Air India plane crash latest: Focus turns to pilot audio after ‘extremely rare' dual engine failure suspected
Investigators have now recovered the cockpit voice recorder from last week's devastating Air India crash and will analyse the pilots' final words to help determine what caused the disaster that killed more than 270 people.
The flight data recorder from flight AI171 in Ahmedabad was found earlier, and a critical loss of power from both engines is increasingly being seen as the most probable cause of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner's sudden descent.
The exact cause of the 'extremely rare' dual engine power loss on the Gatwick-bound Dreamliner remains unknown.
Two more Air India flights were grounded or delayed in the past 24 hours as India 's civil aviation authority ordered urgent pre-flight checks on fuel systems, electronic engine controls, and other components across Boeing 787 aircraft in the country.
Families in India with concerns can call Air India on 1800 5691 444. Those outside India can call the British Foreign Office on 020 7008 5000.
Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner flight forced to turn back with technical issue – days after Ahmedabad disaster
A Delhi-bound Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner flight was forced to turn back to Hong Kong on Monday after the pilot reported technical issues mid-air.
The Air India flight AI 315 departed from the Asian city at 11.59 am local time for its scheduled destination in New Delhi. It reached an altitude of 22,000 feet, and then started descending, according to the flight tracking website AirNav Radar. The plane was 7 years old. Officials said the aircraft landed safely back in Hong Kong around 3.20 pm local time.
Air India flight forced to return to Hong Kong after mid-air technical issue
Officials said the nature of the technical issue is not immediately clear
Tom Watling17 June 2025 06:00
Family of three UK citizens killed in Air India crash allege 'disjointed' response from government
The grieving family of three British citizens killed in the Air India crash has criticised the UK government for a 'painfully slow' and 'disjointed' response in India.
They say they've received conflicting information, lacked access to medical and forensic support, and felt abandoned by UK officials.
The family of Akeel Nanabawa, Hannaa Vorajee, and their four-year-old daughter Sara Nanabawa is urging the UK government to improve its communication with relatives who travelled to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, in the aftermath of the crash.
A family spokesperson told The Guardian: 'There is no UK leadership here, no medical team, no crisis professionals stationed at the hospital.
'We are forced to make appointments to see consular staff based 20 minutes away in a hotel, while our loved ones lie unidentified in an overstretched and under-resourced hospital.'
Abu Nanabawa, Akeel's cousin said: 'It seems to be a universally shared sentiment of frustration at the management of this whole crisis.'
He added: 'At the moment, we just want to have the bodies so that we can bury them and mourn properly. In our faith and religion [Islam], it's very important that the funeral gets done as soon as possible. It's a part of the grieving process to bury and honour them, to return them as soon as possible and grieve them.'
Maroosha Muzaffar17 June 2025 05:30
Air India boss tells employees 'we will figure out' what caused crash
Air India and Tata Group chairperson, N Chandrasekaran, told employees 'we will figure out' what caused the crash during an address to 700 employees.
He also urged employees to remain strong and resilient following the deadly Ahmedabad plane crash, calling it the 'most heartbreaking crisis' of his career.
'Criticisms are there, and those of us who are very passionate… who are working on making this airline a great airline, and who genuinely care about what kind of a company we want to build, but it's not easy to face criticisms. I want you to be strong. If you feel distraught, the word you should remember is determination. We are going to get through this. We need to show resilience. We need to use this incident as an act of force to build a safer airline,' Mr Chandrasekaran said, according to The Indian Express.
'It's a very complex business…it's a complex machine, so a lot of redundancies, checks and balances, certifications, which have been perfected over years and years. Yet this happens, so we will figure out why it happens after the investigation. So we just have to stay calm and not put our shoulders down. This is the time to be brave, time to be resolute, time to know that you have the full support,' he told the employees.
Maroosha Muzaffar17 June 2025 05:15
Air India pilot's last words moments before aircraft crashed to the ground revealed
The final words of the pilot of Air India Flight AI171 that crashed on Thursday have been revealed, providing new details about the final moments before the aircraft went down.
Indian aviation officials have confirmed the pilot issued distress calls before the Gatwick -bound flight crashed in Gujarat state on 12 June, killing 241 people on board and at least 29 on the ground.
'Thrust not achieved... falling... Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!' the pilot said moments before the aircraft began losing height and erupted in a fireball.
Air India pilot's last words moments before aircraft crashed to the ground revealed
The Gatwick-bound flight crashed and killed 241 people on board shortly after takeoff in Ahmedabad
Tom Watling17 June 2025 05:00
New footage shows miracle moment British survivor of Air India crash emerges from flames of wreckage
This is the miraculous moment the sole survivor of the Air India crash emerges from the flames of the Boeing wreckage.
