Preliminary Report Into Last Month’s Air India Crash Provides New Information

A preliminary report on last month’s Air India crash suggests that fuel to the plane’s engine was cut off just seconds after the plane took off.

According to the report, the fuel cutoff switches for both engines shifted from ‘RUN’ to ‘CUTOFF’—one after the other, within a second. This effectively cut off fuel to both of the plane’s engines.

In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots can be heard asking his copilot why he hit the cutoff switch. The copilot responded that he did not do so, the report noted.

According to the Air India flight AI171 crash preliminary report,

This is what one of the pilots did just seconds after takeoff.

Is it possible? pic.twitter.com/2VBFcA5nNt

— Mohit Chauhan (@mohitlaws) July 12, 2025

Just seconds after this, the fuel flow was restored back to the engines, and the automatic restart sequence was initiated, but there was not enough time to prevent the plane from crashing, according to the report.

About 20 seconds after the “CUTOFF” switch was flipped, one of the pilots transmitted “MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY,” the report said. Just seconds later, the black box stopped recording. Soon after, the plane crashed into the dining area of a medical college in Ahmedabad.

TOPSHOT – Rescue officials work at the site where Air India flight 171 crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025. The London-bound passenger plane crashed on June 12 in India’s western city of Ahmedabad with 242 on board, aviation officials said in what the airline called a “tragic accident”. (Photo by SAM PANTHAKY/AFP via Getty Images)

The plane was headed for the United Kingdom and was carrying 242 total people, a total of 230 passengers and 12 crew members. (RELATED: Six People Killed In Plane Crash Near San Diego)

One man — Ramesh Viswashhumar, located in seat 11A — survived the plane crash.

“There were bodies all around me … Someone grabbed me and put me in an ambulance,” he told News18 in an interview while recalling the crash.