Air India Simulator Tests Point to Dual Engine Failure in 787 Crash

Preliminary findings from simulator tests run by Air India pilots indicate that a technical malfunction—potentially a simultaneous failure of both engines—may have caused the 12 June crash of Flight AI171, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner that went down seconds after take-off from Ahmedabad. The recreated flight profiles showed that the aircraft’s configuration with landing gear deployed and wing flaps extended was not, by itself, sufficient to produce the catastrophic loss of lift seen in the accident, steering the inquiry toward mechanical or electrical faults.

Investigators are focusing on evidence that the jet’s ram-air turbine, an emergency device triggered by severe power loss, deployed moments before impact. Footage also suggests the landing-gear retraction sequence started but gear doors failed to open, pointing to a possible hydraulic or electrical failure linked to the engines, which supply those systems. Data from the cockpit voice and flight-data recorders is being processed at the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s Delhi laboratory and could be released as soon as next week.

The crash, India’s deadliest aviation disaster in decades and the first fatal loss of a 787, killed 241 of the 242 people on board and dozens of people on the ground, pushing the death toll above 270. Teams from Boeing and the US National Transportation Safety Board are assisting the AAIB, while Air India, Boeing and engine-maker General Electric have declined to comment pending the ongoing investigation.