added. Together, they filed a number of stories over the next few days. Here are some of them: Meet the forensic dentist racing against time so kin of Air India crash victims can say final goodbye Air India crash: Inside Ahmedabad hospital morgue, bodies await DNA ID as doctors race against heat, time Confusion, debris & bodies at Air India crash site. Rescue worker first thought it was cylinder blast Air India crash: All 4 hostel buildings of BJ Medical College emptied amid site investigation This Air India crash eyewitness cheated death by a whisker—'a blast, then a fireball, just 200 m away' Manasi Phadke found the lack of official information to be one of the major stumbling blocks in her first few days of reporting. 'The media was the least important for them, so we had to source information wherever we could,'' she said, 'We had to be very careful, not speculate.' So, she had to piece together information. Here are some of the stories she filed: 11 DNA matches 48 hrs after Air India crash: Process of releasing victims' bodies to families begins The crash, the rescue & aftermath—Inside the first 36 hours at ground zero of Air India crash Behind the scenes of Gujarat's Air India crash response—4 IAS officers, 36 DNA experts & 230 teams Medical college's exam hall turns into DNA sampling centre. For victims' kin, it's the longest test yet After a week's search, family working in hostel mess cremates mother & 2-yr-old killed in Air India crash Phadke, Jain and Murari turned to doctors, workers, and the families of the victims. 'Families presented a challenge, a lot of them were angry. You can't just walk up to them and say, 'Kya hua?'. 'We had to be sensitive—I didn't use the camera immediately—I waited till they were at ease,' recalled Praveen Jain. As far as possible, he tried to click pictures from a distance. Even, then, one family member of a victim scolded him for taking pictures and Jain immediately apologised. Phadke said she had to make people feel comfortable before they spoke. Some like to speak – 'I am still in touch with at least one relative,' she said, adding, 'You have to talk around the subject, be conversational.' Also read: Inside ThePrint's mailbox—readers bring us praise, critique, and everything in between Unpacking investigation report Back in Delhi, Bismee Taskin, Principal Correspondent, was keeping an eye out for government communications. 'My job was to get in touch with the DGCA, the civil aviation ministry. To confirm information, verify it with at least two reliable sources,' she explained. She was also in touch with former pilots of Air India. When the preliminary report was released on 12 July, she reported it. 'Preliminary report is like an FIR,' said Taskin, 'No conclusions should be based on it. You have to wait till the final report for probable cause.' Taskin's stories, therefore, were straightforward, simply putting out what the report stated. Have a look: Air India crash spotlights 2018 advisory on Boeing switches installed with locking feature disengaged Air India crash preliminary report: A look at what fuel switches are designed to do & built-in safeguards Throughout the last month and a half, victims' families, aviation experts and the average reader want to know what brought the aircraft down? Why did it crash? There are so many technical details to it—and a lay person, with no understanding of them was prey to various theories doing the rounds. Nisheeth Upadhyay is, in his own words, an 'aviation nut''. Thus, it was possible for him to understand the complex (mal)functioning of an aircraft and to explain it in simple language. 'I was very careful not to act as an authority on the subject, just to describe what we knew had happened and to explain,'' he said, 'No aviation experting.'' On the preliminary report, which led to so much speculation and finger-pointing to pilot error in some foreign news media such as the Wall Street Journal, Upadhyay said only the final report mattered: 'There is not enough evidence to attribute blame. And so, ThePrint's line was that—there's not enough information to reach a conclusion.' I would recommend you watch his videos: they are clear, concise, and to the point, factual—without unnecessary opinion or speculation. I know I learned a great deal from them. The common thread in ThePrint's reporting—from the ground and Delhi—was to keep it simple, stick to verified facts and attribute views clearly. I have one suggestion newsrooms like ThePrint could consider: After tough assignments in the field, reporters may need some assistance in dealing with the traumas they witness. It can be overwhelming, especially for young reporters. Counselling is one option, and a few days' leave may help them cope better. Shailaja Bajpai is ThePrint's Readers' Editor. Please write in with your views and complaints to (Edited by Ratan Priya)
Hindustan Times
19 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Why did Munich-bound United Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner flight declare ‘Mayday' after take-off?
