Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) president CS Randhawa on Friday alleged the investigator did not give “much importance” to the statement of the lone survivor in the Air India flight 171 crash last year on the “flickering of lights” inside the aircraft, saying this could have been an important piece of evidence to probe the electrical failure angle.Speaking with PTI, Randhawaa also alleged that the FIP has taken up the matter related to the AI171 probe in multiple ways with the Civil Aviation Ministry, Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), which has been probing the crash, and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in the last one year but there has not been any response from any of them.The statement came on the day the aircraft accident probe agency AAIB issued an interim statement on the probe into Air India’s AI171 plane crash that killed 260 people on June 12 last year, and said the final report will be released upon completion of all investigative activities, requisite international review and consultation processes.Without providing specific details about the probe status or findings so far, the AAIB said the investigation team has undertaken an extensive and rigorous examination of all relevant technical, operational, organisational and human factors associated with the accident over the last year.In the interim statement on the progress of the probe, the AAIB said it remains firmly committed to conducting a thorough, independent, objective and evidence-based investigation.Air India’s Boeing 787-8 or Dreamliner with registration VT-ANB en route to London Gatwick crashed soon after takeoff on June 12, 2025, killing 241 people on board and 19 on the ground. A lone passenger (Vishwas Kumar Ramesh) survived while all 12 crew members died in the accident that happened during the initial climb.In its preliminary report on the crash that was released on July 12 last year, AAIB said the fuel supply to both engines of the plane was cut off within a gap of one second, causing confusion in the cockpit soon after takeoff.”We gave them enough evidence through technical material which was there right from Boeing to Honeywell and these were given as evidence to support our argument, but nothing has been done. We kept insisting about one thing that fuel control switches have not been moved and there is an electrical problem which has led to the malfunction,” Randhawa said.”What is happening to the systems, it generates warnings, but when there are electrical disturbances or some electrical problems, it may not translate into a warning … we have given evidence that there were certain codes which were transmitted and they have not been made public,” said Randhawa.When the aircraft is positively up, so there is an indication on the altimeter, it will give you a little climb and the pilot monitoring will say positive climb, then the pilot flying will say gear up, that means gear has to be taken up, he said.”In this crash gear is never gone up, where is that transcript?” he questioned.”Interestingly, they have not given much importance to what that lone survivor has said that after the aircraft was airborne, he saw flickering of lights in the cabin.”We have corroborated that with electrical malfunctions; there is no question of the lights flickering in the cockpit, in the cabin, because during takeoff the lights are switched off. So he could have given an important piece of evidence,” Randhawa said.Stating that the Boeing 787-8 aircraft is highly dependent upon the electrical (systems), such as electrical brakes and lot of batteries and generators in this aircraft and from the time of manufacture, he said the plane has been having a history of “electrical problems”, starting from lithium batteries to fires, to burnout in the P-100 panel.”So there have been continuous problems (with this type of aircraft),” Randhawa alleged.He said that the FIP has “no faith in the investigating team” and the Federation has written about this in its communication to the AAIB as well, a copy of which has been sent to the Prime Minister as well.”It is because all these months have passed by, to investigate a crash which occurred for an aircraft which got airborne for only 32 seconds, they have taken one year. I can understand (a prolonged investigation into) a flight which was conducted over a period of seven to eight hours, and now they have to take out a lot of data for that.”He also alleged that “the five-member investigation team of the AAIB was not well qualified for this investigation of the crash. If you go by Annexure 13 of the ICAO, these gentlemen did not meet the statutory requirements of being investigators of such a horrific crash. We even challenged that”.