India to issue interim report on Air India crash anniversary

India’s aviation investigators are moving toward an interim report on the Air India crash anniversary, a sign that the case remains open even after a year of scrutiny, black-box recovery and international attention. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is not expected to issue a final finding yet, underscoring how a fatal accident involving 260 deaths can remain technically unresolved long after the wreckage is cleared.

The bureau began the investigation on June 13, 2025, and formed a multidisciplinary team led by its director general and including an aviation medicine specialist, an air traffic control officer and National Transportation Safety Board representatives. The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were recovered on June 13 and June 16, brought to Delhi on June 24, and the CVR memory module was accessed and downloaded on June 25. Under ICAO Annex 13, states are expected to issue a preliminary report within 30 days, while the final report should be released as soon as possible and should not be delayed indefinitely.

The earlier 15-page preliminary report pointed to one of the most alarming sequences in modern commercial aviation. It said the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s fuel switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF almost simultaneously shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad for London, starving both engines of fuel. The report also said there were indications that both engines relit before impact. It did not recommend immediate action for Boeing 787-8 or GEnx-1B operators or manufacturers.

That partial picture has not settled the questions that matter most to regulators, Boeing and the families of the dead. The crash was later described as the first fatal incident involving a Boeing 787, a milestone that raised the stakes for investigators and for the manufacturer. The interim report, expected instead of a final one, also means India will not have to share findings ahead of time with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, though the NTSB can still comment on a final report.

For victims’ relatives, the gap between a preliminary theory and a final explanation has already stretched through months of grief and uncertainty. Air India began interim compensation payments of about Rs 25 lakh for each deceased passenger family in June 2025, on top of the Rs 1 crore support announced by Tata Sons, while the airline said it had opened a single-window helpdesk, deployed volunteers and caregivers, and offered trauma counseling, DNA identification support, transport of remains and funeral assistance.

The legal and regulatory pressure has only widened. Later in 2025, families of four victims filed suit in Delaware against Boeing and Honeywell, citing a 2018 Federal Aviation Administration advisory on fuel switch locking mechanisms and arguing that the switches were faulty. The interim report may offer a clearer account of what investigators can say now, but it also marks how much remains unresolved before anyone can claim the case is finished.