On March 20, 2006, the Chairman of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Assad Kotoite, delivered this message in Montreal while addressing the Directors General of Civil Aviation Conference on Global Aviation Safety Strategy: “It must be a strategy that recognizes that a weakness in one is a weakness in all. And the thread that must run through this strategy is transparency. By being transparent and freely sharing information with each other and the public, you recapture the ability to act as one, to reinforce each others’ actions, and to strengthen public confidence.

Air India flight to San Francisco returns to Delhi due to technical snag

“You will be better able to stand united against those who compromise aviation safety... For me, one accident was always one too many, and the loss of even one life, was one too many. Like all of you here, I was entrusted with a noble mission, to protect the lives and well-being of the travelling public. We have done and must continue to do everything within our power to make sure they get to their destination safely and unharmed, and that no one on the ground will be killed or injured because of an aircraft accident.”

On, June 12, 2025, Air India flight 171 crashed at Ahmedabad, Gujarat within a minute of its take-off. Out of the 242 passengers, there was one survivor, while 19 people were killed on the ground.

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India is a signatory of ICAO and has to comply with ICAO Annex 13 Standards for Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the United States and the Air Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) of the United Kingdom were participants in the investigation. The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and the Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) were recovered by June 16 and the NTSB’s help was taken in downloading and decoding the contents of the two recorders as the Indian authorities did not have the expertise to retrieve all the data. The NTSB and AAIB were aware of the contents. The Indian government must also be aware of the contents as it ordered commando protection for the chief investigator of AAIB India. This was a clear pointer that it was a serious issue.

A vague report, the facts

The vague Preliminary report that was released a month after the crash, clearly mentioned two points. First, the fuel control switches of both engines had moved to cut off from three to four seconds after lift-off. Second, one pilot asked the other pilot ‘why did you do that?’ And the other responds ‘I did not do that.’ It has been clearly established that the fuel control switches can only be moved mechanically by lifting the spring loaded switches from run and moving and dropping them into the cut off gate. These switches do not move due an electrical failure or software glitch. The DFDR and CVR would have clearly indicated what had happened in those critical 15 seconds — what was being spoken in the cockpit, who was handling the flight controls and all the ambient sounds in the cockpit area. The NTSB has the best expertise to identify the exact data.

If one were to go by details leaked by The Wall Street Journal in July 2025 — and also in November 2025 — it appears that there was friction between the U.S. and Indian authorities that mushroomed into serious differences on the findings. The NTSB will only support technical investigation in an accident. The transparency and the truthful report that India’s Minister of Civil Aviation promised on the day of the crash, appears to be a dream. Political massaging of the report will not find favour with the NTSB. From what this writer hears from former top safety officials in the U.S., the breakdown between U.S. and Indian authorities is the worst he has witnessed and the worst he has seen in an international accident investigation.

The state of aviation

India has had three fatal accidents in the past 15 years. In 2010, Praful Patel, then Minister of Civil Aviation, declared that Mangalore airport conforms to all standards of ICAO. The Court of Inquiry committee, under his Ministry, conveniently drafted a report with a litany of lies. Blatant violations such as a rigid concrete structure holding the Instrument Landing System Localiser, that a rescue and fire fighting truck got stuck outside a gate and never reached the burning aircraft, were covered up. The only positive aspect of the report was the identification of the dangers of flying in hours during the Window of Circadian Low and the lack of rest for crew.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s Civil Aviation Requirements have been undergoing modifications over 15 years, with extensions due to pressure from airline owners. An example is the way Indigo, a leading private airline, disrupted air travel for thousands of passengers across India and the Minister and the DGCA to their knees.

In 2020, there was the air crash in Kozhikode. There again, there was scant action by Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, and later, Jyotiraditya Scindia on safety measures addressing the dangerous operations at the airport. The deadline set for safe operation has long passed. We are now in 2026 and there are no restrictions in operations. The DGCA, as is the norm, dances to political pressure and is failing in its duty to ensure passenger safety.

Immediately after the AI 171 crash, the site was not sanitised. Television crew and cameramen were seen moving all over the site, trampling on and shifting through crash debris even before investigations began, and wiping out important clues. The airport was opened in three hours, with the zero availability of rescue and fire fighting services. Every flight that operated in this phase did not have rescue and fire fighting services on standby, endangering the lives of every air passenger and even those on the ground.

By delaying the findings and couching the facts with misleading statements, the AAIB is playing into the hands of YouTubers and social media narratives. ACARS and Inmarsat data are being quoted as proof of the flight having operated in dangerous conditions. The data is accessible only between the company that operated the system and an authorised person in the subscribing company. The entire chain of messages will be in an encrypted format. A simple example is how users of WhatsApp are confident about their messages being secure. The refusal of Apple to comply with the Indian Government order to preload a cyber-safety app citing privacy, security, and consent issues that go against its global policies is another example. It is to the credit of the airline, Air India, that it has not commented or responded to many of these strange narratives.

A lesson to learn

The Ministry of Civil Aviation and the AAIB should note how the FAA and NTSB act after a crash. When a UPS cargo MD-11 aircraft crashed on November 4, 2025, the NTSB had press briefings on November 5, 6 and 7, with its findings after the CVR and the DFDR had been downloaded and analysed. By November 9, the FAA issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive grounding the aircraft type.

The NTSB and the FAA were aware of the CVR and DFDR data within a week of the AI171 crash. If there was an indication of serious system failures on the Boeing 787, as being projected by ‘aviation illiterates’ (as a former NTSB investigator describes them), the FAA would have grounded all Boeing 787s. The very fact that no such action has been done is a clear indication that they know the reason behind the crash.

India’s standing is dropping everyday on the diplomatic front. It is the same as far as India’s credibility in aviation safety investigation is concerned.

The crash of AI 171 has drawn worldwide attention. For India to isolate itself with a self-centred ego, is going to take it down a dangerous path. Isolating foreign experts from the AI 171 crash report is a dangerous trend.

Captain A. (Mohan) Ranganathan is a former airline instructor pilot and aviation safety adviser. He is also a former member of the Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council (CASAC), India