A preliminary report on last month’s Air India crash that killed 260 people revealed that just three seconds after takeoff, the aircraft’s engine fuel cutoff switches almost simultaneously flipped from “run” to “cutoff,” cutting off fuel supply and causing the engines to shut down.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner immediately began to lose thrust and sink down, according to the report released on Saturday by Indian aviation accident investigators.
One pilot can be 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.
Mayday Call
It did not identify which remarks were made by the flight’s captain and which by the first officer, nor which pilot transmitted “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday” just before the crash.
The preliminary report also does not say how the switch could have flipped to the cutoff position on the June 12 London-bound flight from the Indian city of Ahmedabad.
U.S. aviation safety expert John Cox said a pilot would not be able to accidentally move the fuel switches that feed the engines. “You can’t bump them and they move,” he said.
Flipping to the cutoff almost immediately cuts the engines. It is 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.
No Immediate Action For Boeing
“At this stage of investigation, there are no recommended actions to Boeing 787-8 and/or GE GEnx-1B engine operators and manufacturers”, India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said.
Air India, Boeing and GE Aviation did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
The agency, an office under India’s civil aviation ministry, is leading the probe into the world’s deadliest aviation accident in a decade.
(With inputs from Reuters)
