The AI171 preliminary report never says which pilot spoke, and AAIB has set no final report date

The single most quoted document of the past year in Indian aviation is the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau's preliminary report into the crash of Air India flight AI171. It is worth reading, because it does not say what it is widely reported to say.

The facts it does establish are precise. A Boeing 787-8 registered VT-ANB crashed at Ahmedabad on 12 June 2025 at 0809 UTC, 13:39 Indian Standard Time, shortly after take-off from Runway 23 at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. The injury table records 12 crew, 229 passengers and 19 others killed, a total of 260, with one passenger seriously injured. The aircraft struck the BJ Medical College hostel 0.9 nautical miles from the departure end of the runway, and the wreckage was spread over an area of roughly 1000 feet by 400 feet. The emergency locator transmitter did not activate.

The sequence is timed to the second. Take-off clearance was issued at 08:07:33 UTC and the aircraft began rolling at 08:07:37. It reached a maximum recorded airspeed of 180 knots indicated at about 08:08:42, and immediately afterwards the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF, one after the other, one second apart. Engine 1's switch returned to RUN at about 08:08:52, the auxiliary power unit inlet door began opening at about 08:08:54, and Engine 2's switch returned to RUN at 08:08:56. A MAYDAY call was made at 08:09:05. Both fuel control switches were found in the RUN position in the wreckage, and the flight recorder data showed the thrust levers stayed forward at take-off thrust until impact even though the burnt levers were found near idle.

Then the sentence that launched a year of speculation. The report states that in the cockpit voice recording one of the pilots is heard asking the other why he cut off, and the other pilot responded that he did not do so. The report does not say which pilot asked and which answered. It does not attribute the exchange to the captain or to the first officer, and it draws no conclusion about who moved the switches or whether a human moved them at all. Any account naming a pilot is going beyond this document.

The report also records a maintenance thread that is often dropped. The United States Federal Aviation Administration issued Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin NM-18-33 on 17 December 2018 about potential disengagement of the fuel control switch locking feature, prompted by reports from Boeing 737 operators. The FAA did not treat the concern as an unsafe condition warranting an airworthiness directive. The switch design, including the locking feature, is similar across Boeing models, and part number 4TL837-3D is fitted to the 787-8. Air India told investigators the suggested inspections were not carried out because the bulletin was advisory rather than mandatory. The throttle control module on VT-ANB was replaced in 2019 and in 2023, for reasons the report says were not linked to the fuel control switch, and no defect on that switch had been reported since 2023. The preliminary report closed by stating that at that stage there were no recommended actions for operators or manufacturers of the 787-8 or the GEnx-1B engine.

On the first anniversary, 12 June 2026, the Bureau issued an interim statement from New Delhi. It confirms the preliminary report was released on 12 July 2025, describes a year of examination of aircraft systems, recorder data, engine components and maintenance records, and says evidence is being analysed in an integrated way with further specialist examinations as needed. It gives no completion date. It says only that the final report will be released once all investigative activities and the international review and consultation prescribed under ICAO Annex 13 are finished, and it urges the media and public to refrain from speculation.

The October 2026 date that has been reported comes from elsewhere. Live From A Lounge reported on 15 July 2026, and NewsGram on 16 July 2026, that the Bureau told the Supreme Court in a counter affidavit filed on 14 June 2026 that it remained at the stage of evidence collection and technical and forensic examination, expected to finish in about six weeks, and that a draft final report would be ready around October 2026. No AAIB public document reviewed for this report contains that date. NewsGram describes the filing as made on a Tuesday, but 14 June 2026 fell on a Sunday, so the day and date in that account do not agree.

There is a further discrepancy readers can check. NewsGram reports that the Bureau resisted release of the cockpit voice recording and airborne image records by invoking Rule 17(1) and Rule 17(5) read with Schedule C of the Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules, 2025, and asserted an absolute statutory prohibition on disclosure. Both of the Bureau's own published documents, the preliminary report and the interim statement, state that the investigation is being conducted under the Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules, 2017, as amended, together with ICAO Annex 13. Whether the 2025 rules are a fresh instrument that superseded the 2017 rules mid investigation, or whether the citation in the reporting is imprecise, could not be resolved from documents published by the Bureau or the Ministry of Civil Aviation, whose site was unreachable for this report.

What is not known is the substance. The Bureau has published no analysis of why the switches moved, no finding on the locking feature in this airframe, and no final report. The transcript stays sealed, and the rule under which it is sealed is itself in dispute.