Preliminary report into Air India crash released

You mention "brain fart". There is certainly a long history of pilots selecting the wrong lever, or wrong switch. So, it is possible the pilot who denied switching the fuel off thought he had switched something else.

My understanding is that after several incidents of pilots shutting off the wrong engine, the training was overhauled so that from day one they treat fuel switches as sacred. I heard that it’s required to ask for confirmation before toggling the switch, just to be absolutely certain. It’s not really something that can be done by muscle memory during flight, and especially not during takeoff.

If he was trying to do something else, he would have called it out. E.g. an audible “gear up.”

Also, it took 10 and 14 seconds to switch them back on. If it was an accidental switch, you would think it would have been quicker to switch them back.

If you look at the photo https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/ai171-investigatio... it would be pretty hard to get them by mistake.

I have a couple of those type of switches, though smaller, in my parts bin. They were from some piece of surplus equipment that got junked. Where I've seen them used is in a crowded control panel where they might just get bumped. The two red plastic levers to the left are another type of safety switch: The lever is spring loaded, and covers the handle of a toggle switch.

In my view it would be quite hard to move them by accident, and probably not possible to move at once.

It would be interesting to know if the plane has any other switches of the same type, that are routinely activated.

There’s no way even the clumsiest person could accidentally pull both out, rotate, and push back in, accidentally within 1 second.