BJP slams Western media’s coverage of Air India AI171 crash report: ‘Opportunistic narrative-peddling…’

The Western media’s coverage of the preliminary Air India crash report has, as usual, been a disgrace, said BJP leader Amit Malviya

BJP leader Amit Malviya on Saturday criticised the Western media for its coverage of the preliminary report on the Air India crash released by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), terming it as a “disgrace”.

Taking to X, Malviya shared a post that showed a screengrab from BBC’s coverage, which was titled “pilot cut off fuel to engines – no fault with plane”.

“The Western media’s coverage of the preliminary Air India crash report has, as usual, been a disgrace. Headlines like this one, and others including Reuters, border on slandering deceased pilots who are no longer here to defend themselves. This isn’t journalism. It is opportunistic narrative-peddling at the cost of truth, dignity and basic decency,” he wrote.

According to the preliminary findings, both engines of Air India flight AI171 lost fuel supply within a second of each other, triggering disarray in the cockpit and causing the plane to crash moments after takeoff.

The incident took place last month as the London-bound Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed shortly after takeoff from the Ahmedabad airport, resulting in the loss of 260 lives including 19 on ground.

The 15-page report says that in the cockpit voice recording, one unidentified pilot asked the other why he had cut off the fuel, which the other denied.

"The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC (13.38 IST) and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec," the report said.

"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," it said.

A CNN report quoted safety analyst David Soucie as saying that these fuel switches are “designed to be intentionally moved.” “Throughout the years, those switches have been improved to make sure that they cannot be accidentally moved and that they’re not automatic. They don’t move themselves in any manner,” Soucie said.

The Sydney Morning Herald ran the story with the headline, “Air India crash report puts focus on actions of pilots.” Metro, the British freesheet tabloid’s headline stated, “Air India plane crash investigation focuses on ‘mistake’ made by pilots”.

The commanding pilot of the Air India plane was Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, who had a total flying experience of 15,638 hours and, according to the Indian government, was also an Air India instructor. His co-pilot was Clive Kunder, 32, who had 3,403 hours of total experience.

"Was it intentional, or the result of confusion? That seems unlikely, as the pilots reported nothing unusual. In many cockpit emergencies, pilots may press the wrong buttons or make incorrect selections - but there was no indication of such a situation here, nor any discussion suggesting that the fuel switches were selected by mistake. This kind of error doesn't typically happen without some evident issue," Shawn Pruchnicki, a former airline accident investigator and aviation expert at Ohio State University, told the BBC.