New footage shows moment British survivor of Air India crash emerges from flames
This is the miraculous moment the sole survivor of the Air India crash emerges from the flames of the Boeing wreckage. More than 270 people were killed when the Air India Boeing 787-8 crashed in Ahmedabad on Thursday (12 June). New footage has now emerged on social media of British man Vishwas Kumar Ramesh walking out of the crash site. The video shows Mr Ramesh walking out of flames with phone in his hand as he limps out of the deadly accident. Locals are seen helping him as black smoke engulfs the sky behind.
Maroosha Muzaffar17 June 2025 04:30
Passengers deboard for safety after Mumbai-bound Air India plane faces technical issue
An Air India flight from San Francisco to Mumbai via Kolkata experienced a technical issue in its left engine after landing in Kolkata, forcing passengers to deboard for safety.
The delay lasted over four hours. Flight AI180 arrived at the Kolkata airport at 12.45am, when it faced a technical snag and passengers were asked to disembark.
This incident occurred just five days after a deadly Air India crash that killed 241 people onboard.
On Monday, another Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner returned to Hong Kong shortly after takeoff due to a 'technical issue'.
The pilot decided to turn back Air India flight AI315 as a precaution, citing safety concerns.
The plane landed safely and underwent checks. The plane is seven years old, Reuters reported.
Maroosha Muzaffar17 June 2025 04:01
'My grandson was burnt alive': Grief engulfs neighbourhood where Air India crash killed dozens on the ground
Grief hangs heavy in Meghani Nagar in Ahmedabad, as the wreckage of a London‑bound Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner lies smouldering in the compound of BJ Medical College.
The devastating crash – which took place around 2pm local time on Thursday – left emergency services scrambling amid thick plumes of smoke and debris, entire streets in shock and families shattered. All but one of the 242 people on board the flight were killed, but there were dozens more fatalities on the ground as the plane came down in a residential area.
Grief engulfs neighbourhood where Air India Flight 171 killed dozens on the ground
As investigators sift through the wreckage of the Air India Dreamliner that plunged into a medical college complex in Ahmedabad, families mourn loved ones lost in an inferno, reports Namita Singh
Tom Watling17 June 2025 04:00
Passengers deboard for safety after Mumbai-bound Air India plane faces technical issue
An Air India flight from San Francisco to Mumbai via Kolkata experienced a technical issue in its left engine after landing in Kolkata, forcing passengers to deboard for safety.
The delay lasted over four hours. Flight AI180 arrived at the Kolkata airport at 12.45am, when it faced a technical snag and passengers were asked to disembark.
This incident occurred just five days after a deadly Air India crash that killed 241 people onboard.
On Monday, another Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner returned to Hong Kong shortly after takeoff due to a 'technical issue'.
The pilot decided to turn back Air India flight AI315 as a precaution, citing safety concerns.
The plane landed safely and underwent checks. The plane is seven years old, Reuters reported.
Maroosha Muzaffar17 June 2025 03:59
Families grieve as officials start handing remains of victims killed in Air India crash
More than 72 hours after India's deadliest aviation tragedy in recent memory, Rohit Patel – a father mourning the loss of his two children – stood trembling before a room of Indian health and investigative officials in Ahmedabad and demanded answers.
'When will the bodies be given?' he asked, breaking down in front of television cameras and senior officers. His son Harshit and daughter-in-law Pooja Patel were among the 242 passengers and crew aboard the Air India Express flight that crashed minutes after take-off on Thursday.
Families grieve as they receive remains of victims killed in Air India crash
As anguished families wait for the return of their loved ones' remains, tensions are mounting over the slow pace of DNA identification following the deadly Air India crash. More than three days on, only a fraction of the victims have been identified, and grief is giving way to anger, reports Namita Singh from Ahmedabad
Tom Watling17 June 2025 03:00
The questions behind the Air India plane crash: What caused it and what happens next?
At least 270 people have been confirmed dead after an Air India flight bound for London crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad, India, on Thursday, in what is now the world's deadliest air disaster in a decade.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner departed from Ahmedabad airport in the western state of Gujarat at 1.39pm local time (8.09am BST). But after issuing a mayday call, it crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar just five minutes after taking off, India's civil aviation authority confirmed.
