I took the time to read the entire article. (It spent some time discussing how he balanced his work schedule with the need to take care of his aged father, and that he might be near the retirement decision point...).
Here are a few other bits from the article:
So they looked at his medical records, and found nothing amiss. How is that worthy of a headline?
Seems par for the course.

What were your takeaways from that article?

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recently investigated the loss of an R66 and praised the ability of the factory-fitted video recorder to assist in identifying the cause of the accident. DFDR & CVR legislation was written, literally, half a century ago, long before on-board video was even possible, yet alone considered, and technology hasn't kept up with the times. It's about time it did.

Truck & bus driver's, cabbies, train driver's, even the kid at Macca's who hands you your burgers are all filmed at work and don't feel it's a hostile workplace, so sorry to say that airline pilots are most certainly not special enough to argue against the introduction of such technology - no matter how big your ego. The same argument of Big Brother was used when CVR's were introduced and no one bats an eye anymore, it's widely accepted, even though you'll still get the odd bloke here or there who erases the CVR before handing over to the next crew. If regulators want to introduce onboard CCTV with the same protections as CVR data, you won't win an argument against it. E specially when the increasing number of fatalities whose ultimate cause is pilot suicide will sway public opinion against you by people who themselves already subject to such surveillance at work. "Why are they so special?" will be the sentiment...

Granted, accident investigates are good at what they do, and I'm in awe of their ability to reconstruct the majority of accidents to determine the ultimate cause (without video). but when technology is available that would have already solved this accident ie. "On-board CCTV shows the Effo selecting the engine run switches to OFF for reasons that remain under investigation" (and to be clear, I AM NOT suggesting that's actually what happened...), it would solve a lot of issues and put to bed speculation about what actually happened to the fuel control switches, who did what and when and I'm at a genuine loss as to why people would argue against it, when it's already so widespread and entrenched in other industries.

Even now - with the preliminary report, I haven't seen mention of which pilot asked the other "Why did you [go to] CUTOFF?" whereas a video would have already told the whole story of this accident - with the exception of the why?

My final thoughts for this event.
Misinformation, most of us including myself was of the view that Gear Up had been selected because we saw an image believed to be the accident aircraft with the bogeys stowed for retraction.The report image shows that they were not and the Gear Selector was down. A crucial element in the sequence of events.

The preliminary report around the cause is deliberately vague for obvious reasons.The investigators would know exactly what was done/said and by who. The clack clack of the fuel switches would be on the CVR and align with the FDR. The First Officer was the Pilot Flying and his control inputs would be on the FDR (trim operation) when the engines were commanded to shutdown.
The full version will leak otherwise we have to wait for the Final Report. I'm of the view that the only thing misunderstood was the Captains meaning of Retirement..

But there will be a lot of information on the CVR
The information on the CVR that has been publicly released is minimal. Conspicuously so
The preliminary report has said the switches were turned off, then on
There has been no AD or advisory, and Boeing has stated they don\x92t anticipate any.

Occam\x92s razor suggests that those privy to the CVR are confident in their assessment.

Exactly. Here we have a captain who reminds us repeatedly of such, whilst denigrating reminding us that another aviation blogger who has a different theory is not a captain, but quietly praises another captain with impossibly shiny bars (Brasso perhaps?).

Nevertheless he glosses over / ignores the fact that the crew comments are not time stamped, and as such you cannot base much on the time delta until the switches were returned to their normal position. It could be 1 second or 9. I wonder why the decision was made to omit that time stamp in the Prelim Report.

As reported yesterday by the FT

The US Federal Aviation Administration has issued a notice to its international counterparts that fuel control switches in Boeing aeroplanes like the Dreamliner involved in last month\x92s fatal Air India crash do not pose a safety issue.

The FAA\x92s notice to foreign civil aviation authorities followed a preliminary report by India\x92s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau that the engines on Air India Flight 171 briefly cut off shortly after take-off on June 12.

That same article has been discussed before in its republished form:

One engine started to accelerate from the minimum speed reached. While that may have reduced drag very slightly I doubt it changed the impact point of the aircraft more than a few meters. The time from cutoff to run on the number 1 engine was 19 seconds before impact.

My emphasis.

The preliminary report doesn't say that.

Emphasis added.

We don't have evidence sufficient to reach that conclusion in either case. Maybe such evidence will emerge in the Air India crash investigation. Conceivably, investigators already have it (although, if they do, it should have been cited in the preliminary report), but we don't have it. If that's what happened in MH370, it seems pretty unlikely, at this point, that it's going to emerge.

