AAIB Report on Air India Mid-Air Incident Leaves Critical Safety Questions Unanswered

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has published its preliminary findings regarding the harrowing August 4 flight from Phuket to Delhi, during which an Airbus A320neo suffered a sudden altitude upset, leaving at least 24 passengers injured. While the report offers a granular timeline of the mechanical failures, aviation experts are sounding the alarm over several glaring technical gaps that remain unexplained by investigators.

The incident occurred while the aircraft was cruising at 36,000 feet. According to the AAIB, the plane experienced a cascading failure of all three hydraulic systems within a four-second window, an event so rare and catastrophic that it triggered stall warnings and a rapid vertical oscillation. Although the systems unexpectedly regained functionality shortly thereafter, the episode has sparked intense scrutiny from the aviation community.

Unanswered Technical Mysteries

Former pilots and industry analysts have pointed to three primary concerns that the current report fails to address. First, the simultaneous loss of the Green, Blue, and Yellow hydraulic systems is fundamentally inconsistent with standard aircraft reliability profiles. Capt. Sharath Panicker, a veteran pilot, noted that a total hydraulic collapse effectively leaves an aircraft without power to its control surfaces. Experts emphasize that Airbus does not provide training for such a triple-failure scenario because it is statistically considered beyond the realm of standard malfunction contingencies.

Second, the decision-making process of the cockpit crew has come under fire. Despite the severity of the malfunction and the reports of injured passengers bleeding in the cabin, the crew opted to proceed to their original destination in Delhi rather than executing an emergency landing at a closer facility such as Kolkata or Bhubaneswar. Industry insiders are now questioning the threshold for what constitutes a “mandatory diversion” in the face of such structural and medical distress.

Finally, the report is criticized for its lack of transparency regarding pilot interaction with the aircraft’s controls. Critics note that the preliminary findings omit vital Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) data and fail to account for the side-stick inputs made by the pilots during the violent altitude swings. Without this context, it remains unclear how the aircraft sustained such significant movement and damage while the hydraulics were reportedly incapacitated.

A Second-by-Second Breakdown

The AAIB report details a terrifying sequence of events that unfolded in just nine seconds:

• 09:32:43 AM: The aircraft’s monitoring system records the initial failure of the green hydraulic circuit.
• 09:32:47 AM: The blue and yellow systems fail in rapid succession, marking a total hydraulic loss.
• 09:32:48 AM: The autopilot disengages automatically, and cockpit alarms alert the crew to the emergency.
• 09:32:51 AM: A stall warning sounds for two seconds. The aircraft experiences a violent altitude disturbance, spiking 372 feet before plunging 292 feet below its assigned flight level.
• 09:32:52 AM: The blue hydraulic system begins a recovery, followed moments later by the green and yellow systems, restoring flight control.

As the investigation moves into its next phase, authorities are conducting a deep analysis of recovered hydraulic components and fluid samples. Additionally, they are reviewing maintenance records and ATC communications. The urgency of this probe has been further heightened by the recent termination of a pilot involved in the flight, who authorities confirmed tested “non-negative” for psychoactive substances.

For now, the aviation world awaits a more comprehensive explanation as to why an otherwise routine flight nearly turned into a major catastrophe.

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