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Aircraft accidents

Air India Plane Crash: Expert Analysis Reveals Most Probable Root Cause

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

Aviation expert Richard Godfrey has revealed the most probable root cause behind the Air India plane crash on June 12, citing lapses in maintenance oversight and non-compliance with FAA Airworthiness Directive 2025 as the primary factors. According to Godfrey, water ingress into the Electronic Equipment (EE) bay was the likely cause of the crash, which led to a simultaneous electrical disruption of the Engine Electronics and Fuel-Air-Fuel Exhaust (FADEC) systems. This resulted in a near-instantaneous shutdown of both engines at low air speed and low altitude, making it impossible for the pilots to recover control of the aircraft.

Key Takeaways:

  • The highly probable cause behind the Air India plane crash was water ingress in the Electronic Equipment (EE) bay, which can lead to electrical failures and a complete loss of power.
  • The aviation expert, Richard Godfrey, believes that the water ingress was caused by lapses in maintenance oversight and non-compliance with FAA Airworthiness Directive 2025, which warns about water ingress into the EE bay and calls for improvements to the cabin ceiling to prevent such incidents.
  • The failure of the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) to act as an emergency power source was also investigated, but Godfrey ruled it out as a probable cause due to the timing of the RAT deployment and the engines' shutdown.
  • The investigation also considered six possible root causes behind the AI 171 crash, with Godfrey ranking them as follows:

+ Highly probable: Water ingress in the Electronic Equipment (EE) bay

+ Moderate: Shared DC bus failure

+ Low: IPC Faults (breaker trips or electrical arcs)

+ Low: Software-Controlled Isolation

+ Low: GCU Software Overflow

+ Low: PRB-A water ingress (Godfrey clarified that this is associated with a fake Boeing service bulletin)

  • The air crash occurred just seconds after the pilots issued a MAYDAY call to ATC, and the flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) data were used to reconstruct the events leading up to the crash.

Statistics:

  • The Air India plane crash occurred on June 12.
  • The flight data recorder (FDR) data was used to reconstruct the events leading up to the crash.
  • The engines were transitioned from "Run" to "Cutoff" at approximately 1:38:42 pm.
  • The Ram Air Turbine (RAT) deployed at approximately 1:38:47 pm.
  • The aircraft had been powered down within the last 140 days, which is well inside the threshold for a GCU Software Overflow fault to occur.
  • The pilots had logged over 19,000 flying hours, with almost half of that time spent operating Boeing 787 aircraft.

Sources:

  • IE Online Media Services Pvt. Ltd.
  • Contify.com
  • Airworthiness Directive 2025 from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
  • Preliminary report from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB)
  • Aviation expert Richard Godfrey's analysis and interview with Geoffrey Thomas

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