Tom Watling17 June 2025 02:00
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
India regulator asks Air India for training data of pilots, dispatcher of crashed plane
NEW DELHI, June 17 (Reuters) - India's aviation safety watchdog has asked Air India for the training records of the pilots and dispatcher for the plane that crashed last week as part of its investigation into the incident that killed at least 271 people, government memos showed. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation also asked all flying schools to conduct training compliance checks, according to the confidential memos, seen by Reuters. The DGCA said the requests were part of a "regulatory" review of the accident, and also sought details of action taken following the watchdog's audits of Air India in the last few months. It asked for the details to be provided by Monday. It was not clear whether Air India had complied with the directive. The airline and the DGCA did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London with 242 people on board began losing height seconds after take-off in Ahmedabad on Thursday before crashing into nearby buildings. Everyone on board was killed, bar a single passenger, along with about 30 on the ground. Sumeet Sabharwal, who the Indian government has said had 8,200 flying hours of experience and was also an Air India instructor, was the commanding pilot of flight AI171. His co-pilot was Clive Kunder who had 1,100 hours of experience. Sabharwal's funeral took place in Mumbai on Tuesday. The watchdog requested for training details and supporting documents for the pilots, as well as for the flight dispatcher. The memo did not elaborate on the type of documents required, but accident investigations commonly look at a crew's training and qualifications, flight history, medical records and any actions previously taken against them. The memo did not raise any concerns with Air India's operations and some of the requests are standard in the aftermath of a major incident. Dispatchers are DGCA-certified ground-based airline employees whose role includes flight planning, assessing weather and airspace conditions, and coordination with the pilots. While the request for pilot training data was sent by the DGCA, the accident investigation is being led by another wing of the aviation ministry, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau. Air India's Chairman N. Chandrasekaran told staff on Monday the incident should be a catalyst to build a safer airline. The DGCA, through a separate memo dated June 16, also asked flying schools across the country to "strictly follow additional safety and operational measures." The regulator said instructors must check for compliance with procedures concerning training, maintenance and licensing, and coordinate flight plans with nearby airports in advance to ensure any emergencies are dealt with swiftly. "Compliance will be assessed during audits/surveillance," said the memo by the Directorate of Flying Training, reviewed by Reuters. Stephanie Pope, the head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, visited Air India's headquarters near New Delhi and met the airline's chairman to discuss the crash, Reuters reported on Monday. The crash poses a new challenge for Air India, which the Tata Group bought in 2022 and has been trying to revamp, and Boeing, which is trying to rebuild public trust following a series of safety and production crises. In a June 13 memo headed "updating airport emergency plan", seen by Reuters, government-managed airports have also been asked to conduct a full-scale training exercise - typically an emergency drill - on June 30.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Air India plane crash investigators probe whether doomed jet was OVERLOADED and examine training records of pilots as black boxes found in Ahmedabad wreckage reveal crucial new details
Authorities investigating the deadly Air India crash that killed at least 270 are studying the black boxes of the plane, and are looking at whether it was overloaded and if the pilots were properly trained. The Gatwick-bound Air India aircraft, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, crashed on a medical college hostel soon after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad last Thursday. Only one passenger, British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, survived the crash, while 241 people on board and 29 on the ground were killed in one of India's worst aviation disaster in decades. Experts from India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau are probing the crash with assistance from the UK, the US and officials from Boeing. Amit Singh, a former pilot and an aviation expert, said the recovery of the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, or black boxes, are crucial to piece together the sequence of events. The cockpit voice recorder records pilots' conversation, emergency alarms and any distress signal made before a crash. The plane's digital flight data recorder stores information related to engine and control settings. Both devices are designed to survive a crash. 'The data will reveal everything,' Singh said, adding that the technical details could be corroborated by the cockpit voice recorder that would help investigators know of any communication between air traffic control and the pilots. India's aviation regulatory body has said pilots Sumeet Sabharwal and Clive Kunder made a mayday call before the crash. Singh said the investigating authorities will scan CCTV footage of the nearby area and speak with witnesses to get to the root cause of the crash. Additionally, Singh said, the investigators will also study the pilot training records, total load of the aircraft, thrust issues related to the plane's engine, as well as its worthiness in terms of past performances and any previously reported issues. Aurobindo Handa, former director general of India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, said the investigators across the world follow a standard UN-prescribed Manual of Accident Investigation, also called 'DOC 9756,' which outlines detailed procedures to arrive at the most probable cause of a crash. Handa said the investigation into last week's crash would likely be a long process as the aircraft was badly charred. He added that ascertaining the condition of the black boxes recovered from the crash site was vital as the heat generated from the crash could be possibly higher than the bearable threshold of the device. The Indian government has set up a separate, high-level committee to examine the causes leading to the crash and formulate procedures to prevent and handle aircraft emergencies in the future. The committee is expected to file a preliminary report within three months. Authorities have also begun inspecting and carrying out additional maintenance and checks of Air India's entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners to prevent any future incident. Air India has 33 Dreamliners in its fleet. People look at the debris of an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad of India's Gujarat state, June 12, 2025 The plane that crashed was 12 years old. Boeing planes have been plagued by safety issues on other types of aircraft. There are currently around 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide and this was the first deadly crash in 16 years of operation, according to experts. There were 53 British nationals on board Flight AI171 when it crashed into a residential area near the airport, as well as 159 Indian nationals, seven Portuguese citizens and a Canadian. Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday he hoped decoding the first black box, the flight data recorder, would 'give an in-depth insight' into the circumstances of the crash. Aviation experts believe the Boeing 787 Dreamliner may suddenly lost power 'at the most critical phase of flight' after takeoff. The possible causes are believed to include a rapid change in wind or a bird strike leading to a double-engine stall. Commercial airline pilot Steve Schreiber, who analyses plane crashes and close calls, said a new HD-quality video is a 'gamechanger' in diagnosing the cause and suggested the footage supported the dual engine failure theory. He pointed out that in the footage, a small device is seen extended underneath the plane's fuselage, known as the Ram Access Turbine (RAT), whose function is to support the aircraft's electrical power and hydraulic pressure in an emergency. Schreiber said that on a 787 there are three things that will deploy the RAT automatically: a massive electrical failure; a massive hydraulic failure; or a dual engine failure. The Boeing jet took off from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel airport in the northwestern Indian state of Gujarat at 1:38pm local time (08:08 BST). The flight reached an altitude of just 625 feet, or 190 metres, according to flight tracking service Flightradar24. There it glided, seemingly suspended midair, but seconds later began descending rapidly as the engines appeared to give out. The underside of the jet smashed into a building housing trainee doctors working at the nearby BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital, killing dozens more civilians. The death toll now stands at 279 as rescuers continue picking through rubble.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
British families of Air India crash victims feel ‘utterly abandoned' by UK government
British families of Air India crash victims are facing 'pain and frustration' over delays in the identification and repatriation of their relatives, a minister has said. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed shortly after take-off on Thursday in what is one of the deadliest plane accident s in terms of the number of British nationals killed. The aircraft struck a medical college hostel in a residential part of Ahmedabad, killing 241 of the 242 people on board, 52 of whom were British. The sole surviving passenger was Briton Vishwash Kumar Ramesh. Relatives of Akeel Nanabawa, his wife Hannaa Vorajee and their four-year-old daughter Sara Nanabawa, who died in the crash, said they felt 'utterly abandoned' by the UK Government and called for more support on the ground in India. A spokesman for the family, who lived in Gloucester, said they had to make appointments to see consular staff 20 minutes away in a hotel in Ahmedabad while their loved ones 'lie unidentified in an overstretched and under-resourced hospital'. Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer told the House of Commons that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) had set up its reception centre at a hotel close to the airport 'because we thought that would be the best place to receive British nationals rather than the hospital where, tragically, there are no living British nationals'. He added: 'But we keep these questions under review, as I know from my own experience in tragedies like this, it is difficult to get the assistance that British nationals need right first time, and we will learn lessons as each step goes through.' Among the Britons believed to have been on the Gatwick-bound flight was Arjun Patoliya, who had flown to Gujarat from London to scatter the ashes of his wife, Bharti. Others included radiologist Dr Prateek Joshi, from Derby, and sisters Dhir and Heer Baxi, couple Fiongal and Jamie Greenlaw-Meek, and Raxa Modha, Rudra Modha and K Mistri, from Wellingborough. UK air accident investigators are in India and are assisting the Indian authorities, the Government said. Relatives of the Nanabawa family said they had 'key concerns' over the 'lack of transparency and oversight in the identification and handling of remains'. They called for a 'full crisis team' at the hospital within 24 hours, a British-run identification unit, and financial support for relatives of the victims. Mr Falconer said: 'We are, of course, also in regular close contact with Air India about the support package that they are offering, which includes funding flights and full repatriation costs to bring loved ones home. 'I understand how frustrating it is for families who have not yet been able to lay their loved ones to rest, and I recognise the pain and frustration that this has caused. The Indian authorities are working around the clock with UK support to be able to do this.' He said the process of identifying remains is 'difficult but necessarily time consuming'. Asked by West Bromwich MP Sarah Coombes how her constituents can have confidence when they go and visit family in India in the wake of the tragedy, Mr Falconer said 'we will continue to do all that we can' so that 'constituents across the house can feel confident'. The minister also told MPs that a British Red Cross psychological support officer is also in India 'helping families cope with the tragic, emotional impact'. An FCDO spokeswoman said: 'Our staff continue to work around the clock in the UK and India to support the families and loved ones of all those impacted by the crash. 'We have set up a reception centre at the Ummed Hotel, near the Ahmedabad airport, and have a dedicated helpline to provide support and advice for the families and friends of British nationals – friends or family should call 020 7008 5000. 'If you are in India, you should call +91 (11) 24192100 for support, including through in-person consular staff who are available to support families of British nationals, including accompanying them to the hospital. 'Furthermore, the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch has deployed an investigation team to support the Indian-led investigation on the ground, and UK forensic experts are there to support the consular response.'
