The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has submitted its preliminary report on the Air India 171 plane crash to the Ministry of Civil Aviation and other relevant authorities, reported news agency ANI, citing top government officials. The report is based on the bureau’s initial assessment and findings gathered in the early phase of the investigation.
The report will be released to the public later this week, officials said.
While the contents of the preliminary report are not known, it is believed that it will give critical information about what caused the crash.
On June 12, the Air India plane flying to London from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport crashed within 32 seconds of take-off, and 241 people on board, including 10 cabin crew members and two pilots, were charred to death. Former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani was one of the victims of the horrific crash. Only one person, sitting in seat 11A, survived the tragedy.
The black boxes of the plane – the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) – were recovered in the days that followed, one from the rooftop of a building at the crash site on June 13, and the other from the debris on June 16.
A week after the incident, at least three Air India training pilots on the airline’s Boeing 787 fleet attempted to recreate likely scenarios in Mumbai that resulted in the accident. The pilots attempted to simulate electrical failures that could cause a dual-engine flame-out, resulting in an inability of the aircraft to climb post takeoff. However, they were unsuccessful.
The pilots also replicated the precise trim sheet data of AI-171 – a document used in aviation to calculate and record an aircraft’s weight and balance, ensuring the center of gravity is within safe limits for takeoff, flight, and landing.
Investigators have downloaded the data from the jetliner’s black boxes and are examining the position of the fuel switches on the flight. They are trying to corroborate the data with any wreckage of the fuel switches that may have been found – which would be crucial in ascertaining whether any of the engines were accidentally switched off by the pilots during a critical phase of the flight.
They are also investigating whether a dual-engine failure would have resulted in the crash. Pilots on Air India’s Boeing 787 fleet are not trained to deal with a dual-engine failure at an altitude of less than 400 feet, as in the case of AI-171.
