It has been two weeks to the fatal incident where over 270 people were dead, with AI171, a Boeing 787-8 aircraft operated flight between Ahmedabad and London Gatwick, just went up in flames on June 12, 2025, right outside the perimeter wall of the Ahmedabad Airport.

The Investigation has been instituted, finally

After two weeks, and one press conference by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the world (including yours truly) wondered why have we not heard more from the powers to be about the crash. I woke up yesterday morning thinking on these lines, to read a couple of excellent pieces on the matter already out there: by The Economic Times and Jon Ostrower at The Air Current.

After keeping quiet, this did give a vibe check to the ministry (under whom the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau) works, that they need to be more communicative. Today, we heard that the AAIB has constituted a multidisciplinary team, which consists of the following people:

• DG AAIB
• Aviation Medicine Specialist
• ATC officer
• Representatives from National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)

Blackboxes are being decoded

Both the Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVR) and Flight Data Recorders (FDR) were recovered — one from a rooftop of the building at the crash site on June 13, 2025 and the other from the debris on June 16, 2025.

Subsequently, the black boxes were brought from Ahmedabad to Delhi by IAF aircraft with full security on June 24, 2025. On the evening of June 24, 2025, the team led by DG AAIB with technical members from AAIB and NTSB began the data extraction process.

The Crash Protection Module (CPM) from the front black box was safely retrieved, and on June 25, 2025, the memory module was successfully accessed and its data downloaded at the AAIB Lab.

The analysis of CVR and FDR data is underway. These efforts aim to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the accident and identify contributing factors to enhance aviation safety and prevent future occurrences.

What’s missing?

What is not present, is surprisingly, a technical expert / pilot trained on the aircraft (the 787) on the AAIB committee. What has also not happened, so far, is a sort of notification which institutes this committee (a government order or a publication in the Indian Gazette needs to be done, I am told). As per some safety experts, this incident should be classified as a major incident, and it has not be done so far.

Another thing that has not happened so far, is to ask for eyewitness accounts, which should be taken when people have their memory afresh, rather than in a dated fashion.

The AAIB has also not reiterated their committment to releasing the preliminary report within 30 days of the incident, which is the mandate of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which governs safety for aviation globally.

Bottomline

The Ministry of Civil Aviation of the Government of India has today confirmed that they have recovered both the blackboxes which were installed on the plane operating AI171, and these are now being decoded in Delhi to put together a timeline of events to give us a sense of what happened. What they haven’t committed to is to bring a 787 expert on board, and they also haven’t committed to filing a preliminiary report of the AAIB within 30 days, which is the international norm.

What do you make of the events since AI171 went down?

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