The Air India jetliner that crashed on June 12 was doomed almost immediately upon taking off, after both engines
lost fuel supply and the pilots ran out of time to regain control and avert catastrophe.
A preliminary 15-page report filed on July 11 provided the first detailed account of the fateful 32 seconds between takeoff in Ahmedabad and the descent into
an urban district just beyond the airport perimeter, where the Boeing Co. 787 exploded, killing all but one of the 242 people on board.
Investigators laid out the sequence of events with exact time-stamps, providing a harrowing picture of the plane’s final m
oments. But the findings leave unanswered one central question: Why and b
y whom were two fuel switches in the cockpit moved to a cut-off p
osition as the jet nosed into the air, starving the two powerful engines of thrust just as the plane required the most lift.
The crash site of Air Indiaflight AI171 in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025. Photo credit: Siddharaj Solanki/Bloomberg
At the controls for the aircraft’s final journey was First Officer Clive
Kunder, a pilot with roughly 1,100 flight hours on Boeing’s most advanced jet. The report identified him as pilot flying, whil
e Sumeet Sabharwal, the more experienced and senior cockpit occupant in command, was pilot monitoring for the flight.
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It’s common for a captain and co-pilot to switch flying duties, p
articularly on longer journeys. Under typical pilot protocol, Kunder would have had one hand on the yoke commanding
the widebody into the skies, and another on the throttle controlling the pla
ne’s speed. The crew captain would have handled air traffic communications and responded to Kunder’s instructions.
All seemed normal as the Boeing 787 lifted off into a clear sky in the western Indian city en route to London’s Gatwi
ck airport. There was no significant bird activity in the flight path, all but ruling out a collision that could have damaged the engines.
Then, according to a chronology laid out by Indian authorities, the two fuel switches in the plane’s center console were flipped, about one second apart.
It’s unclear what prompted the maneuver, but it crippled the plane during a critical phase of flight. A fan, known as the r
am air turbine, dropped below the plane’s belly to provide emergency power, all while the 787 was still within view of airport cameras.
On board, the pilots had a brief exchange — the only cockpit conversation mentioned in the report aside from a final “mayday” call just seconds before impact.