The crash of Air India Flight 171 in June 2025 stands as one of the most baffling tragedies in the country’s recent aviation history.
Bound for London, the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner went down less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad, claiming the lives of 270 people on board and on the ground.
Investigators have recovered both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.
But it’s the chilling audio from the cockpit that has become the heart of the inquiry, a haunting puzzle that may hold the key to understanding what happened in those final, frantic moments.
What cockpit audio revealed?
Just moments after takeoff, both fuel control switches, devices typically used only on the ground to start or shut down the engines were somehow flipped to the “cut-off” position.
The result: a sudden loss of fuel flow and, with it, a catastrophic drop in thrust.
The cockpit voice recorder captured a brief but chilling exchange.
One voice demands, “Why did you cut off?” The other responds, “I did not.” It’s still unclear which pilot said what investigators have yet to match the voices with certainty.
The audio, while brief, has become a central clue in the unfolding mystery.
Why the experts are baffled?
Aviation safety experts and investigators are closely analyzing the cockpit audio from Air India Flight 171, zeroing in on the highly irregular activation of the fuel cut-off switches.
The focus now is on what this reveals not just about pilot behavior, but also about possible technical faults and the cockpit procedures in place at the time.
Several aviation experts have pointed out that the design of the Boeing 787’s fuel control switches makes accidental activation highly unlikely.
The switches are shielded by guard brackets and equipped with locking mechanisms, meaning they can’t simply be flipped by mistake, it takes a deliberate, two-step action: lifting, then pulling.
A Canada-based air accident investigator told the BBC, “It would be nearly impossible to operate both switches with a single hand movement,” emphasizing just how unlikely an accidental activation would be.
Echoing that view, US aviation safety expert John Cox noted, “You can’t bump them and they move,” reinforcing the idea that the switches are designed to prevent unintentional engagement.
Aviation analyst Mellissa Chen questioned the possibility of error, saying, “There is no way a crew member can ‘mistakenly’ flick these switches to the off position… or am I wrong?”
While she stopped short of drawing conclusions, Chen suggested that the incident could point to severe cockpit confusion or even a deliberate act, such as pilot suicide.
However, she was clear that no hard evidence currently supports either theory.
As investigators pore over every second of the recording, the world is left grappling with the questions stirred by that chilling exchange: Who made the fatal decision and why?
Until the voices are conclusively identified and the full sequence of events comes into focus, the cockpit audio remains both a critical lead and a haunting enigma at the heart of this unfolding tragedy.
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