Overview

• In April, Rupani visited the decommissioned Boeing 737-200 cockpit at Indus University’s Western India Institute of Aeronautics in Ahmedabad for an aviation demonstration.
• He sat in the pilot’s seat, asked detailed questions about controls and instrumentation, and shared the cockpit photos on social media.
• Rupani had twice canceled earlier bookings on flight AI171 before rebooking seat 2D on the June 12 service that crashed shortly after takeoff.
• The Boeing 787 Dreamliner went down near Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, killing 241 of 242 onboard and 29 people on the ground.
• Investigators have recovered the flight’s black boxes and begun safety audits of Air India’s 787 fleet as they probe potential mechanical or procedural failures.