12-07-2025
After Air India crash preliminary report, MoS Civil Aviation says, ‘Probe ongoing, should not arrive at any conclusion'
Stressing that it is not the final report, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation and Cooperation Murlidhar Mohol Saturday said it would not be appropriate to arrive at any conclusion based on the 15-page preliminary report of the probe into the June 12 crash of Air India flight AI 171, released by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) post-midnight.
He also said the aviation ministry is not interfering with the ongoing investigation led by the AAIB, which is an autonomous authority.
'This is a preliminary report and not the final one. All the information is out for the public. It is still under the purview of investigation so it would not be right to comment on the matter. I request everyone to not arrive at any conclusion till the final report is out,' Mohol said, speaking to reporters on Saturday.
#WATCH | On AAIB's preliminary report on AI 171 crash, MoS Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol says, 'The AAIB has brought out a preliminary report. This is not the final report. Until the final report comes out, we should not arrive at any conclusion. AAIB is an autonomous…
— ANI (@ANI) July 12, 2025
The preliminary probe report said that the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft's engine fuel control switches transitioned from 'RUN' to 'CUTOFF' position within a second of each other moments after lift-off. Preliminary reports are typically extremely sketchy and present bare bone facts, without typically getting into the actual causes of the accident.
The Ahmedabad-London Gatwick Air India plane accident is one of the worst aviation disasters involving an Indian airline in the last four decades. It killed 260 people—241 of the 242 people on board the ill-fated aircraft and 19 on the ground.
'The blackbox was secured a day after the crash. It didn't have to be sent anywhere else. It was decoded and the data was retreived in India itself. Previously, blackbox from even a chopper crash needed to be sent out of the country,' Mohol added, crediting the advanced lab technology being used in the investigation. He also mentioned that this allowed for the release of the probe report just a month after the crash.
According to the initial probe report, one of the pilots can be heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel, to which the other pilot responded by saying that he did not.
On this, Mohol said: 'The conversation has been revealed, but it cannot be used to jump to conclusions. What happened, what was the situation, and what were the reasons — all will become clear post the final report.'
The pilot flying was co-pilot Clive Kunder, while pilot-in-command Sumeet Sabharwal was pilot monitoring for this flight.
