🙏 Akash, thank you for the shout-out — and for the video today on
@TheDeshBhakt featuring reporting on
#AI171.
But this reporting is not mine alone.
This story exists because 30 engineers, pilots, and other professionals spoke — anonymously & on-the-record, at great professional risk — from:
✈️
@airindia
🔧
@Boeing
📡 engine maker
@GE_Aerospace FADEC creator
@SAFRAN flight mgmt provider
@honeywell
🛡️
@EmersonElectro1 Moog (actuators, sensors, catastrophe systems)
💻Infosys, HCL (structural engineering, firmware, software)
🚀Tata Aerospace & Defence (floorbeams 787)
🔬 Foundation for Aviation Safety
@fas_org Ed Pierson and Joe Jacobson have blown the whistle & submitted key evidence in both Max 737 crashes & AI 171
✈️ Federation of Indian Pilots
📊 Aviation Herald
@avherald; whose editor Simon Hradecky currently is facing intense litigation from Airbus for saying
#Germanwings had technical issue & is unlikely to be pilot suicide. His book on
#Germanwings is a master class in engineering, aviation journalism
🏥Officials at AAIB,
@DGCAIndia @MoCA_India @aaibgovuk @NTSB
They chose truth over self-preservation. India owes them.
And then there are the lawyers who refused to look away. Namely Gopal Sankaranarayan, P Joseph - who are representing FIP and Capt Sumeet's father 92-year-old Pushkaraj Sabharwal
Notably
@pbhushan1 Prashant Bhushan — who fought Air India's controversial Boeing 787 deal in the Supreme Court back in 2012, which resulted in CBI inquiry & scrutiny of former civil aviation minister Praful Patel long before 260 people died — is now back in court demanding these same planes be grounded. 6,000 FIP members and pilots are behind him, saying the 787s have a history of electrical failures.
To the families who trusted me with their grief:
Mukti Arjunsinh Vansadiya
@Mvansadiya20 — who lost both parents, Divya (60) and Arjunsinh (65)
Romin Vahora — who lost his brother Parvez (33), aunt Yasmin, and 3-year-old niece Zuveriya. But still in his grief - managed to speak up, give evidence that Capt Sumeet's body was brought into the hospital with his hands on the controls - showing the Captain did his job; took over during the emergency & fought till the very end
Sagar Patel — who lost his mother, 62-year-old Hasumatiben
Zeba - who lost her mom Mariyam Inayat Padariya
Mohammed Shoeb Proliya, who heard his wife's mobile ringing for 8 hours post crash. "As long the phone rang. I had hope my mother was alive."
You gave this story its heart.
While the AAIB report never mentions the component that was cut during the much-debated "cockpit conversation." It was Western media - the likes of
@WSJ @Reuters that screamed it was a "fuel switch cutoff" and it was implied by none other than the late Capt Sumeet Sabharwal. A witch hunt began overseas & in India, with names like Capt Steeve, Capt Mohan Ranganathan
@Mohan_Rngnathan joining the fray.
And against this brigade, there were Indian journalists who fought to stay neutral. To report facts not selective leaks. This brigade includes
@BDUTT @shiksha_dev @IndrajitGupta. It includes media houses like
@TheDeshBhakt @TheFederal_News @frontline_india @fpjindia @themojostory. So that today we have a situation where Western media like
@bbcworldservice @TheSun saying "systems failure" likely.
So this was a joint effort to bring the truth to the public . Accurate, fair, unbiased reporting.
This is also due to Pushkaraj Sabharwal, 92 years old. Who gave 30 years of his life working for the DGCA; only to see the institution standby as his son was painted a mass murderer. He says - he is fighting in the Supreme Court not just for his son Sumeet, but for every family, every future passenger.
He is asking the right questions.
The hard ones.
The ones that should shame us all.
India has no whistleblower protection law worthy of the name.
The engineers who spoke to me risk everything. The AAIB source who told me the preliminary report was "a negotiated deal between Air India, Tata, GE and Boeing" cannot put their name to that.
A Whistleblower Protection Act is not optional. It is a matter of life and death.
Aviation safety is not bureaucracy. It is a promise — to every passenger who boards a plane trusting the system to have done its job.
That system failed 260 people on 12 June 2025.
There are still 1,200 Dreamliners with the same electrical architecture flying today — unreviewed, unexamined.
The question is not whether we can afford scrutiny. It is whether we can afford the alternative.
Because among those who had faith in India's aviation regulator to keep our skies safe — were Roshni Songhare, Saineeta Chakravarty, Shradha Dhavan, Aparna Mahadik, Maithili Patil, Manisha Thapa, Nganthoi Kongbrailatpam Sharma, Lamnunthem Singson, Deepak Pathak and Irfan Shaikh — the crew of AI 171, who had just completed their safety demonstration minutes before the crash.
Accident investigation is not a bureaucratic exercise. It is a nation's promise to the dead that their lives will mean something — that lessons will be learned honestly, and that safety will not be sacrificed to commercial interests.
For India — a founding member of
@icao — this is not acceptable.
Unless India corrects the course of its investigation, AI-171 will be remembered not only as a catastrophic systems failure in flight, but as a catastrophic failure on the ground — in the very institutions entrusted with the truth.
For 260 families, this is not justice.
For global aviation, this is not safety.
#AirIndiacrash #AI171 #Aviationsafety