NEW DELHI: The Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), a leading body representing aviation professionals, has urged the government not to allow the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) to submit an interim report into the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025, solely to meet the one-year deadline for submission of the final inquiry report.
The FIP said it was making this request in the interest of overall safety. The federation on Friday submitted a detailed report on the crash to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Civil Aviation Ministry, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the AAIB.
A total of 260 people, including 241 on board the Dreamliner plane, lost their lives in the accident in which only one passenger survived.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) mandates that the final inquiry report into any aircraft accident needs to be submitted at the earliest or within a maximum period of 12 months following the accident date. The deadline expires shortly - on June 12, 2026.
Meanwhile, reports have emerged that the AAIB may submit an interim report on the crash in order to meet the one-year deadline for the inquiry.
The letter by the president of FIP, Captain CS Randhawa, said, "The Annex 13 of the ICAO does not stipulate that the investigative agency needs to submit an 'Interim Report'. Submitting it will lead to greater confusion and speculation. Such an action could be detrimental to the investigations being done by the AAIB. Moreover, such a report cannot be conclusive due to further investigations being carried out. Thus, please do not take out the interim report in the overall interest of safety."
Attaching a clutch of documents with its letter, the Federation said, "The Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) maintenance messages transmitted before and after the aircraft got airborne, a design feature in the Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) that permits auto shutdown of both the engines, and the correlation of this evidence with media described retrieval of the late Captain Sumeet Sabharwal’s body along with the control column in his grasp points to a rebuttal of the pilot suicide theory being explored by the AAIB.”
Ten ACARS messages transmitted by AI 171 when airborne at 1:38:39 hrs on June 12 were also submitted by the FIP. The letter also points at a publicly available US patent relating to FADEC/fuel-metering fail-safe logic.
In essence, the fuel control system is comprised of two feedback loops -- a major one and a minor one. "A failure in the minor loop results in the fuel flow being switched to a fail-safe fuel flow. For safety reasons, the fail-safe position for aircraft power plants is in the minimum flow position. The minimum flow position of the metering valve may result in an in-flight shutdown (IFSD). It is desirable to minimise the IFSD rate by minimising the likelihood of a failure in fuel system,” the communication said.
Multiple mainstream media reports have published eye witness accounts alleging that the late Captain’s body was recovered while still gripping the flight controls after the accident, the letter pointed out.
Presenting another theory which relates to the flow of electrical current, Captain Randhawa said, "Electrical disturbance involving abnormal current flow, arcing, insulation breakdown, or grounding-path current could propagate into the Boeing 787 Common Core avionics/network environment. Such propagation could temporarily disrupt or corrupt Common Core Data channels supplying engine-interface information to both Electronic Engine Control systems, resulting in simultaneous FADEC protective-response logic and consequent IFSD of both the engines."
The pilot body urged that Air India be directed to submit the original ACARS maintenance messages transmitted by AI-171 to the ongoing inquiry before AAIB and DGCA, and also clarify why these were not submitted earlier, leading to theories blaming the pilots. Boeing needs to be directed to decode and technically interpret the ACARS maintenance-message strings, it said.
The pilot body also wanted to know why the autopsy findings and the preliminary report into the crash, submitted on July 12, 2025, did not discuss the statements made by multiple witnesses that Captain Sabharwal’s body was recovered with such a tight grip on the flight controls that the control column reportedly had to be cut and brought along to the mortuary.
The report also referred to the technical issues raised in submissions by the FIP in four of its earlier letters and wanted them to be addressed in the final report.
