Engines Shut Down Mid-Air: AI171 Crash Report Points to Fuel Switch Flaw

A shocking revelation has come out of the preliminary investigation into the tragic crash of Flight AI171, which went down shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad airport on June 12. According to the initial crash report, both engines of the aircraft were manually shut off mid-air, just 32 seconds after takeoff, causing the fatal plunge that claimed over 270 lives.

The aircraft, which was en route to London Gatwick, reached its top recorded airspeed of 180 knots at 08:08:42 UTC, just seconds before disaster struck. In a sudden and devastating move, fuel cutoff switches for both Engine 1 and Engine 2 were flipped from ‘RUN’ to ‘CUTOFF’—within one second of each other.

This action instantly stopped the fuel supply to both engines, causing a sharp drop in N1 and N2 rotor speeds and resulting in a complete loss of thrust.

270+ Lives Lost in Seconds

Within moments of the engine shutdown, the plane lost altitude rapidly and crashed into a building just 0.9 nautical miles from the runway. Tragically, the building was a medical college hostel, and among the deceased were several students living in the facility. The crash left behind a trail of unimaginable devastation, with only one passenger surviving the catastrophe.

The aircraft remained airborne for merely 32 seconds before it slammed into the structure, turning a routine international flight into one of the deadliest aviation incidents in recent memory.

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No Grounding Orders Yet

Despite the seriousness of the event and the implication of a possible flaw in the engine fuel switch system, there have been no safety warnings or grounding orders issued so far for the aircraft model, the Boeing 787, or the GE GEnx-1B engines.

The findings from the preliminary report raise critical questions about design safety and human error possibilities in the aircraft’s fuel control system. Investigators are now focusing on whether the fuel cutoff was an accidental human error, a system fault, or a deeper procedural lapse.

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