N Chandrasekaran believes the plane's black boxes will 'definitely tell the story' of what went wrong on the doomed flight
The chairman of Air India has slammed the 'speculation' surrounding the circumstances of the deadly crash while sharing his own update on the investigation.
N Chandrasekaran, 62, has insisted that both engines on the doomed Boeing aircraft had 'clean' histories and claimed that the aircraft had 'recently been serviced'.
The airline boss has spoken out about the state of the Air India jet amid the ongoing investigation into the tragedy which took place last Thursday (12 June).
Flight AI171 had left Ahmedabad in western India to head to London Gatwick when horror struck shortly after take off.
The plane lost signal and issued a mayday call within a minute of taking to the air, climbing to just 625 feet before crashing into a hostel for doctors and medical students.
Only one person - British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who was in seat 11A - survived the deadly crash.
Preliminary findings had suggested that there may have been an issue with the engines, triggering the air disaster - but Chandrasekaran has now claimed they were in good condition.
In an interview with Indian news channel Times Now, the businessman said: "The right engine was a new engine put in March 2025.
"The left engine was last serviced in 2023 and due for its next maintenance check in December 2025."
Crash investigators are now examining the debris as well as decoding recorded flight data and cockpit audio to help piece together what happened in the moments before the crash.
Chandrasekaran urged people not to peddle theories and said the information from the plane's black boxes would 'definitely tell the story'.
"There are a lot of speculations and a lot of theories," he continued. "But the fact that I know so far is this particular aircraft, this specific tail, AI171, has a clean history.
"I am told by all the experts that the black box and recorders will definitely tell the story.
"So, we just have to wait for that."
Despite Chandrasekaran's comments in regards to the engines, aviation experts pointed out that the condition of them is not always dictated by their age.
"The age of the engine has no bearing on the health of the engine, especially for the Genx-1B engines," Kishore Chinta, a former investigator with India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau told the BBC.
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