Gaurav Taneja, aka Flying Beast, addressed the many Air India cancellations and delays in the past week, following the Air India Flight 171 crash in Ahmedabad.

After the Air India Flight 171 crash on June 12 in Ahmedabad, which resulted in the death of 270 people, aviation experts have been sharing their theories behind what might have caused the crash. While the authorities are yet to declare the findings of their investigation, the last one week has seen several flight cancellations. YouTuber Gaurav Taneja, aka Flying Beast, who previously worked as a commercial pilot for a decade, has been sharing his theories about the workings of airlines, and the technical aspects of the aircraft in question, Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. In a new post on X, Gaurav has implied that the many cancellations of Air India flights could hint that there is something that the “pilots know something that the public doesn’t.”

Taking to his X account on Thursday evening, Gaurav wrote, “Air India Pilots are snagging aircrafts, grounding, reporting sick and refusing to fly when in doubt. Everyone, including, management, engineering, operations, control center sit on the ground. It is the pilots and the crew who are front line staff that take off and land in these machines.
The pilots know something that the public doesn’t. #AirIndiaCrash”

Previously, Gaurav has shared various videos on his YouTube channel discussing the theories that might have caused the crash. He discussed the ‘dual engine failure’ theory in an earlier video and said that the flight took off later than expected, which could have been because one engine had already failed on the runway. “The first shocking information we got our hands on was the fact that the aircraft consumed more runway than normal. This convinced me that I was going in the wrong direction… The aircraft was close to the maximum takeoff weight, which is 2.20-2.25 tonnes. Because the pilots decided to proceed with the takeoff, we have to assume that whatever engine failure happened was after the point of no return. They could’ve aborted the takeoff only up till a point on the runway… If both engines had failed, the aircraft wouldn’t have taken off at all. But even with one engine down, it took more runway than expected,” he said, but added that he has no proof for these theories. He also mentioned that the plane could have been overloaded, but that this was also a theory.

Another YouTuber, Captain Steeeve, had previously implied that the crash could have happened because of pilot error, but when his fans criticised him for his stance, he offered a clarification. He also discussed the dual engine failure theory in his video and suggested that the high temperature at the time of the take off, along with many other factors, could have contributed to the many things that went wrong with this flight. In his latest video, Taneja himself implied that pilot error could’ve partially been the reason behind the tragedy.

Tata Sons and Air India Chairman N Chandrasekaran, in an interview with Times Now, shared that the aircraft had a “clean history.” He also mentioned that one of the engines was a new one, put in March 2025. “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…has a clean history. As for the engines, 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. Both engine histories are clean,” he said.