Air India Flight 171 crash (2025)

The Air India crash at Ahmedabad is the loss of the airline's Boeing, which came down on the BJ Medical College hostel seconds after takeoff for London Gatwick. On June 12, 2025, the Boeing 787-8 operating Air India flight 171 to London Gatwick took off from Ahmedabad with 242 people aboard and crashed less than a minute later. One passenger, in seat 11A, survived; 19 people died on the ground. It was the 787's first fatal accident, fourteen years after entry into service. The preliminary report of India's AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau) was published July 12, 2025. It found that both fuel control switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF one second apart just after takeoff, then went back to RUN too late. It does not say who moved them. In July 2026 the civil aviation ministry told Parliament that no abnormality had been found in the switches; the final report was not yet out. For the market, this is mainly a liability loss, with a smaller hull element. Air India's program was led by an Indian insurer and ceded almost entirely to international reinsurance. In June 2025 the chairman of GIC Re put the total, provisionally, at about $475 million: about $125 million for hull and engines, about $350 million of liability. Other market estimates put the hull lower, around $90 million. Since the flight was international, the Montreal Convention sets the passenger framework: strict liability up to 151,880 SDR (special drawing rights), then a reversed burden of proof above it. Deaths on the ground fall under Indian tort law. Until the cause is settled, recovery against the manufacturer, and with it the final split, depends on what the switches show.