An electrical failure may have caused the Boeing 787 aircraft operating as Air India flight AI-171 to crash into an Ahmedabad residential neighbourhood in June last year, seconds after take-off, killing 260 people, a US aviation safety organisation said this week, citing documents not yet in the public domain.
Air India's own inquiry into the crash is ongoing. And India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau - which has also not yet released its final report - has not, so far, responded to these claims.
The claims were made by the Foundation for Aviation Safety based on submissions by a whistleblower to the US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a powerful bipartisan panel that examines matters involving public safety and regulatory oversight.
At this stage, though, this is only a hypothesis based on documents and testimony. The FAS, in fact, told the subcommittee 'critical technical data necessary to understand the true sequence of events' had not yet been disclosed.
Aviation experts have admitted whistleblower testimony can play a crucial role in uncovering safety issues, but said also that claims such as this must be verified.
System issue claims
That said, the FAS reports said the whistleblower (whose identity has been withheld) said the Boeing aircraft operating as AI-171 suffered 'recurring technical and systems-related issues'.
This has been the case since it entered service in 2014, it was claimed. Also, a major fire-related incident in 2022 involving the plane may have caused latent damage, the FAS said.
"The failure to publicly disclose records related to prior serious incidents, including fire events, undermines confidence in the investigation process," the report said.
Electrical failure theory
At the centre of the FAS' submission is the theory that an electrical failure triggered cascading malfunctions across multiple systems and contributed to the crash.
Modern aircraft rely heavily on integrated electrical architecture and software-driven systems. In such aircraft, an electrical fault can spread rapidly across flight-critical systems.
The FAS also criticised the non-disclosure of data relating to the plane's mechanical condition and cockpit voice recordings, i.e., recorded conversations between the pilots, and said 'without these the sequence of electronic and system failures cannot be reconstructed'.
Similar concerns raised globally
The issues highlighted are not unique to India, the FAS noted. Boeing 787 aircraft operating in the US, Canada and Australia have faced similar electrical and systems-related problems.
"These are not isolated events limited to a single operator or geography... the pattern raises broader concerns about systemic vulnerabilities in the global 787 fleet," the FAS said.
Meanwhile, in a broader critique of international aviation incidents, which are often 'slow and opaque', according to the FAS, 'built-in conflicts of interest' were also flagged.
