Why officials may release only an interim report a year after the deadly Air India crash

Air India crash: Nearly a year after the June 12, 2025 Air India crash that killed 260 people, officials investigating the incident are preparing only an interim report instead of the final one. The new interim report, prepared by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) will be more comprehensive that the preliminary report that was released in July last year.

According to a report in Reuters that quoted a person in the know, the new interim report will examine the possible primary causes and other contributing factors.

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While the AAIB, after releasing the preliminary report, said that it was too early to reach any definite conclusions, it had said that the Dreamliner’s engine fuel switches were flipped almost simultaneously, starving the engines of fuel shortly after the flight from Ahmedabad to London took off. The report had kickstarted a furore.

WHY THE DELAY? 

To put it simply, it is a long process.

According to the Reuters source, the final report will not be ready by the crash anniversary because it is a very complex investigation and “it is taking time”. The interim report will first be submitted to the government, making the timing of a final report unclear.

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Another source told the news agency that the investigators are still working on the probe and needed more time.

Why is it releasing the interim report at all then? That’s because the authorities will not be required to share the findings ahead of time with the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) by releasing the interim report. NTSB is participating in the investigation because the aircraft was designed and manufactured in the US.

The NTSB will also be allowed to comment on the final report to provide more closure.

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As per the rules, if a final report is not ready within a year of an accident, then the investigators are required to issue an interim statement on each anniversary.

In the case of the Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX that crashed in March 2019, the Ethiopian investigators issued an interim report within a year but the final report was not issued till December 2022. NTSB was first given a draft copy in January 2021.