Pilot action 100% right, tried to revive engine: Ex-IAF pilot after Air India crash report
Reacting to the report, former Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot Captain (retired) Ehsan Khalid backed the pilots who flew the ill-fated plane, saying they tried to revive the engine moments before the crash. Flight AI171, that was headed to London from Ahmedabad but crashed moments after take-off, was flown by Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and first officer Clive Kunder.
"Pilot action 100 per cent right, they tried to revive the engine that is further corroborated with the fact that there was some movement of the fuel cut-off switch," the former IAF pilot said.
His remarks came after a report by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) revealed that shortly after take-off, both fuel cutoff switches on the AI171 flight moved from 'Run' to 'Cutoff' within a second of each other.
However, the report also says that attempts were made by the pilots to re-engage the fuel switches, so the engines could be revived.
Hours after the report was released, the former IAF pilot said it junks some speculation regarding the accident, and also supported how the pilots handled the situation.
Talking about how a fuel switch operates and sharing his insights on what the report revealed, he told news agency PTI, 'The fuel cut-off switch is a physical switch, it has to be moved from one position to another, and it has to be moved from that position back. There is not automation involved in it. What automation is involved is the fuel shut-off valve'.
While the preliminary probe report did reveal that the fuel switches were turned off, almost simultaneously, it was not specified what led to it.
A conversation between two pilots from the cockpit was also detailed in the report. "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 preliminary report said.
However, when asked about the report, Civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said 'do not jump to conclusions'. He also heaped praise on all pilots and said, "I truly believe we have the most wonderful workforce in terms of pilots and the crew in the whole world.'
Earlier, the Airline Pilots' Association of India (ALPA) also reacted to the report, saying the probe was 'being driven in a direction presuming the guilt of pilots'.
The report states that both engines of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner shut down just a second apart, which led to a rapid loss of altitude, resulting in the crash.
Bird strikes or any signs of external damage have been ruled out, but the exact cause of the fuel cutoff remains under investigation.
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NDTV
2 hours ago
- NDTV
Deliberate Or Mechanical Flaw? Pilots vs Pilot Over Air India Crash Report
New Delhi: The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau's preliminary report on its probe into the Air India crash on June 12, in which 260 people were killed, has stirred speculations and debates on two fronts. Firstly, whether there was a deliberate attempt made by the pilot to turn off the fuel switches from 'RUN' to 'CUTOFF' position during takeoff and secondly, the Wall Street Journal article, which came 20 hours and 8 minutes before the AAIB report was officially released, that focused on "Pilots' Actions and Plane's Fuel Switches". Earlier on NDTV, Captain Mohan Ranganathan, one of India's leading aviation experts and an ex-instructor of Boeing 737, made a stunning claim that the crash of AI171 may have been the result of deliberate human action because the fuel switches can only be moved "manually". However, former pilots and aviation experts have strongly opposed this view. In a roundtable of four aviation experts and ex-pilots, Mr Ranganathan's views were questioned, who stood by his claim of "deliberate manual selection". What Captain Ranganathan Said? On June 12, in an interview with NDTV, the aviation expert was asked if one of the pilots intentionally switched off the fuel, fully aware that doing so could cause a crash, to which Captain Ranganathan said, "Absolutely." On Monday, Mr Ranganathan reiterated his views and said, "The report (AAIB report) points to deliberate manual intervention. The US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) report has said this; there was nothing wrong with the switches today. The switches can't slide back to cut off. So it has to be pulled out and moved back. So that is possible only with a manual intervention." The probe team from AAIB found the fuel switches in the RUN position at the crash site However, Mr Ranganathan has questioned the "wishy-washy" nature of the report, which only mentions one line from the pilot's interaction - One pilot asked, "Why did you cut off?" The other replied, "I didn't". He has called for the release of the full cockpit voice recorder (CVR) data, which will have the sequence of who said what when the fuel switches transitioned to 'CUTOFF'. Captain Ranganathan, however, never inferred that it was done intentionally by the pilot to crash the plane, though he did mention that one of the pilots