Fuel to Air India plane was cut off moments before crash, investigation report says
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.
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.
'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.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Air India crash: Not easy to ‘accidentally' cut off fuel switches, expert says
The fuel switches that were cut off before the Air India plane crash are the kind used on every flight, and designed so that this cannot easily 'accidentally' happen, an aviation expert has said. The London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into a medical college shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad Airport on June 12, killing 241 people on board. Another 19 other people also died and 67 were seriously injured. A preliminary report from India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, published on Friday, said both of the plane's fuel switches moved to the 'cut-off' position 'immediately' after take-off, stopping fuel supply to the engine. 'In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cut-off. The other pilot responded that he did not do so,' the report reads. The switches were then returned to their normal inflight position, which triggered an automatic engine relight and a thrust recovery procedure. While the engines started to recover, one of the pilots transmitted 'mayday, mayday, mayday', before the plane was seen by air traffic control to crash outside the airport. The fuel switches are used at the end of every flight and in emergency scenarios such as a fire, director of aerospace and aviation at Cranfield University, Professor Graham Braithwaite said. They are designed so they cannot easily be 'accidentally' turned off and pilots would generally run through a checklist before doing so, he said. 'For obvious reasons, the two switches are a distance apart, so not a huge distance, but enough that you couldn't accidentally switch two when you're trying to switch one. 'So it's not like the lights in your house, where they're right next to each other, so there is some space between them. 'They're in that centre console, so that's in between the two pilots, so they can each reach them with the same ease.' Professor Braithwaite said that if the switch had been moved by a person, that would have been a 'very unusual thing to do' at below 1,000 feet. 'It's not the point of flight where you try and call for your coffee, it's a period of flight where your focus is very, very clear, and that first 1,000 feet, it's about keeping the airplane climbing and that's not about clicking switches.' He added: 'I could see why a nervous flyer would be nervous at the thought that it's possible to shut both engines down at a critical stage in flight, but for whatever reason, and that there are a number of things that are in place to stop it from accidentally happening.' The aircraft was about 11 years old, the fuel switches had been changed two years ago, and the crash was a 'really, really unusual event', Professor Braithwaite said. Of the next stage of the investigation, he said: 'If somebody did wilfully move a switch, then was it on the one hand a wilful active sabotage, in which case the investigation changes considerably, because this safety investigation that published the report yesterday will not be leading on that, that would be a police investigation. 'So that would change at that point, but if it wasn't clear that it was that wilful action, you'd be looking at, well, what kind of mistake might somebody have made?' Of his general thoughts on the preliminary report, he said the authors have been 'very careful in their wording' to demonstrate they remain 'open minded' about what could have happened. The only surviving passenger was Briton Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who previously told The Sun it was a 'miracle' he was alive but felt 'terrible' he could not save his brother Ajay. Air India stands in solidarity with the families and those affected by the AI171 accident. We continue to mourn the loss and are fully committed to providing support during this difficult time. We acknowledge receipt of the preliminary report released by the Aircraft Accident… — Air India (@airindia) July 11, 2025 Some 169 Indian passengers and 45 British nationals were killed, making it one of the deadliest plane crashes in terms of the number of British fatalities. If the final investigation takes more than a year to complete, an interim report would be issued on the anniversary of the crash, Professor Braithwaite said, adding that interim recommendations could be made at any time. The preliminary report says that all crew members had been breathalised on their arrival at Ahmedabad airport, which found they were 'fit to operate the flight'. No significant bird activity was spotted near the flight path and the aircraft started to lose altitude before crossing the airport perimeter wall. 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'We continue to fully co-operate with the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) and other authorities as their investigation progresses. 'Given the active nature of the investigation, we are unable to comment on specific details and refer all such inquiries to the AAIB.'
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Osprey came back from the brink once. Now chicks are dying in nests, and some blame overfishing
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2 hours ago
What the ‘black box' can tell us about plane crashes
NEW DELHI -- A preliminary finding into last month's Air India plane crash has suggested the aircraft's fuel control switches were turned off, starving the engines of fuel and causing a loss of engine thrust shortly after takeoff. The report, issued by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau on Saturday, also found that one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel in the flight's final moment. The other pilot replied he did not do so. 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 report based its finding on the data recovered from the plane's black boxes — combined cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders. Here is an explanation of what black boxes are and what they can do: The cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder are tools that help investigators reconstruct the events that lead up to a plane crash. They're orange in color to make them easier to find in wreckage, sometimes at great ocean depths. They're usually installed a plane's tail section, which is considered the most survivable part of the aircraft, according to the National Transportation Safety Board's website. The cockpit voice recorder collects radio transmissions and sounds such as the pilot's voices and engine noises, according to the NTSB's website. Depending on what happened, investigators may pay close attention to the engine noise, stall warnings and other clicks and pops, the NTSB said. And from those sounds, investigators can often determine engine speed and the failure of some systems. Investigators can also listen to conversations between the pilots and crew and communications with air traffic control. Experts make a meticulous transcript of the voice recording, which can take up to a week. The flight data recorder monitors a plane's altitude, airspeed and heading, according to the NTSB. Those factors are among at least 88 parameters that newly built planes must monitor. Some can collect the status of more than 1,000 other characteristics, from a wing's flap position to the smoke alarms. The NTSB said it can generate a computer animated video reconstruction of the flight from the information collected. At least two people have been credited with creating devices that record what happens on an airplane. One is French aviation engineer François Hussenot. In the 1930s, he found a way to record a plane's speed, altitude and other parameters onto photographic film, according to the website for European plane-maker Airbus. In the 1950s, Australian scientist David Warren came up with the idea for the cockpit voice recorder, according to his 2010 AP obituary. Warren had been investigating the crash of the world's first commercial jet airliner, the Comet, in 1953, and thought it would be helpful for airline accident investigators to have a recording of voices in the cockpit, the Australian Department of Defence said in a statement after his death. Warren designed and constructed a prototype in 1956. But it took several years before officials understood just how valuable the device could be and began installing them in commercial airlines worldwide. Some have suggested that it stems from Hussenot's device because it used film and 'ran continuously in a light-tight box, hence the name 'black box,'' according to Airbus, which noted that orange was the box's chosen color from the beginning to make it easy to find. Other theories include the boxes turning black when they get charred in a crash, the Smithsonian Magazine wrote in 2019. The media continues to use the term, the magazine wrote, 'because of the sense of mystery it conveys in the aftermath of an air disaster.'
