On June 12, 2025, Air India Flight 171—a Boeing 787 Dreamliner—crashed just seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad, killing all 241 people on board and dozens more on the ground. At first, the aviation community, myself included, began searching for the usual suspects: mechanical failure, bad weather, maybe pilot error. But none of those explanations held up.
The engines were reliable. The weather, while hot and humid, was well within operational limits. The crew was experienced, well-rested, and had passed breathalyzer checks just before the flight. And yet, within moments of liftoff, both engines rolled back to idle. The aircraft stalled and fell out of the sky.
In this episode of Miles to Go, I sit down with my friend and colleague Les Abend, a retired American Airlines captain with more than three decades in the cockpit and thousands of hours flying Boeing aircraft. Les and I first met back in 2014 in a CNN green room as we prepared to cover the mysterious disappearance of MH370—a case that still haunts us and one that also appears to involve deliberate actions by a flight crew member. Sadly, this latest crash is beginning to look much the same.
According to Indian accident investigators, both engine fuel control switches aboard Flight 171 were manually moved to the cutoff position—effectively shutting off fuel to the engines during climb-out. These are not switches you can bump or trigger by accident. They require a specific and deliberate motion—pulling up against spring tension and then toggling over a latch. The cockpit voice recorder captured one of the pilots asking, “Why did you do that?” and the other replying, “I didn’t.” But the flight data recorder tells a different story: human hands moved both switches.
Les and I talk through what this means—not just for this flight, but for aviation as a whole. These kinds of incidents, while statistically rare, have happened before: EgyptAir 990, SilkAir 185, Germanwings 9525, and most likely, MH370. In each case, a member of the flight crew became the threat. And in each case, investigators, airlines, and passengers were left stunned and grasping for answers.
As pilots, as journalists, and as citizens who rely on aviation’s remarkable safety record, we find these cases uniquely disturbing. Aviation is built on trust: between the pilot and co-pilot, between the crew and passengers, and between aircraft systems and the people who design and maintain them. When that trust is broken from within the cockpit, it feels like a betrayal of the highest order.
We also talk about what can be done. The truth is, our systems are good at identifying mechanical risk, but they struggle mightily with psychological ones. Airline pilots undergo regular physicals, but there’s little to no mental health screening unless a pilot self-reports a problem. And that’s a tough ask in a profession where reporting a personal issue could mean losing your wings, your paycheck, and your identity. No one wants to be grounded, and few want to be the one who grounds someone else.
Les makes an important point: in his entire 34-year career, he never flew with anyone who gave him cause for concern. The overwhelming majority of pilots are professional, compassionate, and committed to the safety of their passengers. But we now have to confront a hard truth: every few years, somewhere in the world, someone in the cockpit decides to weaponize that responsibility.
As hard as this conversation is, it’s one we need to have. Because aviation safety doesn’t rest on avoiding hard truths, it depends on facing them head-on, at altitude, and with eyes wide open.
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Thanks for listening.
–Miles
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