A software glitch in Air India Flight 171’s twin-engine system caused a simultaneous shutdown midair, forcing the pilots into a near-fatal glide before a miraculous recovery — a terrifying reminder that even cutting-edge technology can fail, but human instinct can still save the day.

On a calm, clear morning in Mumbai, Air India Flight 171 — a Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London — lifted off the runway with 231 passengers and 11 crew members on board.

Within minutes, what began as a routine international flight turned into a terrifying freefall.

Both engines, the pride of Rolls-Royce engineering, failed almost simultaneously.

The aircraft, climbing through 9,000 feet, began to lose altitude rapidly as alarms filled the cockpit and the crew struggled to understand what had gone wrong.

“Engine one failure,” the first officer announced, his voice tight but composed.

Seconds later came another shock: “Engine two… also failed.

” Captain Arjun Patel, a veteran pilot with over 15,000 flight hours, took control immediately.

“Mayday, Mayday, Air India 171 — dual engine failure, returning to Mumbai,” he radioed to air traffic control.

For nearly seven minutes, the 787 glided silently — a massive aircraft turned into a powerless metal bird.

Passengers screamed as the lights flickered and the engines coughed in vain.

Some prayed, others texted loved ones.

Miraculously, Captain Patel managed to restart one engine just seconds before the aircraft would have hit the Arabian Sea.

Flight 171 limped back to Mumbai and landed hard but safely.

What followed was an investigation that stunned the aviation world.

Initial reports pointed to possible fuel contamination, but laboratory results quickly ruled that out.

Instead, the black box recordings told a far more disturbing story.

The engines hadn’t failed due to mechanical defect — they had shut down because of a software glitch.

According to investigators from India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), a recent automatic update to the engine control system had introduced a “conflict error” between the left and right engine sensors.

When both sensors misread airflow data simultaneously, the onboard computer interpreted it as a catastrophic failure and shut the engines down as a safety measure.

“It’s ironic,” said one senior investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The very system designed to protect the engines ended up nearly destroying the aircraft.”

Boeing engineers and Rolls-Royce specialists were called in immediately.

Their analysis confirmed that under rare conditions — when humidity and temperature matched specific thresholds — the sensor data could desynchronize, triggering a false shutdown.

The issue, while highly unusual, was not entirely new.

Internal documents revealed that a similar incident had been reported in 2022 on another Dreamliner operated by a different airline, though it was never made public because that flight managed to recover quickly.

Aviation experts are now calling this one of the most serious software safety failures since the 737 MAX crisis.

“When two engines fail simultaneously in a modern jet, something has gone deeply wrong in the design or oversight process,” said retired pilot and safety analyst James Wilmore.

“This wasn’t pilot error.

It was a system that didn’t understand reality — and that’s terrifying.”

Passengers have since described the harrowing experience as “eight minutes of silence and terror.

” Many said they had no idea how close they came to death until after landing.

“We just felt the plane drop,” one passenger recalled.

“It was like time stopped.

Then the captain came on the intercom — calm, steady — and said, ‘We’re returning to Mumbai.’ That voice saved us.”

Boeing and Rolls-Royce have issued joint statements confirming that the fault has been identified and corrected in subsequent updates, emphasizing that “the safety of our passengers remains our top priority.

” However, the revelation has reignited debate over the growing reliance on automated flight systems and the speed at which critical software updates are pushed to aircraft fleets worldwide.

As of now, investigators have recommended new international standards for verifying software integrity before updates go live, and Air India has reportedly retrained all 787 pilots to handle complete engine loss scenarios manually.

But for Captain Patel and his crew, the incident remains deeply personal.

“It wasn’t just a technical failure,” Patel later told a safety panel.

“It was a moment where we had to choose between trusting the machine and trusting ourselves.

I chose instinct — and it worked.”

The world’s aviation industry is still reckoning with that choice.