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Preliminary report into Air India crash released

(www.bbc.co.uk)
314 points cjr | 5 comments | 11 Jul 25 20:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.634s | source
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decimalenough ◴[11 Jul 25 21:24 UTC] No.44536914[source]▶
> 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.

So the fuel supply was cut off intentionally. The switches in question are also built so they cannot be triggered accidentally, they need to be unlocked first by pulling them out.

> In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff. The other pilot responded that he did not do so.

And both pilots deny doing it.

It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.

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1. ls-a ◴[12 Jul 25 00:39 UTC] No.44538264[source]▶
So you're telling me that those switches don't have a voice that says "fuel cutoff switches transitioned" like in the movies? That's bad design
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2. yallpendantools ◴[12 Jul 25 05:51 UTC] No.44539653[source]▶
I know this thread runs the gamut of armchair experts, pretend experts, and actual experts and there's no telling who is which but I really want to know why the downvotes and why this is not a good idea.

The idea is to notify for crucial settings, replace vocal confirmation (probably) already in the SOP anyway, reducing mistakes in bad faith or otherwise.

Don't some planes already have an automated announcement for seatbelts on?

Only reason I can think of why it's not there yet is the cost (whether $$$ or design opportunity) of cramming that in the already-cramped cockpit.

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3. Mawr ◴[12 Jul 25 08:44 UTC] No.44540395[source]▶
My first instinct is that the suggestion is overfitted due to hinsight bias. This particular accident happened to involve these particular switches so let's add a warning to these switches. Duh!

Some problems that immediately come to mind:

- For which settings is there going to be a voice confirmation? Is their confirmation more important than all the other audio warnings?

- During emergency situations, when pilot workload is high, will these only add to that workload, making the emergency even worse?

- Will the pilots get so used to hearing these every day that their brains will simply tune them out as background noise?

Really though, if a pilot wishes to doom an aircraft, there's 1000 different ways they could do so. The solution to this problem likely lies in the pilot mental health management department, rather than the fuel cut off switch audio warning one.

4. yard2010 ◴[12 Jul 25 13:06 UTC] No.44541800[source]▶
WHOOP WHOOP

TERRAIN, TERRAIN! PULL UP! PULL UP! (WHOOP WHOOP)

5. ufmace ◴[12 Jul 25 14:41 UTC] No.44542400[source]▶
Pretty obviously a bad joke and a bad idea IMO. I did not personally downvote, but I think it deserves its current score.

Look at the timeline of the events. The switches were shut off, noticed to be shut off, and restored to the proper position within 10 seconds with the current system. Insufficient notification that the switches have been turned off was clearly not a problem in need of a solution. It would be slower and more challenging to understand an automated verbal announcement than the surely extremely obvious sudden lack of thrust and all engine dials rapidly dropping to zero.

So it wouldn't contribute at all to solving this particular case, would only be a slightly annoying distraction in the more normal case of normal aircraft shut-down after completing its flights, and would be a potentially hazardous distraction in the intended emergency case of engine is on fire and fuel must be cut off immediately, where there's probably a bunch of other extremely important and urgent things to pay attention to and do other than a silly automated warning telling you what you just did.