I have rebuilt the site that organises this thread by subject here: https://paulross.github.io/pprune-th...171/index.html

It captures all 4009 posts from the three relevant threads and discards around 1/3 of the posts as having no significant content.

Changes:

• Build threads up to July 14, 2025, 13:20:00 UTC (built on July 14, 2025, 14:31:36 BST).
• Removed 34 subjects that the Preliminary Report has rendered irrelevant such as: "Bird Strike", "Flaps vs Gear", "TCMA" and so on.
• No new subjects added.

Project is here: https://github.com/paulross/pprune-threads
Raise issues here https://github.com/paulross/pprune-threads/issues or PM me.

I said earlier that I don’t think this is what the OP is suggesting…he’s pointing out that given the preliminary report and the fact that there is no AD from Boeing, it’s highly likely that the switches were moved by someone on the flightdeck and not a problem with the switch itself.

The preliminary report narrows things down a lot but not as much as it could have done. The report will have been approved by several people. What we see is their consensus. Why did they choose this version?

The report is written to point the finger directly at: (i) the fuel cutoff switches and (ii) either pilot error or pilot mal-intent using them. The report is not written to point the finger at an electrical or mechanical malfunction.

We have all role-played in our heads what would have been said in the cockpit in different scenarios. The investigating team already knows. They could have disclosed more of the cockpit conversation, which would be a lot of help to us PPRuNers, but didn't need to. They have let Boeing and the type off the hook and put the blame on the pilots. They have fulfilled the primary purpose of an investigation -- to find out what happened.

Interestingly, they did not disclose whether it was error and mal-intent. Perhaps that is because they couldn't answer the grisly question: which is least worst, from the point-of-view of the airline, the victims' families and future customers?

Two posters above have quoted AvHerald's report that "... India's media reports that the investigation is NOT focusing on a human action causing the fuel switches to appear in the CUTOFF position, but on a system failure." One interpretation of this is that the investigation knows all about the human action and that the system they refer to is the industry's approach to pilot mental heath and well-being.

YYZJim

Why do you think it is a "fact that nobody apparently announced 'engine failure'?" That was not included in the preliminary report or, as far as I know, in any other credible reporting here or elsewhere.

I don't know that we can treat media reports as being authoritative in any way, since the investigation team won't be conferring with reporters, whose likely sources will be in political/agency leadership, and not really in the loop either. But to pose an answer your question as to why the report we have was written in the form it is, I would say that firstly, it will have been intended to cover what the investigation knew to be all available material facts at the time of publication, and secondly, (as I posted earlier), likely to try and ensure the investigation ongoing remains as much in their grasp as possible, rather than being taken over by others.

In the middle of all hamster wheel posts, this one stands out. However, I do take issue only with the last point reported in this no longer reliable AvH website. Concerning the MN4 processor (Ive been looking into this one extensively prior to the preliminary report), according to the AD cited, MN4 board replacement on the GEnx1B was mandated within 12 years of production, engine that is, not A/C. According to the preliminary report AI171 engine 1 was produced 20 May 2012, engine 2 on 20 January 2013. This means that both AI171 engines were with replaced MN4 boards at the time of event, certainly taking into account that both engines have been mounted onto the aircraft in May and March 2025 respectively.

I think anyone still positioning a possibility other than physical movement of the switches at this point needs to bear in mind the following.

- The investigators and authors of the preliminary report clearly have more information than has been released in that report, a lot more. This includes, as per the report, the full recorded audio of the flight.
- With that additional information comes a greater ability to rule in or out certain possibilities, if we presume competence (which we clearly should).
- With all of that additional information and knowledge, *all* of the involved parties have explicitly stated there are no recommended actions regarding the airplane. This would be a pretty low threshold to issue even a precautionary advisory to check x,y,z if it was still deemed a possible cause.

It is reasonable to say, I would say, that the investigators have largely ruled out the switches themselves or the electronics around them as a cause here. They are as aware as anyone on this forum of previous SAIB relating to these switches, and explicitly reference them in the report, and haven't even taken the incredibly easy step of "re-suggesting" this. This is telling and should be very carefully considered before further suggestions in this direction.

