AI71 Crash Investigation Falters Because Of Botched Communications

A few years before 9/11, which led to all airline cockpits being closed off to inflight casual visitors, I had the opportunity to spend time in an Air India Boeing 747 cockpit flying from Mumbai to London.

This is an anecdote I have shared in the past, but from a slightly different perspective.

The cockpit visit was engineered by a senior Air India functionary to help satisfy my journalistic curiosity and presumably provide a real-world backdrop to any future reporting I would do on Air India’s pilots or aircraft, or both.

It did, but not for all the right reasons.

As I entered the cockpit, I could sense the unease in the air.

I thought one reason was the apparent age gap.

A senior commander and a junior first officer is par for the course. It is also quite normal for pilots to land up with a new partner every time, particularly in larger airlines.

A new partner who is older or younger could go two ways. One, there is some getting to know each other, particularly at the point I made my entry. At this point the aircraft was on autopilot, a comfortable cruise altitude and more than three hours into flight.

The other is that the pilots do not really interact with each other beyond what is strictly required and stick to their roles and the processes they have to follow. This was clearly the latter.

The exchanges between the two pilots I was seated with (on the jump seat at the back) were perfunctory and even clipped. The first officer would come up with a conversation-starter like, “Sir, my family is also accompanying me.”

And the commander would respond with an icy, “I see.”

He would respond quite warmly to my questions, though.

As we flew past the snow-clad mountain peaks of Iran towards Europe, the first officer continued to check in with local air traffic control at each waypoint. Eventually, he stopped making polite conversation.

After an hour or so, I returned to my seat. Maybe they became good friends later, maybe not.

Echoes In AI171’s Cockpit

The Air India 171, which crashed, also had a senior and junior pilot. The senior captain was 56 years old, and the first officer was 32 years old—quite similar to what I would have encountered all those years ago.

The point is not so much about the level of communication in the cockpit of the fateful Ahmedabad–London flight, because we do not know that at this point.

The point is about communication, though—about how mismanaged the communication around the preliminary accident report released last week of the AI171 crash on June 12 has been.

It is evident now that the preliminary report has triggered more questions than answers.

A Rushed Judgement

On The Core Report podcast over the weekend, I interviewed Capt C.S. Randhawa, President of the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), and Capt Sam Thomas of the Airline Pilots Association, on what the missing gaps were in the preliminary report so far.

Their biggest grouse: both AI171 pilots had already been crucified with all the half-baked analysis—mostly by non-aviation people—and selective leaks.

“Even if tomorrow it is proved the pilots were not responsible, that is not what the public will think,” Capt Thomas told me.

The duo strongly argued that mechanical, and not human intervention led to the engines shutting down.

Well, while that is of course possible, the subtext of the information released in the preliminary report suggests a pilot was responsible. Note the inclusion of just those two sentences in the report: “Why did you switch off the fuel?” and “No I did not.”

Add to it the fact that there was no advisory for aircraft manufacturers like Boeing or for that specific aircraft, which would logically follow any such incident.

What happened in the cockpit that day—45 minutes or so of it—would have taken literally a few hours to extricate, says Capt Randhawa.

If the report had been accompanied by a media interaction, that could have been among the first points clarified by the investigators.

Instead, we have had deafening silence.

No one in the global aviation industry was expecting a complete report at this point—that can take up to a year to put together.

But everyone was clearly expecting more communication.

It also turns out that the experts roped in by the investigating body, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), are not really known, including in the context of flying Boeing 787s.

Both Capt Randhawa and Capt Thomas felt the industry in India was not very large and that they would surely recognise by name anyone involved in the investigation.

More Than Just A Crash

I did get a sense from them that the composition of the investigation team, the process followed in releasing information, and the selection of what information to release, did not follow a sound structure.

Of course, there may never have been a structure to begin with, and each accident investigation evolves differently, depending on the severity and complexity of the incident.

But an accident in 2025 means there are at least two dozen Boeing 787 pilots with YouTube channels sitting all over the world, opining on what could have happened.

The narrative is determined by those who speak, not those who stay silent.

Which is why taking the public into confidence, even with limited information, is important.

The lack and failure of communication and transparency in the preliminary report sets a bad precedent, and is a case study not just in air crash investigations but in crisis management more broadly.

While the technical lessons of what and how AI171 crashed will take time to analyse and assimilate, the lessons of a communication disaster are already plain to see.