Varun Grover, Gaurav Taneja on Air India pilots getting blame in AAIB report: 'White man will always support white man'

Preliminary report into the Air India flight 171 crash was released on Saturday. It identified fuel being cut off to both engines shortly after takeoff.

An uproar has been sparked following the preliminary report on the Air India flight 171 crash, which occurred in Ahmedabad last month, killing 260 people. The report reflected confusion in the cockpit shortly before the tragic incident. Now, lyricist and writer Varun Grover and influencer Gaurav Taneja have reacted to the report's findings, which seem to point towards pilot error.

After the news of the crash, Varun Grover had tweeted, “A horrible day for us Indians."

What did the preliminary report state

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s (AAIB) preliminary report into the Air India flight 171 crash was released on Saturday. It identified fuel being cut off to both engines shortly after takeoff as the cause of the disaster.

The report revealed that cockpit voice recordings captured one pilot asking his colleague why he had cut off fuel to both engines, only to receive a denial in response. Several Indian experts have condemned the selective release of just one paraphrased sentence from what be several minutes of recorded conversations. Infact, India’s pilot community also slammed the crash report, with aviation associations accusing investigators of rushing to insinuate wrongdoing on part of the flight crew.

Varun Grover reacts

Varun also took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to express his anger over the report, and slammed the findings. He wrote, “Shilling for Boeing. White man will always stand with the white man. Shame.”

Gaurav also took the social media route to share his frustration over the findings in the report. He tweeted, “As expected ‘Blame the deceased Pilots’. They can’t come back to defend themselves. #Boeing has a lot of questions to answer!! BBC already gave Boeing a clean chit! #AirIndiaFlightCrash”.

About the Air India crash

On June 12, Air India's Boeing 787-8 aircraft operating flight AI 171 en route to London Gatwick had crashed into a medical hostel complex soon after take-off from Ahmedabad, killing 241 persons out of the 242 onboard. Another 19 people were killed on the ground. It was the worst civil aviation disaster in over a decade globally, and the worst in India in more than 30 years.