Air India crash: Pilot asked colleague why he cut off fuel control switches seconds after takeoff
Air India Flight 171 from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick crashed on June 12, with all but one of 230 passengers killed.
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1News
3 days ago
- 1News
Fuel to Air India plane was cut moments before crash, report says
Fuel control switches for the engines of an Air India flight that crashed last month were moved from the "run" to the "cutoff" position moments before impact, starving both engines of fuel, a preliminary investigation report said early Saturday. The report, issued by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, also indicated that both pilots were confused over the change to the switch setting, which caused a loss of engine thrust shortly after takeoff. The Air India flight — a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner — crashed on June 12 and killed at least 260 people, including 19 on the ground, in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad. Only one passenger survived the crash, which is one of India's worst aviation disasters. The plane was carrying 230 passengers — 169 Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian — along with 12 crew members. According to the report, the flight lasted around 30 seconds between takeoff and crash. It said that once the aircraft achieved its top recorded speed, 'the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another" within a second. The report did not say how the switches could have flipped to the cutoff position during the flight. ADVERTISEMENT The movement of the fuel control switches allow and cut fuel flow to the plane's engines. The switches were flipped back into the run position, the report said, but the plane could not gain power quickly enough to stop its descent after the aircraft had begun to lose altitude. "One of the pilots transmitted 'MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY',' the report said. It also indicated confusion in the cockpit moments before the crash. In the flight's final moment, one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. 'The other pilot responded that he did not do so,' the report said. The preliminary report did not recommend any actions to the Boeing. Air India in a statement said it is fully cooperating with authorities investigating the crash. ADVERTISEMENT 'Air India is working closely with stakeholders, including regulators. We continue to fully cooperate with the AAIB and other authorities as their investigation progresses,' it said. The plane's black boxes — combined cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders — were recovered in the days following the crash and later downloaded in India. Indian authorities had also ordered deeper checks of Air India's entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner to prevent future incidents. Air India has 33 Dreamliners in its fleet.
NZ Herald
4 days ago
- NZ Herald
Air India crash: Pilot asked colleague why he cut off fuel control switches seconds after takeoff
A cockpit voice recording from the doomed Air India crash showed one pilot asking another why he cut off fuel supply to the engines. Air India Flight 171 from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick crashed on June 12, with all but one of 230 passengers killed.
RNZ News
26-06-2025
- RNZ News
Air India crash: Investigators download black box data
By Sakshi Dayal, Allison Lampert and David Shepardson, Reuters An investigation team inspects the wreckage of Air India flight 171 a day after it crashed. Photo: AFP/ Sam Panthaky Investigators have downloaded flight recorder data from an Air India crash this month that killed 260 people, India's civil aviation ministry says. The London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed moments after takeoff from India's Ahmedabad city on 12 June, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and the rest on the ground. The black boxes of the plane - the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) - were recovered in the days that followed, one from the rooftop of a building at the crash site on 13 June, and the other from the debris on 16 June. The ministry said data from the front recorder was accessed on Wednesday (US Time) by a team led by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), with the US National Transportation Safety Board. "These efforts aim to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the accident and identify contributing factors to enhance aviation safety and prevent future occurrences," the ministry said in a statement. US National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy told Reuters on Thursday (US Time) she hoped the Indian government would be able to share details from the investigation into the crash in short order. "For aviation safety and for public safety and public awareness we hope that they will make their findings public swiftly," Homendy said on the sidelines of an aviation event. She said the NTSB team had been working diligently to provide assistance to India and "we have had excellent cooperation from the Indian government and the AAIB". The probe into the crash of the Air India plane, which started losing height after reaching an altitude of 650 feet (200m), includes a focus on engine thrust, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. The Wall Street Journal has reported that investigators believe the Dreamliner had its emergency-power generator operating when it crashed. Most air crashes are caused by multiple factors, with a preliminary report expected about 30 days after the accident. Two GE recorders, one in the jet's front and another at the rear, are installed on Boeing's 787 jets and record the same set of flight data. GE, which sent experts to India, manufactured the engines on the Air India 787 and also produced the combined flight data and cockpit voice recorder, called an "enhanced airborne flight recorder". The forward recorder is equipped with an independent power supply that provides backup power to the device for about 10 minutes if the plane's power source is lost, the NTSB said in a 2014 report. The decision to begin downloading recorder data around two weeks after the crash was unusually late, three experts told Reuters, and followed speculation that the so-called black boxes could be sent to the United States for analysis. US aviation safety expert Anthony Brickhouse said accident investigators would typically have already given some update on the recorders' status, and have begun downloading data in such a high profile crash. "Normally countries know that the world is watching," he said. India said last week that it was yet to decide where the black boxes would be analysed. The data retrieved from them could provide critical clues into the aircraft's performance and any conversations between the pilots preceding the crash. India has said its actions had been taken in full compliance with domestic laws and international obligations in a time bound manner. - Reuters
