The US-based examination of the jet's engines remains pending as diagnostic teams struggle to isolate a single root cause from the broader tapestry of missing bolts and frayed wiring that come standard on the aircraft.
WASHINGTON — Investigators will officially miss Friday’s one-year deadline to explain why an Air India Ltd. jetliner crashed shortly after takeoff, citing severe delays as engineers attempt to determine which of the Boeing aircraft’s several dozen independent catastrophic flaws reached the ground first.
The US-based examination of the plane's engines remains pending because diagnostic teams are struggling to isolate a single root cause from the broader tapestry of missing bolts, frayed wiring, and software glitches that come standard on the modern 737. Officials confirmed that while the left engine did completely detach from the wing, they cannot confidently rule out that the aircraft was already plummeting due to an unrelated rudder malfunction or a spontaneous fuselage decompression.
Normally we are searching for the single point of failure that brought a plane down, but in this case, the engine, the fuselage, and the flight control software were all racing each other to see which could terminate the flight first.
The missed Friday deadline highlights the mounting backlog at the US engine testing facility, which currently operates on a 24-hour shift schedule just to keep up with the sheer volume of debris Boeing generates globally on a weekly basis. Thorne noted that the Air India probe had to be paused twice this month so staff could examine a door plug that blew out over Oregon and a landing gear assembly that dissolved upon contact with a runway in Denver.
Boeing released a brief statement Friday morning confirming it is fully cooperating with the extended investigation by shipping a truckload of heavily redacted safety waivers to a secure warehouse in Maryland. The manufacturer added that it expects the engine will eventually be cleared of all wrongdoing.