Key Points
Maintenance records indicate VT-ANB experienced multiple critical technical faults before take-off.
Flight Control Modules and ACARS messages reportedly flagged safety issues minutes before departure.
Experts say the newly examined records raise fresh questions about the sequence of events leading to the AI171 crash.
The AIR INDIA FLIGHT 171 remains one of the shortest and deadliest flights in global aviation history, as the aircraft crashed just 32 seconds after its takeoff. With 242 people onboard including passengers and crew members, the flight took off from an airport in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025, bound for London’s Gatwick Airport. The plane crashed into the student hostels of the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College seconds after taking off, killing all those inside the plane besides one person, in addition to 19 people that were killed at the hostel.
New information from the plane’s maintenance records and messages obtained by The Caravan shows that the Air India flight, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner registered as VT-ANB, had many serious technical problems before it even took off. These issues may have led to the short and tragic 32-second flight.
With this information and conversations held with over thirty industry experts including pilots, engineers, and analysts, The Caravan has stitched together a comprehensive timeline of what happened before AI171’s take-off.
As per Airplane Health Management (AHM) Records of VT-ANB — the official registered name of AI171 — obtained by The Caravan, a real-life digital document of maintenance analysis that is transmitted back to the plane’s manufacturer (Boeing) and operator (Air India), during an earlier flight from Delhi to Ahmedabad, two important parts of the plane’s tail system had already failed. These were the stabilizer’s position sensor and the electrical motor control unit. The stabilizer’s position sensor (a device that tells the aircraft computers the exact position of the horizontal stabilizer) and the electrical motor control unit (the system that moves the horizontal wing on the plane’s tail) help control the aircraft’s nose position during flight and keep it stable during climb, cruise and, descent.
A passenger had shared a video after the crash detailing how the plane’s in-flight entertainment system and cabin air-conditioning was malfunctioning during the previous Delhi-Ahmedabad route. Normally, this would not be something to worry about. However, the Dreamliner 787 employs Common Core System (CCS) in its software, an integrated mechanism that handles the routing of data and power to all flight systems. CCS interconnects several flight critical systems and non flight critical systems. However, as everything is inter-connected, fault in one system of the plane could very well result in the malfunctioning of another system.
All three Flight Control Modules (FCMs), which act as the aircraft’s “muscle” computers that receive instructions from the main flight computers and carry them out by adjusting control surfaces like the stabilizer, elevators, and ailerons, began detecting serious disagreements in the stabilizer information. According to experts to whom The Caravan talked, when the full set of the three FCMs disagrees on data for such a vital safety component as the horizontal stabilizer, it signals more than just a minor sensor glitch. Instead, it suggests a possible single point of failure in the airplane’s pitch control architecture.
The faulty stabilizer motor and sensor were replaced in Ahmedabad. After this repair, the maintenance crew released the plane for flight on 12 June before 12:10 pm.
At 1:23 pm, which was just fifteen minutes before takeoff, the Flight Control Modules started malfunctioning again. These faults were all being communicated to Air India and Boeing via the plane’s satellite link called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). The plane had six NO-GO faults (critical faults that require the aircraft not to be cleared for flight). Despite this, VT-ANB was still given clearance to take off.
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Immediately after leaving the ground, the Dreamliner experienced a severe electrical breakdown. Engineers suspect that a faulty inverter located at the rear of the aircraft triggered a prolonged electrical arc across the 787’s centralized wiring network. With the flight computers already weakened by the earlier problems, this power disturbance caused them to restart automatically. The sudden reboot shifted the systems into ground-mode, leading the Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC), the main computer that manages the engines, to stop fuel supply to both engines.
Both the pilots — First Officer Captain Clive Kunder and Pilot-in-Command Captain Sumeet Sabharwal — made efforts to restart the engines. However, several experienced Air India engineers have pointed out inconsistencies in the official AAIB report. The sequence involving the Ram Air Turbine (RAT), an emergency power-generation wind turbine that extends into the airflow during complete power loss, along with other backup systems such as the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU), does not align with the actual capabilities of the aircraft’s power setup.
Those familiar with the 787, including engineers who had previously worked on this very plane, describe the AAIB’s timeline for engine restart as electrically impossible. Their analysis of the data also indicates that the fuel switches stayed in the RUN position throughout the critical relight phase, suggesting the pilots were not manually cutting fuel at that time. This rebuts the “pilot suicide” theory that the AAIB’s interim report hinted at, which alleged that pilot-in-command Captain Sumeet Sabharwal intentionally moved the fuel control switch from RUN to CUTOFF that deprived both engines of fuel and thrust.
This new information from the AHM records and ACARS messages clearly shows that many things went wrong long even before takeoff. The aircraft had repeated faults in critical systems, yet it was still allowed to fly.
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