I'd then suggest that everyone else also bears in mind the following. The investigators, with the information they have, have decided not to share some of that information. In my view, there are two likely reasons for this (combined):

1. They do not believe that releasing that information provides any additional safety benefit at this time *to other aircraft*.
2. The likely cause (or options of likely causes) demands exhaustive investigation to further check what the investigation is pointing to to date, and be positive of the cause to the highest possible threshold before even implying it. It may be frustrating that this leaves ambiguity, but this ambiguity is likely both intentional and necessary.

In my mind, this alone (but especially when taken in conjunction with other evidence) likely rules out the option of an object causing the movement in the switches. It also probably rules out an incorrectly followed procedure as this again would likely be fed out.

This really only leaves two options - completely erroneous action taken by a pilot (completely abnormal in its nature), or deliberate action taken by a pilot. Either of these demands full validation prior to concluding them publicly. The investigators, like us, probably have their views already on which is more likely (especially given the full CVR).

The preliminary report, as has been said, is actually more detailed than normal, but there are, as others have said, some interesting omissions. When you think about what the purpose of the preliminary report is, and what the objectives are of those authoring it, looking at why certain information is there (and why some isnt), combined with what they are suggesting as next steps, it does in fact tell us almost all of the story here in my view, in terms of the overall picture (not the low level detail).

Which doesn't mean the investigation may not ultimately take a different path - this is why they explore every possible avenue.

I have been hesitating to ask, but I'd like to check whether something I spotted is significant. (I think it is probably NOT significant, but it does no harm to confirm this whilst there is little in the way of new information to discuss).

I believe all three sources are reliable and verified.

1. Aviation Daily, June 25: "the DGCA carried out surveillance... at major airports, including those in Delhi and Mumbai. The surveillance order was issued on June 19, and the DGCA summarized its findings in a June 24 statement.

\x93The assessment covered a wide range of areas such as flight operations, airworthiness, ramp safety, air traffic control, pre-flight medical evaluations and communication, navigation and surveillance systems."

The order was issued on June 19, a week after AI171, and could feasibly have been informed by initial findings from the investigation (though not from anything on the EAFRs, which were not downloaded until much later). However, the timeframe is so tight that I'm inclined to think the assessment was either (a) a complete coincidence, or (b) a reassurance exercise.

Question : is it standard to include a review of pre-flight medical evaluations in such an exercise? (I don't see why it wouldn't be).

2. PIB press release from the Ministry of Civil Aviation on 26 JUN 2025 1:17PM: "The [investigation] team, constituted as per international protocol, is led by DG AAIB, and includes an aviation medicine specialist , an ATC officer, and representatives from NTSB."

The very first team member mentioned is an aviation medicine specialist. This could be coincidence or due to any number of trivial reasons, e.g. alphabetical order by surname. Still, I remember raising an eyebrow at the time (several weeks ago, to be clear).

The Preliminary Report ( PR ) includes a much longer list of team members on page 5, whereas the aforementioned press release singles out three in particular. Relevant?

3. The PR implies that the Aviation Medicine Specialist and an Aviation Psychologist were both drafted in as supplementary Subject Matter Experts (alongside several others I should add) at some point after the original team had been established.

I expect this is a common occurrence, but is it universal ? Question: At what stage of an investigation would one typically pick up the phone to these particular SMEs (automatically on day one or as deemed necessary)?

Individually, the above observations seem mostly routine to me. Together, they strike me as little more than a coincidence, but still... Do those with experience of such investigations have a view on the drafting-in, and the disclosure, of these two SMEs within the first two weeks of an investigation?

Disclaimer: By setting out my sources and thought process in some detail, it may create the impression that I am pushing an agenda. I assure you I am not. I am merely trying to be unambiguous about the facts I am asking you to opine on.

This was posted sometime ago, but if anyone would still find it useful to pinpoint the location of the aircraft in the 'new' photo from the Preliminary Report (with RAT deployed) I made a crude attempt which placed it roughly midway between the two sets of identical touchdown zone markings, ~245m (803 ft) from the displaced threshold of RW05.

The deemed position of the CCTV camera is only an estimate, based on visual cues. I'm happy to share my workings, should anyone find it useful to cross-reference this with other data they are working on, but I will avoid cluttering up the thread any further until/unless it becomes relevant.

You're looking for the point where the LEFT of the two white lines intersects the runway (ignore the white dots):

Thank you! Eyeballing the map overview at FR24 and the ADS-B data, that puts it at 8:08:49. That's 6 seconds after the loss of both engines, so the clock could still be 4 seconds fast—and would have to be fast if that was the first frame of the video where the RAT was fully deployed.