India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has said the investigation into the Air India crash is ongoing, with the final report to be released upon its completion. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
The crash occurred on 12 June 2025. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad en route to London. The plane came down about 6km (3.7 miles) away from the airport, crashing into a building used as doctors' accommodation at the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College and Civil Hospital, and causing an explosion.
The crash killed 260 people: 241 on board and 19 on the ground. Of those killed, 169 were Indian nationals and 53 were Britons. One person survived – Viswashkumar Ramesh, from Leicester.
Friday's update from the AAIB said "significant progress" had been made, in particular to "the examination and analysis of aircraft systems, flight recorder data, engine-related components, maintenance and operational records". But it did not give a date for the investigation's completion.
An initial preliminary report was published on 12 July last year, finding that just seconds after take-off, fuel-control switches abruptly moved to the "cut-off" position, starving the engines of fuel and triggering total power loss. Audio recordings from the cockpit captured one pilot asking the other why he had done it, with the other replying that he had not. Investigators did not identify which pilot made either statement.
In the days after its release, attention turned to the pilots. The Wall Street Journal and Reuters news agency reported that new details in the investigation were shifting attention towards the senior pilot in the cockpit – Capt Sumeet Sabharwal. "A cockpit recording of dialogue between the two pilots of the Air India flight" that crashed last year supports the view that the "captain cut the flow of fuel to the plane's engines", the Reuters report said, citing unnamed sources.
The media reports prompted a strong backlash from pilots' associations in India, which criticised the coverage and rejected suggestions that the senior pilot had caused the crash, as well as the AAIB.
This week, Capt Sabharwal's father, Pushkar Raj, who is in his 90s, told the BBC he was determined to keep protecting his son's reputation in the face of the allegations. "You see, every time an accident takes place, the pilot is blamed. Why? It's the simplest way to close the chapter. He is no more and cannot defend himself," he said.
The AAIB statement emphasised that the "sole purpose of an accident investigation is to enhance aviation safety through the identification of lessons and safety recommendations, and not to apportion blame or liability".