A new joint investigation reveals that the long-mysterious crash of Air India Flight 171 was not caused by mechanical failure but by deliberate interference—exposing suppressed evidence, missing passengers, and chilling cockpit events that transform the tragedy into a shocking act carried out with intent.

Air India Flight 171, long remembered as a tragic aviation accident, is now at the center of a dramatic breakthrough after a newly completed investigative review has revealed evidence suggesting the aircraft’s 2016 crash in northern Italy may not have been caused by mechanical failure, but by a chain of deliberate actions concealed for years beneath conflicting testimony, unexplained data gaps, and long-ignored anomalies.

The new findings were announced on Monday in New Delhi after a joint Italian–Indian task force concluded a multi-year re-examination of flight data, passenger backgrounds, and on-ground witness reports.

Flight 171, a Boeing 787 operating from Rome to Mumbai on February 12, 2016, went down over the wooded slopes near Val Brembana, killing 181 passengers and crew.

The sole survivor was a 34-year-old cabin crew member, Neha Arora, found unconscious but alive several hours later, half-buried in mud and debris.

At the time, investigators attributed the crash to “a catastrophic mid-air systems failure,” noting that the aircraft’s left engine appeared to have shut down seconds before impact.

But this new investigation reveals that the shutdown did not behave like any known mechanical malfunction.

According to the task force’s 418-page report, flight recorders showed a sudden and unexplained freeze in engine telemetry for precisely 11.

4 seconds, followed by a complete blackout of cockpit audio—a blackout experts now say could only occur under intentional interference.

Former Air India captain and independent aviation consultant Rajiv Menon, who was invited as an external reviewer, told reporters: “The idea that a Boeing 787 loses all audio and engine tracking simultaneously without triggering backup systems is, frankly, impossible.

These systems are layered for redundancy.

Someone suppressed them.”

Adding to the suspicion was a piece of shaky mobile phone footage shot by a 16-year-old hiker, Matteo Franceschi, who was on a mountain trail roughly 10 kilometers from the crash site.

In the video—validated by the investigation for authenticity—the aircraft is seen descending unusually steeply, with its navigation lights flickering.

What caught the investigators’ attention was a faint glow near the tail at the moment the lights flickered.

According to the task force, preliminary analysis suggests this was a controlled ignition, not an onboard fire.

“This footage was dismissed as irrelevant in 2016,” said Italian investigator Sofia Bertani during the press briefing.

“But it matches perfectly with the telemetry gaps we now know were manufactured.”

The breakthrough that reopened the case came last year from a former maintenance engineer, who reported that he had long felt pressured to keep silent about discrepancies in the aircraft’s maintenance logs.

His testimony triggered a forensic review of the passenger manifest, which uncovered unusual last-minute seat changes involving two individuals traveling under falsified documents.

These identities remain classified, but officials confirmed that neither passenger’s body was ever recovered, despite both being listed as having been seated near the origin point of the internal ignition.

The report also includes extensive interviews with survivor Neha Arora, who has undergone multiple surgeries since the crash and only fully regained her memory eighteen months ago.

In her testimony, she recalls hearing “a loud argument” outside the cockpit roughly twenty minutes before the descent began.

While she could not identify the voices, she remembers one of them shouting the phrase, “You can’t do this—we’re not authorized.

” Arora says she reported this during the original investigation, but those statements were never included in the public summary.

When pressed for possible motives, investigators declined to make definitive claims, but they did confirm that “several passengers aboard were individuals carrying sensitive diplomatic and commercial materials,” and that at least one of the unaccounted passengers had ties to a multinational defense contractor that had faced multiple espionage probes.

One task-force member, speaking anonymously, said, “This was not an accident.

It was a message.

And the intended recipients received it.”

The reopening of the case has shocked families of the victims, many of whom expressed anger that early evidence was overlooked.

“We were told again and again that it was a simple engine failure,” said Priya Shetty, whose brother died in the crash.

“Now we learn there were arguments, missing data, unidentified passengers, and deliberate interference? We deserve the truth.”

International aviation bodies are now urging India and Italy to release additional details, while Air India has issued a statement expressing “deep commitment to transparency and full cooperation with further inquiries.”

As the investigation enters a new phase, the mystery of Flight 171 is no longer about a malfunctioning aircraft—it is about uncovering who orchestrated the chain of events that sent it crashing into the Italian mountains and why the world was encouraged, for nearly a decade, to believe it was merely a tragic accident.

The report hints that more disclosures are expected in the coming months.

Until then, the haunting question lingers: who wanted Flight 171 to fall from the sky—and what were they trying to silence?