had a "medical history" and was on medical leave earlier, which led to Dreamliner Pilot Opposes "Manual Intervention Argument" Captain Rakesh Rai shared insights on the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner's characteristics, his experience of flying the same aircraft, and his views on the AAIB report and the "suicide angle" being debated. "Even if they (AAIB) don't want to publish the RT transcript at this stage, it is difficult to digest that only two sentences were spoken in the cockpit. If you look at the picture, which was published in the report, the aircraft is barely 50 to 80 feet or maybe 100 feet above the ground, and the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) is already deployed. It means that something happened right at the time of rotation, when the aircraft is just starting, and the engines have failed," he said. Captain Rai highlighted an important part of the report - The words used by AAIB to describe 'RUN' to 'CUTOFF'. He said they have used the word "transition", adding, "In these modern aeroplanes, you don't need to cut off the fuel control switch. Everything is transmitted electronically. So, even if the fuel switch is in the run position, it can go into the cutoff position without moving the fuel control switch. The fuel can just shut off. If there is something wrong with the software, it commands the fuel shutoff valve to close. With the fuel control switch still in run position, the engines can shut down." An excerpt from the AAIB report is as follows: "The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC, and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off." Captain Ranganathan differed with Captain Rai and said, "You can hold both the switches, pull them out and move," to which the Dreamliner pilot said, "I do not agree with that." Captain Rai said, asking for a full transcript of the pilots' conversation in the cockpit, said, "The report does not talk about the timeline when this sentence, 'Why did you CUTOFF?', was spoken, and that's an important point. "This sentence may have been spoken at a time when they were trying to relight the engine. So, the other pilot may have asked, Did you cut it off? He said, No." "If the pilot had done it deliberately, then there must have been a solid argument in the pilots will not keep quiet, right? There must have been a solid argument in the cockpit. Why did he do it? And you are going to kill all of us," he added. Manual Intervention? "Absolutely Absurd," Says Expert Captain Kishore Chinta, a chief pilot at Sirius India Airlines, strongly opposed Mr Ranganathan's views and said, "I find it absolutely absurd to say that the pilots planned to deliberately turn the switches off. For the simple reason that even if we go by the paraphrased, one sentence in the report, which says that one pilot asked, it is indicative of a surprise element, that it surprised one pilot, and the other pilot answered, Hey, I didn't do it. "The report is absolutely silent and paraphrasing in terms of the selective release of information. If there was a timestamp of each event with what happened in the cockpit in terms of warnings, what was the altitude, what was the engine parameters at that time, followed by cockpit voice recorder, CAM 1, CAM 2, the interaction between the pilots or any warnings picked up, all these would have given us a more, you know, clearer picture on if there was any deliberate action," he said. "Nobody is deliberating on the fact that these switches can be moved uncommanded? Everyone is saying they can only be physically moved. The only reason those switches are recycled is to reset the EEC logic. The electronic engine control logic is reset in case of a dual engine failure to reactivate the start cycle, the igniters and the fuel metering unit; all these logics are reset. If we go by the theory that it was a suicide, why even touch those switches? Takeover controls and just flip the wings over." Squat Switch And Landing Gears Captain MR Wadia, the President of the Federation of Indian Pilots, did not agree with the "manual intervention" argument and explained why the landing gear of the aircraft did not go up when the aircraft was airborne. Captain Wadia said, "As the aircraft is about to take off, the power, everything is fine. There's enough power and enough speed to get the aircraft airborne. However, as he (Captain Ranganathan) pointed out, the first call is positive, radar climb gear up, now, that is a normal call, and I presume the pilot who was supposed to call has called that thing. But why hasn't the gear gone up?" "The reason for this is the squat switch. All aircraft today, whether it's Boeing or Airbus, have something called the squat switch, an electrical switch, that identifies whether the aircraft is on the ground or in the air. Even if you by mistake pull the undercarriage lever switch won't allow it to go up because it is indicating to the computer system that the aircraft is still on the ground." The other aspect in the other, which Captain Wadia stressed upon, was the deployment of RAT or Ram Air Turbine - a propeller that gives emergency power to an