China Eastern Airlines crash probe reveals shocking findings, renews questions over Air India 171 tragedy

Eleven months after the crash of Air India flight 171 in Ahmedabad, the spotlight is once again on the role of fuel switches.

A report by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) into the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft says the fuel supply to both engines was switched off before the plane crashed into a hillside in China's Tengxian County, near Wuzhou. The March 2022 crash killed 132 people.

The parallel with the Ahmedabad crash is eerie.

India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), in its preliminary report released on July 12, 2025, cited engine failure after both fuel control switches were “transitioned” from ‘Run’ to ‘Cutoff’ three seconds after take-off. This, the AAIB said, caused both engines of the eleven-and-a-half-year-old Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner to shut down.

Incidentally, both aircraft are from the Boeing stable.

Pilot associations in India have strongly contested the preliminary report suggesting that one of the pilots may have caused the crash. In a recent letter to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) raised the possibility of “pre-lift-off electrical disturbance” in the aircraft.

“Based on lithium-ion battery failures, relay behaviour under abnormal voltage, and Boeing 787 electrical design, a pre-lift-off electrical disturbance could have caused unintended relay operation and dual engine fuel cut-off without pilot input,” the FIP said in its letter to the ministry on May 1.

Aviation experts, meanwhile, maintain that the fuel cut-off switches cannot be toggled without human intervention.

A final report by the AAIB is due on or before June 12, 2026. Under International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) rules, a final report is recommended within twelve months of an incident.

The NTSB, for its part, clarified that its investigation did not identify any technical safety issues with the China Eastern Airlines aircraft. Evidence from the aircraft's data recorders, analysed in the United States, shows the fuel switches for both engines being cut off simultaneously.

The report, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, says, “It was found that while cruising at 29,000 feet, the fuel switches on both engines moved from the run position to the cut-off position. Engine speeds decreased after the fuel switch movement.”

Interestingly, the NTSB revelations come even as China's aviation regulators have maintained complete silence on the matter. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has not released any report on the incident in over two years.