A year after Air India crash, families still seek answers

Nearly a year after Air India Flight AI171 went down in Ahmedabad, the loss still has no clean ending for the families left behind. A mother still speaks about her dead son in the present tense, and a brother still waits for an explanation that has not come.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, bound for London Gatwick from Ahmedabad, departed on June 12, 2025, at 1:38 p.m. local time and crashed about 32 seconds after takeoff into buildings at Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College. The disaster killed 260 people in all: 241 of the 242 people on board and 19 people on the ground. Vishwashkumar Ramesh was the only passenger to survive.

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s preliminary report said the aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew and described the event as an ongoing investigation. For families, the central questions have remained unchanged since the wreckage was cleared away: what happened in the cockpit, why the aircraft lost thrust, and whether the cause was human error, mechanical failure or something else entirely.

The grief has been compounded by bureaucracy. Relatives spent days waiting for DNA confirmation before loved ones could be identified and handed over, and some later described distress over delays in receiving remains and arranging funerals. What should have been a private moment of mourning became a process measured in forms, samples and waiting rooms.

The final answer is still not in hand. Indian officials were preparing an interim report ahead of the anniversary, while the Ministry of Civil Aviation said the final AAIB report was due by June 12, 2026. That delay has turned the crash into more than a tragedy of impact and fire. It has become a test of whether India’s aviation system can explain a catastrophe as severe as one of the country’s worst.

Separate scrutiny has also continued in 2026 around fuel-control switches on another Air India 787 after a later London-Bengaluru flight raised concern over a possible defect. That attention has kept pressure on the airline, Boeing and regulators as families in Ahmedabad continue to live with the same unanswered question: what, exactly, brought AI171 down.