aircraft for navigation. Captain Wadia said only these two pieces of evidence are present, and "why would we presume a suicide angle to this?" "Were the fuel switches touched? Yes, but after they were in CUTOFF position and were moved to RUN position," he said, adding that we should go by the pilot's word when he said 'I did not cutoff'. YN Sharma, CEO of Chimes Aviation, said, "The only thing we are getting from the report is that the action of both switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF is a deliberate action. If there is a software issue, and the supply is cut off from the back, but that won't physically move the switch. For that, you need a hand that will physically move the needs to be investigated what prompted that action." He said that as per the information Flight Data Recorder (FDR), the switches were moved from RUN to CUTOFF, and then a few seconds later, they were moved back to the RUN position. Almost five seconds later, the pilot gave a 'MAYDAY' call, and then the aircraft crashed. "This is a preliminary this point, we should have the full transcript of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and FDR Data in the public domain. You have these many data points and this is a preliminary report," Mr Sharma said. 'Who Gets Benefit From This Narrative?' Captain Chintan concluded by saying, "Even the deliberation that the pilot did something is a great disservice to them because they are not there to defend themselves, and also to the family members who lost their loved ones." "What we need to understand is who is getting benefits from this narrative?" he asked. "Does it benefit the Indian aviation regulator, the aviation community or the manufacturer? That will answer all your questions." Referring to the WSJ report, he said, "Why this narrative is being pushed by the western media and where the money is. It benefits the insurers by blaming the pilots and the manufacturers by taking away the liability from them." The AAIB mentioned there was a known FAA advisory from 2018 on a possible fuel switch flaw that existed, but inspections were not done by Air India. The airline's CEO, Campbell Wilson, said the report found no mechanical or maintenance issue with the doomed aircraft or its engines. A Reuters report said that the US Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing have privately issued notifications that the fuel switch locks on Boeing planes are safe. "The FAA does not consider this issue to be an unsafe condition that would warrant an Airworthiness Directive on any Boeing aeroplane models, including the Model 787," the Reuters report said. Two hundred and sixty people died in the crash, including 241 passengers. Only one flier on seat 11A survived but battles trauma from the June 12. The report does not clearly define whether the switches were deliberately moved or if it was a mechanical flaw, but families are still waiting for answers while mourning the loss of their loved ones.
Hindustan Times
6 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Air India CEO says investigation into Ahmedabad crash raises new questions
By Aditya Kalra and Chandini Monnappa Air India CEO says investigation into Ahmedabad crash raises new questions NEW DELHI -A preliminary investigation into the crash of an Air India passenger jet last month that killed 260 people raises additional questions about the incident and the investigation is far from over, Air India's CEO said in a memo on Monday. The preliminary investigation released by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau on Saturday depicted confusion in the cockpit shortly before the crash of the Boeing Dreamliner. In a staff memo reviewed by Reuters, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the report had "triggered a new round of speculation in the media ... Unsurprisingly, it provided both greater clarity and opened additional questions." He added: "The preliminary report identified no cause nor made any recommendations, so I urge everyone to avoid drawing premature conclusions as the investigation is far from over." The memo said the preliminary report found no mechanical or maintenance faults and that all required maintenance had been carried out. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London from the Indian city of Ahmedabad began to lose thrust and sink shortly after takeoff. All but one of the 242 people on board and 19 others on the ground were killed. According to the AAIB report, in the flight's final moments 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. It added that the plane's engine two fuel cutoff switches flipped almost simultaneously, but did not say how. The preliminary report suggested no immediate action for Boeing or GE, whose engines were fitted on the aircraft. ALPA India, which represents Indian pilots at the Montreal-based International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations, has rejected any presumption of pilot error and called for a "fair, fact-based inquiry". "The pilots had passed their mandatory pre-flight breathalyser and there were no observations pertaining to their medical status," Campbell said in his memo. The commanding pilot of the Air India plane was Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, who had a total flying experience of 15,638 hours and, according to the Indian government, was also an Air India instructor. His co-pilot was Clive Kunder, 32, who had 3,403 hours of total experience. Air India has come under heightened scrutiny on multiple fronts following the crash. On July 4, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency said it would investigate budget unit Air India Express, after a Reuters report revealed the airline failed to promptly replace engine parts on an Airbus A320 as mandated, and falsified records to indicate compliance. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Scroll.in