A Munich-bound United Airlines flight faced a mid-air emergency on Friday (July 25), declaring a 'Mayday' call shortly after take-off from Washington. After issuing the 'Mayday' alert, the flight continued to circle northwest of Washington.(AFP) The flight was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner with callsign UA108. This comes days after US manufacturing company Boeing faced heat after an Air India flight travelling to London's Gatwick Airport crashed after takeoff in Gujarat's Ahmedabad. The incident, which marked the first fatal crash of a 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, claimed the lives of 260 people. Why did the flight declare 'Mayday'? The United Airlines flight's left engine failed moments after taking off from Washington. The engine malfunctioned at an altitude of around 5,000 feet on July 25. Following this, the pilots informed the air traffic controllers about the situation and initiated emergency procedures to land safely at the airport. After issuing the 'Mayday' alert, the flight continued to circle northwest of Washington in a holding pattern. This was done to safely dump the fuel before landing back at the Washington Dulles Airport. The flight was air-bound for 2 hours 38 minutes before it landed back at the airport, data from FlightAware showed. The incident comes days after an emergency situation unfolded in an American Airlines flight at the Denver International Airport. The passengers aboard the American Airlines flight AA 3023 were evacuated from the aircraft through emergency slides after they experienced smoke in the cabin. The aircraft, which was a Boeing 737 MAX 8 travelling to Miami, was involved in a 'possible landing gear incident', according to the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The airline later clarified that the issue was caused due to an aircraft tire. The American Airlines pilots also called for fuel dumping and coordinated with the ATC operators to ensure safe separation from the air traffic in the region in order to safely discharge the fuel, an Aviation A2Z report stated.
The Hindu
19 hours ago
- The Hindu
GPS devices installed in garbage vehicles to keep track of their movement
The Tiruvannamalai Corporation has fitted the Global Positioning System (GPS) in its garbage vehicles to keep track of waste generation, especially door-to-door collection from households on a daily basis to ensure cleanliness of the town. Officials of Tiruvannamalai Corporation, which has started the initiative, said that the idea to introduce GPS tracking system in trash vehicles is to re-energize the process of source segregation at households by sanitary workers before segregated wastes are dumped at landfill sites on Girivalam path. 'The idea is to inculcate the habit of source segregation by consumers as it will be helpful to process segregated wastes easily and to ensure cleanliness of the town,' S. Selva Balaji, Commissioner, Tiruvannamalai Corporation, told The Hindu. Corporation officials said that garbage segregation into biodegradable and non biodegradable wastes was stopped during the outbreak of pandemic in 2021. Since then, sanitary workers were simply dumping all unsegregated wastes collected from households in landfill sites. It has resulted in accidental fires. Also, segregation of accumulated wastes at landfill sites remains challenging due to such accidents. The GPS fitted vehicles help to encourage segregating wastes by consumers themselves. It helps to monitor door-to-door collection, routes taken by sanitary vehicles and time taken for the work. Minister for Public Works and Highways E.V. Velu and Tiruvannamalai Collector were apprised about the initiative by the Corporation. Senior civic officials including Corporation Commissioner will be able to keep track of the vehicles. Civic officials will be alerted on any devivation on routes taken by vehicles and more time taken at specified streets. Currently, the Corporation has around 110 garbage vehicles covering areas around Arunachaleswara temple and Girivalam path.Every day, on an average, 65-70 metric tonnes of wastes are generated in the town. Each ward has 60-70 streets with around 400 households and a capacity of 300 kg garbage generation. At present, the Corporation has around 350 sanitary workers with over 60% of them are women. Corporation officials said initially, the project will be implemented in core areas of the town before extending it to other areas. The civic body was extended in January 2025 by merging 18 surrounding villages to become a Corporation.
