Nearly a year after the Air India Flight 171 crash that killed 260 people, many victims’ families are still waiting for mobile phones held by investigators. Relatives say the devices contain cherished memories and possible clues, while aviation experts argue Boeing 787 flight data should suffice. Families are demanding answers, transparency, and the return of belongings.
Almost twelve months after Air India Flight 171 crashed on June 12, 2025, and killed 260 people, phones of many passengers and crew remain in official custody, their photos and chats locked away from families who say they are being punished twice over — first by the crash, then by the investigation. Only a small minority have seen any devices returned. One of them is UK‑based Zeba, whose 53‑year‑old mother, Mariyam Inayat Padaray, was travelling alone to visit her daughter and two‑year‑old granddaughter for the first time. Others, like the family of 22‑year‑old cabin crew member Irfan Shaikh from Pune, are still waiting for the handset and its contents.
Authorities have told families that mobile phones and other electronics are being retained because they might hold information relevant to the crash investigation.
But Federation of Indian Pilots president Capt Randhawa says he sees “no need to hold the phones hostage” when a Boeing 787 already leaves behind a rich digital trail, including satellite transmissions, maintenance logs and multiple non‐volatile memory (NVM) devices embedded across the aircraft.
Zeba remembers the hours after she first saw news of the crash. For two days after the crash, Mariyam’s phone continued to ring, showed WhatsApp double ticks and remained traceable on Google services. “We had at least one hope – that my mom would survive after seeing the video of the solo survivor walk out relatively unharmed,” she told Free Press Journal, describing how the ringing phone seemed to defy the images of fire and wreckage now etched in her mind.
The family did everything by the book. They sent Air India and investigators the IMEI number and even the phone box details by email, following up repeatedly from the UK and India. Months later, after DNA identification, the handset finally came back — but in a condition that raised more questions than it answered. The device, Zeba says, was broken and burnt from the bottom. This was the same phone that had been ringing and locatable days after impact. “We can’t get our mom back,” she says. “We just want justice and the truth about what happened to her, and to the data on her phone.”
In another home in the UK, the sound of a ringing mobile became the last fragile tether to a young wife who never made it to her destination. Mohammed Shoeb Iproliya, who lost his 28‐year‐old wife, Nusratjahan Jethara, says he saw news of the crash that morning and immediately began dialing her number. Her phone rang steadily, he recalls, for seven‐and‐a‐half to eight hours. From his call records and recollection, it is evident Nusratjahan’s phone survived the initial impact and post‐crash fire for hours, long after the official count of the dead had hardened. And yet he’s got no answers from the AAIB.
For some families, the contrast between what was returned and what is missing has become a riddle. In Pune, the parents of Air India cabin crew member Irfan Shaikh say his personal effects were returned and everything had survived the fire intact. “Nothing was burnt. His jacket, shirt, pants, socks. Nothing. Even the tissue paper in his shirt pocket was still there, returned to us intact,” says the father.
What they did not find were items that should have been inseparable from a 22‐year‐old crew member at work: his watch and the phone that, relatives say, kept ringing for hours after the crash. “The mobile in his pocket, which was ringing till evening, was not found,” his father Amir says. When the family asked Air India and police officials for the device or at least its contents, they were told the same thing again and again: it’s part of the investigation, all electronics are in custody.
In at least one case, persistence and a relentless trail of emails have prised a phone out of the system. Romin Vahora, a medical professional, lost his brother Parvez (33), niece Zuveriya (3) and aunt (50) in the crash. According to his account, Parvez’s phone was returned only on May 13 — eleven months after the crash — and only after Romin says he sent more than fifty emails to Air India and other authorities.
Other relatives describe similar battles with bureaucracy. Zeba talks of websites crashing when families tried to log in to identify belongings from photographs, of tracking IDs, promises and then silence. She recalls piles of luggage left aside in Ahmedabad, bags opened and re‐packed, and a sense that her mother’s phone — and the last photos of a much‐awaited first trip to see a granddaughter — had simply vanished into that chaos.
Mukti Arjunsinh Vansadiya, who lost her parents Divya (60) and Arjunsinh (65) in the crash, still watches a news clip, which shows amidst the wreckage their checked‐in bags broadcast, by a television channel in the days after AI 171. Yet, despite that visual proof that her parents’ luggage survived, she says the AAIB has still not returned their belongings or their mobile phones to the family.
Investigators and airline officials have told families that phones are being held because they may contain information relevant to the crash. But aviation engineers and pilots point out that a Boeing 787 does not rely on passenger mobiles to reconstruct its final minutes. The AAIB’s own report notes that the aircraft’s tail section and Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) were recovered — both contain non‐volatile memory capable of preserving fault and operational data through loss of power. Other systems in the tail, including stabilizer‐related electronics, also carry NVM chips that retain fault histories even after the jet goes dark.
