Turbulence, tech fault, pilot? Air India Phuket incident leaves unanswered questions

An Air India flight from Phuket to Delhi lost about 300 feet mid-air and injured passengers and crew. The incident is now under AAIB investigation amid questions over turbulence, technical issues and the captain's drug test.The August 4 incident on the Air India Phuket-Delhi flight results in injuries to several passengers and crew members (Photos: Social media)On August 4, an Air India Airbus A320 flying from Phuket to Delhi suddenly lost around 300 feet of altitude in cruise, leaving passengers and cabin crew injured (including spinal injuries) and the cabin upended. The aircraft recovered, continued to Delhi and landed safely. At first, the explanation appeared relatively straightforward: turbulence.A week later, the picture is considerably murkier. The government has classified the episode as a "serious incident" and handed the investigation to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB). Its statement conspicuously made no mention of turbulence. An initial screening for psychoactive substances gave a non-negative result for the captain of the flight, requiring confirmatory analysis. And media reports have suggested that the aircraft may also have suffered technical glitches during the flight.All this has turned what initially looked like a turbulence-related incident into one with several unanswered questions.TURBULENCE OR TECHNICAL FAULT?Turbulence was the initial explanation. On the day of the incident -- August 4 -- Air India described the episode as a "brief in-flight turbulence-related event" that caused a "momentary change in altitude". Five days later, the Ministry of Civil Aviation issued a statement that made no mention of turbulence, instead describing only a "sudden loss of altitude of approximately 300 feet".The ministry also said that the episode had been classified as a "serious incident", with the investigation being taken over by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB). That meant the probe into what happened on AI 2379 would now be of a much more significant nature, involving, under international aviation protocol, the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, among others. A day after the August 9 statement, media reports about potential hydraulic and autopilot system failures raised new questions about the incident. News agency Press Trust of India, citing sources, reported that the A320 suffered multiple technical glitches, including problems involving its hydraulic systems (which are used to control a plane) and an autopilot disconnect, following which the first officer manually recovered the aircraft.Meanwhile, The New Indian Express, which spoke to Airline Pilot Association of India chief Captain Sam Thomas, reported that the pilot-in-command of AI 2379 realised that the aircraft was suffering serious technical issues and asked his co-pilot to immediately take the nose down. "This took the aircraft down by 300 metres. The dip in altitude creates a negative G and that only caused the passengers to be thrown around inside the aircraft. This quick action by the cockpit crew is responsible for saving countless lives on board," Captain Thomas was quoted as saying.These reports have not been confirmed by officials but will obviously be a subject of the ongoing investigation. But importantly, if these reported failures are indeed confirmed, investigators will have to establish their sequence. Did a technical problem cause the aircraft to lose altitude? Or did turbulence trigger a systems disconnect leading to warnings that were consequences rather than the reason?WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE CAPTAIN?It is now known that the pilot-in-command of the flight underwent a mandatory post-incident drug test that threw up a non-negative result, necessitating confirmatory analysis at a laboratory.Per protocol, pilots are tested for psychoactive substances after a mid-flight accident at the airport where they land. If this test shows a positive result, a second test is conducted at a regulator-approved laboratory. This is exactly what happened in the case of AI 2379 with the results of the pilot-in-command's second test not yet known.While this development does raise the scariest of thoughts -- was the captain of the flight intoxicated while at the controls? -- it is important to note that the initial screening tests can and do throw up false positives and that various routine medications can also result in a positive drug test.Also, while a drug test may indicate the consumption of a psychoactive substance at some point, it does not by itself establish whether a pilot was impaired at the time of flying.So there are two separate questions here: what will the confirmatory test show, and, if it does confirm the presence of a substance, did that have any relevance to what happened aboard AI 2379?These, again, are aspects that investigators will now have to look at.WHY DID THE AIRCRAFT CONTINUE TO DELHI?For aviation watchers, this remains the most intriguing question. Open-source data from flight tracking websites suggests that the drop in altitude took place somewhere over northern Madhya Pradesh. According to Captain Sam Thomas, who spoke to The New Indian Express, AI 2379 was flying over Odisha when technical issues were first noticed.Regardless of the cause -- technical, human or weather-related -- the injuries caused by the drop seemed serious enough to warrant immediate attention. However, the flight continued to its destination, raising questions about what information was available to the pilots and why continuing to Delhi was judged preferable to an emergency landing at the nearest airport.It is possible the pilots in the cockpit, busy dealing with a serious flight incident, were unaware of the extent of injuries back in the cabin. It is also possible that the pilots felt Delhi was best suited to dealing with the situation they had on hand. Equally, if the reported technical problems had been resolved and the aircraft was fully controllable and safe, the pilots may have seen no reason to divert.That is precisely what the investigation will need to establish. What warnings were present in the cockpit? What was the condition of the aircraft? What did the pilots know about the injuries in the cabin? And what factors went into the decision to fly on?Seven days after what must have been a terrifying experience for the passengers and crew aboard AI 2379, these are the questions that remain. The answers will have to wait for the AAIB investigation to establish what exactly happened during those few unsettling moments in the air.- EndsPublished By: Dev GoswamiPublished On: Aug 11, 2026 12:26 IST