Air India

Is Air India safe?

We score Air India 57, level with Air India Express at 58 and far below IndiGo at 81. Most of its flights are on modern aircraft and arrive without incident, but three things put it below its peers: the unexplained crash of AI171 in June 2025, the fatal crashes of its subsidiary Air India Express in 2010 and 2020, and a stream of findings by India's regulator since 2024 about crew rest, training and paperwork. Air India has also written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary two other jets since 2009, a 747-400 in a taxiing fire at Mumbai and an A320 at Jaipur, with no deaths.

What happened on AI171?

On 12 June 2025, Air India flight AI171, a Boeing 787-8 bound for London Gatwick, lifted off from Ahmedabad and crashed about 30 seconds later into a medical college hostel just beyond the airport. 241 of the 242 people on board died, and 19 people on the ground were killed. One passenger survived.

The preliminary report of India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), published in July 2025, found that both engine fuel control switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF, one second apart, about three seconds after lift-off. On the cockpit voice recording, one pilot asks the other why he cut off the fuel, and the other says he did not. The switches were moved back to RUN and the engines began to relight, but the aircraft was too low to recover.

Why the switches moved is the central question, and it is still open. On 30 July 2026, the government told Parliament that a detailed examination of the switch at Boeing's facility in Seattle, including its locking detents, had found no abnormality, and that tests on the full thrust control module were continuing. The final report has not been published. Until it is, we count AI171 as an accident of undetermined cause, as our aircraft methodology does, and treat it at full weight.

Other fatal accidents and hull losses

Air India Express, the group's low-cost subsidiary, had two fatal accidents on short tabletop runways in southern India:

• 22 May 2010, Mangalore: a Boeing 737-800 from Dubai landed long, overran and fell into a gorge; 158 of 166 people died. Investigators found the captain continued an unstable approach.
• 7 August 2020, Kozhikode: flight IX1344, also a 737-800 from Dubai, landed long with a tailwind in heavy rain, overran and broke apart; 21 of 190 people died.

Air India Express flies under its own code (IX), so these crashes are not Air India's own. We count them because the airline is wholly owned by the group and shares its management and oversight.

Air India's own record has smaller entries too. On 4 September 2009 a fuel line coupling that had not been tightened properly came loose on a Boeing 747-400 taxiing at Mumbai; the engine caught fire and all 229 people got out, with minor injuries. On 5 January 2014 an A320 diverted from fog-bound Delhi to Jaipur with little fuel and landed in near-zero visibility beside the runway; nobody was hurt, but the jet was written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary and India's AAIB blamed crew decisions and weak supervision of flight operations. On 16 December 2015 an A319 started to taxi at Mumbai while ground staff were still at the nose, and an engine drew in and killed a ground engineer.

What has the regulator found?

India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has acted against Air India several times since the crash:

• July 2025: four show-cause notices covering 29 violations that Air India had itself disclosed, including breaches of rest and duty-time limits on ultra-long-haul flights and lapses in training.
• February 2026: a ₹1 crore fine for operating an Airbus A320neo on eight sectors on 24 and 25 November 2025 without a valid airworthiness review certificate. Air India said it had reported the lapse itself and fixed the gaps.

The record did not go quiet after that. On 4 August 2026, flight AI2379, an A320neo cruising at 36,000 feet over Odisha, briefly lost all three hydraulic systems; the autopilot dropped out, the stall warning sounded and the aircraft climbed about 370 feet and fell about 290 feet before the systems recovered. The seat belt signs were off. Twenty passengers and four cabin crew were treated, and four people were hospitalised with serious injuries. India's AAIB said in its preliminary report that the captain's post-flight drug test was confirmed non-negative for a psychoactive substance and asked the DGCA to act; the technical cause is still under investigation.

Self-reporting is a good sign in a safety culture. But the number and type of findings, on crew fatigue and basic airworthiness paperwork, point to a large airline whose systems have not kept up with its rapid growth and the 2024 merger with Vistara.

Fleet and oversight

Air India's own fleet page lists 191 aircraft in 2026. Most are A320-family jets: older A319s, A320s and A321s from the state-owned airline and newer A320neos and A321neos, many from Vistara. The widebody fleet is 787-8s, 777-200LRs and 777-300ERs from the old Air India, plus 787-9s and new A350-900s. Air India does not publish an average fleet age. In March 2026 it returned to service a 777-300ER, VT-ALL, grounded since February 2020; it was the last of 30 long-grounded jets inherited in 2022, and the 777s are due for full retrofits from 2027.

DGCA officials announced an effective implementationICAO USOAPICAO's audit of how well each country's aviation regulator oversees safety. The result is an "effective implementation" percentage.More in the glossary score of 85.49% after ICAO's November 2022 audit, up from 69.95% in 2018: good by world standards but below Singapore or the EU states. The FAA downgraded India to Category 2FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary in early 2014, after a December 2012 audit, and restored Category 1 on 8 April 2015. Air India is an IATA member, which requires IOSA registrationIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary.

Flying Air India: what you can do

• Check the aircraft type. On long-haul routes, the A350s and the 787-9s (ex-Vistara and new deliveries) are the newest aircraft; on domestic routes, the A320neo family is young.
• Check the scheduled flight time westbound. When Pakistan closed its airspace to Indian airlines in April 2025, many flights to Europe and North America became longer, and some added fuel stops.
• Keep the belt fastened whenever you are seated. The 24 people hurt on AI2379 were injured at cruise with the seat belt sign off, and from June to September monsoon approaches to Mumbai and the west coast can be rough.

How we scored it

The accident record (45) and the regulator's findings (48) set the score. A mostly modern fleet (74) and IOSA registrationIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary keep it from going lower. When the AI171 final report is published, we will re-score. Compare Ethiopian Airlines, which also lost a jet in a fatal crash in the last ten years.