7 hours ago
- Scroll.in
Ahmedabad crash report found ‘no mechanical or maintenance issues' with aircraft: Air India CEO
The preliminary report released on Saturday by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau on the Ahmedabad plane crash did not find any mechanical or maintenance issues with the Boeing aircraft or its engines, The Hindu quoted Air India Chief Executive Officer Campbell Wilson as saying. In an internal communication to Air India employees, Wilson said that every Boeing 787 aircraft in the airline's fleet was checked within days of the June 12 crash and all were found fit for service. 'We continue to perform all necessary checks, as we will any new ones that authorities may suggest,' the newspaper quoted him as saying. The plane crash on June 12 killed at least 275 persons and was said to be the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade. In its preliminary report released on Saturday, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau found that moments after the aircraft took off, its fuel control switches transitioned from 'RUN' to 'CUTOFF' within a second of each other, because of which both engines shut down. The report said that one of the pilots could be heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he shut down the fuel, in response to which the other pilot said that he did not. After a gap of about 10 seconds, the switches went back to the 'RUN' position, in what appeared to be an attempt by the pilots to regain thrust in the engines. Subsequently, one of the engines progressed to recovery and deceleration stopped. But deceleration could not be stopped on the second engine. The flight lasted for about 30 seconds from the lift-off to the crash, said the report. In the internal communication, Wilson said that the report 'provided both greater clarity' and 'opened additional questions'. He also advised employees not to focus on the 'ongoing cycle of theories, allegations, rumours and sensational headlines'. 'I urge everyone to avoid drawing premature conclusions as the investigation is far from over,' he said. He assured that the airline would cooperate with the investigation process to ensure a 'thorough and comprehensive enquiry', The Indian Express reported. Wilson added that there was 'no issue with the quality of fuel and no abnormality with the take-off roll' and that the 'pilots had passed their mandatory pre-flight breathalyser and there were no observations pertaining to their medical status'. Air India's top priorities continue to be 'standing by the bereaved and those injured, working together as a team, and delivering a safe and reliable air travel experience to our customers around the world', he said. On June 12, Air India's Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, which was en route to London's Gatwick airport from Ahmedabad, crashed just 33 seconds after taking off. There were 242 people aboard the aircraft. One passenger survived with ' impact injuries '. Thirty-four persons were also killed on the ground after the plane crashed into the hostel building of the BJ Medical College and Hospital in Ahmedabad, according to Air India. DGCA orders fuel switches checks The Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Monday directed all domestic airlines operating Boeing aircraft to inspect key fuel control switch mechanisms on their fleets by July 21, CNBC-TV 18 reported. 'Strict adherence to the timeline is essential to ensure continued airworthiness and safety of operations,' the order added. The aviation watchdog's order cited a 2018 United States Federal Aviation Administration advisory that warned of a fuel switch malfunction on certain aircraft manufactured by Boeing. DGCA orders all airline operators to carry out inspection of the fuel control switch for disengagement of lock no later than 21st July 2025. This is as per the FAA order of December 2018. For 737s, 787s and others — Jagriti Chandra (@jagritichandra) July 14, 2025 On Saturday, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways had also ordered its pilots to ' exercise caution ' while operating the fuel control switches on Boeing 787 aircraft in its fleet, while also ordering an inspection of their locking mechanism, The Hindu reported. The directive had advised pilots to ensure that no objects were placed on the pedestal that could cause any inadvertent movement.
