Engine fuel switches cut off before Air India crash that killed 260, preliminary report finds
Engine fuel switches cut off before Air India crash that killed 260, preliminary report finds
Engine fuel switches cut off before Air India crash that killed 260, preliminary report finds
Early investigation into accident in Ahmedabad in June also contains details of pilots discussing the switches
Fuel to both engines of the Air India plane that crashed and killed 260 people last month appears to have been cut off seconds after the flight took off, a preliminary report has found.
Air India flight AI171, bound for London, crashed into a densely populated residential area in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on 12 June, killing all but one of the 242 people on board and 19 others on the ground. It was India’s deadliest air crash in almost three decades.
According to a preliminary report by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, moments after take-off both the switches in the cockpit that controlled fuel going to the engines had been moved to the “cut-off” position. Moving the fuel switches almost immediately cuts the engine.
Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with General Electric engines
Edit: wowsers, apparently I made a controversial comment. Let me provide the context that I based my comment on. From the guardian article:
"According to a preliminary report by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, moments after take-off both the switches in the cockpit that controlled fuel going to the engines had been moved to the “cut-off” position. Moving the fuel switches almost immediately cuts the engine.
The initial report did not recommend action against Boeing, who manufactured the 787-8 Dreamliner, or General Electric who manufactured the engines."
Yeah, what this is saying is that this crash is, so far, looking to be due to pilot error:
They turned off the fuel feed to the engines right after take off, didn't realize they'd done this, didn't correct it in time, and then the plane stalled out and crashed.
An analogy would be maybe... you're driving a car, and trying to overtake someone on a highway, speed up and pass by them... and you don't realize that you've accidentally shifted into neutral, so now as you try to merge back into the correct lane, you're going way more slowly than you thought you were, and end up swerving into the car you were trying to pass, instead of ending up safely ahead of them.
Seems like it’s either deliberately negligent or sinister:
« The switches are equipped with safeguards, including a locking mechanism, to prevent accidental movement.
They are most often used to turn engines off once a plane has arrived at its airport gate and in certain emergency situations, such as an engine fire. The report does not indicate there was any emergency requiring an engine cutoff.
A US aviation safety expert, John Cox, told Reuters a pilot would not be able to accidentally move the fuel switches that feed the engines. “You can’t bump them and they move, »
« The switches flipped a second apart, the report said, roughly the time it would take to shift one and then the other, according to US aviation expert John Nance. He added that a pilot would normally never turn the switches off in flight, especially as the plane is starting to climb. »