Truth about AI171: Power games and planted theories

A petition seeking an independent, court-monitored investigation into the AI171 crash in Ahmedabad last June was stalled yet again on Tuesday, as the Solicitor General of India sought another week to submit a progress report on the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) probe. On February 11, he had promised to submit the same at the next hearing, which the court had set for March 24.

Interestingly, a day before the SG’s assurance, an intriguing report by aviation journalist Leonard Berberi appeared in the Milan-based newspaper Corriere della Sera. Since the crash, Berberi has run a stream of stories, citing unnamed “Western sources”, pushing a single line: the crash was the result of deliberate pilot action.

Berberi’s February 10 report claimed that the AAIB had been forced to come around to the same view – “the desired turning point”, as per his sources – under pressure and “Western” threats of a re-evaluation of the level of safety of India’s airlines. Berberi’s sources told him the conclusion would be subject to a “political evaluation” at the highest levels in India. AAIB officials had reportedly even discussed with American counterparts how to write the final report without triggering “national controversies”.

Read with earlier leak-driven reporting in the Wall Street Journal, it
is clear that this investigation was never just about finding out what happened to AI171. It is part of a geopolitical power play between India and the United States.

The AAIB’s preliminary report carried the imprint of this tension. It laid out a sequence of the crash: three seconds after take-off, both fuel switches transitioned from “run” to “cut-off” within a second of each other, starving the engines and causing the crash. Then, it released a tantalising paraphrased conversation in which one pilot asks the other “why did he cut off”, and the other replies he “did not do so”. It also referred to a 2018 FAA advisory regarding the fuel switches, suggesting a known, unresolved problem with them.

The effect, intended or not, was that attention stayed on the fuel switches and pilot actions, ensuring that a conclusion could not be reached. Yet, there is a far more coherent explanation: that AI171 was brought down by a systemic failure in the Boeing 787 – one shaped by technology design choices, compounded by manufacturing defects, and triggered by proximate maintenance failures.

The 787 is a “more electric” and software-driven aircraft, with algorithmic decision-making systems written to override pilot controls based on sensor inputs – the FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) and TCMA (Thrust Control Malfunction Accommodation). Older aircraft distributed risk across multiple, largely independent systems. The 787 centralises it. At the heart of this architecture is the Common Core System (CCS) – comprising a Common Computing Resource, a Common Data Network, and Remote Data Concentrators. It reduces weight and complexity, but creates multiple pathways to failure.

The plausible other scenario

An electrical transient, a software glitch, a bad sensor input, a momentary loss of power routing or data synchronisation – any of these, especially during take-off, can cascade into a catastrophe. Boeing’s recent history provides context. The 737 Max crashes were traced to the MCAS (Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System) software acting on flawed sensor inputs. Boeing and American regulators tried hard to place the blame on pilots, but Ethiopian accident investigators forced the truth out. The 787’s TCMA is also an algorithmic correction mechanism. If it receives bad data, it can make the wrong decision.

Multiple Boeing whistleblowers have revealed several manufacturing defects in the 787s, especially the early batches from which the VT-ANB, the AI171 aircraft, came to Air India: structural gaps, force-fit assembly practices, and water leakage from toilets into electrical bays. Then there’s the history of 787 incidents: battery fires, control failures, fuel leaks, and even fuel switch issues.

Consider the aircraft that crashed. In January, Ed Pierson, a former Boeing manager, submitted a study on the VT-ANB’s fault logs and maintenance history to a US Senate committee, citing electronics and software faults. Journalist Rachel Chitra’s investigative reporting uncovered that the aircraft reported multiple faults in the 72 hours before the crash, including a sensor fault that forced a hard landing into Ahmedabad on the fateful day. The AAIB preliminary report notes that the aircraft flew with four active faults. The PIL in the Supreme Court by Capt. Amit Singh of Safety Matters Foundation revealed that 15 minutes before take-off, both Bus Power Control Units reported faults. Yet the aircraft was cleared to fly.

Independent analyses by pilots, engineers, and investigators have converged on the same conclusion: the pilot action theory does not fit the observed sequence of events. A cascading systemic failure does.

The opacity on all sides suggests there is a negotiation underway over the truth. After all, the stakes are enormous. For Boeing, another finding of systemic failure could be devastating. The company is of strategic interest to America. Its decline would open space for China’s COMAC. For the Federal Aviation Administrator, it could mean the erosion of its credibility globally. Air India faces exposure regardless of the outcome, whether systemic and maintenance failures caused the crash or one of its pilots did.

Geopolitically, a finding against Boeing could strain India-US relations at a delicate moment. New Delhi has to reckon with Donald Trump, who calls himself Boeing’s best salesman. People will come to their own conclusions as to whether they saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing up to American pressure or giving in. India has not forgotten the Bhopal gas tragedy and that Warren Anderson and Union Carbide Chemicals went scot-free, following a meagre $470-million settlement.

The world is watching whether India can safeguard its interests and secure justice for its citizens, as Ethiopia did following the Boeing 737 Max crash. In the AI171 case, therefore, the truth is the national interest. It should not be negotiated away. India owes it to the 260 people who died and to their families.

(The writer is a senior journalist and researcher based in Bengaluru;
Syndicate: The Billion Press)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.