The chairman of Air India has revealed new information about one of the plane’s engines that crashed last week. Tata Motors – which owns Air India – Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said that both engines of the aircraft had “clean” histories. One of the engines was new, while the other was not due for servicing until December, he 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,” he told Times Now channel. At least 270 people – most of them passengers – were killed last Thursday (June 12) when the Gatwick-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed under a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad airport in western India.

The aircraft’s black boxes have been found, so now investigators are working to decode recorded flight data and cockpit audio to reconstruct the flight’s final moments and determine the cause of the crash.

Mr Chandrasekaran cautioned against jumping to conclusions: “There are a lot of speculations and a lot of theories. 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,” he added.

However, Kishore Chinta, a former investigator with India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, has said that the age of an aircraft engine “has no bearing” on its health, particularly in the case of the Genx-1B engines used on the Boeing 787-8, the BBC reported.

Unlike older models, the Genx-1B engines, made by GE Aerospace, do not follow a fixed overhaul or maintenance schedule. Instead, they are equipped with a system called the Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) that continuously monitors engine health and performance. Based on this data and physical inspections, the decision to service or replace the engine is then made.

Air India has announced a 15% cut in its international operations on wide-bodied aircraft until the middle of next month as investigations continue and the airline grapples with the fallout from the crash. It said that inspections have been completed on 26 of its 33 Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 aircraft, all of which have been “cleared for service”.