Air India flight 171 from Ahmedabad to London-Gatwick crashed shortly after take off on the afternoon of 12 June. The Boeing 787-8 “Dreamliner” lost height just seconds after departure and impacted a neighborhood to the southwest of the airport. Air India says that one of the 242 people on board the aircraft survived the crash. This is the first hull loss of a Boeing 787.
Air India flight 171
AI171 departed Ahmedabad at 08:08:44 UTC (13:38 local time). The aircraft climbed to a maximum recorded barometric altitude of 625 feet at 08:08:46 before losing altitude. The last received data from AI171 by Flightradar24 occurred at 08:08:51.
Calculating altitude above ground level for Air India 171
Altitude data reported via ADS-B is based on uncalibrated barometric pressure above mean sea level, reported at standard pressure. That means that the altitude sent from the aircraft is not the altitude above ground level. Taking into account local air pressure and elevation, Flightradar24 has calculated AI171’s altitude above ground level. The calculations use QNH (local pressure setting) of 1001 hPa and airport elevation of 189ft. Calculations do not account for local air temperature and ADS-B altitude values have a resolution of 25 feet, therefore some uncertainty still exists. Computed altitude AGL values should only be used for information purposes.
Downloadable data
The CSV below contains all frames received from Air India 171, and position and barometric altitude when available.
Air India 171 comparative departure paths
We’ve taken data from AI171 departures for the month prior to the accident flight—including two previous operations by VT-ANB—and overlaid their departure paths on the data from AI171 on 12 June. The accident flight is in red, while all other flights are the blue paths. The data shown here is the uncalibrated barometric altitude, so the data is not above ground level, but it is consistent to itself.
Aircraft information
Air India flight AI171 was operated by a Boeing 787-8 registered VT-ANB (MSN 36279). The aircraft is powered by two GEnx-1B engines. The aircraft was delivered new to Air India in January 2014.
Investigative updates
13 June 2025 — Bloomberg quotes the India Aviation Ministry announcing it has recovered the Flight data recorder from VT-ANB. The Flight data recorder and Cockpit voice recorder make up what are colloquially known the aircraft’s “Black boxes”.
11 July 2025 — Investigators released their preliminary report on the crash, establishing the sequence of events on the flight deck.
08:07:37 UTC: Aircraft begins take off roll
08:08:35: V𝑟 (155 KIAS)
08:08:39: Take off
08:08:42: Fuel cut off switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF with a 1 second gap between movements of each switch
08:08:52 ENG 1 switched from CUTOFF to RUN
08:08:56 ENG 2 switched from CUTOFF to RUN
08:09:05: Mayday call made by AI171
08:09:11 Recording ends
The preliminary report does not elaborate on which pilots made which comments, but one of the pilots asked the other why they flipped the switches: “In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff. The other pilot responded that he did not do so.”
