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Preliminary report into Air India crash released

(www.bbc.co.uk)
308 points cjr | 5 comments | 11 Jul 25 20:23 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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. groos ◴[12 Jul 25 02:05 UTC] No.44538692[source]▶
Suicide is quite a stretch without any supporting evidence from the pilots' backgrounds. I would take mental fog, cognitive overload, wrong muscle memory, even a defective fuel cutoff system over suicide.
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2. JSteph22 ◴[12 Jul 25 07:44 UTC] No.44540138[source]▶
>mental fog, cognitive overload, wrong muscle memor

Agreed. The sequence of events also supports this.

I believe one of the pilots made a terrible muscle memory mistake and cutoff the fuel instead of raising the landing gear. This would explain why the landing gear was never raised, why the pilot who was accused of cutting off the fuel denied it (in his mind he had only retracted the landing gear) and why the engines were turned back on after presumably realizing the mistake.

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3. shawabawa3 ◴[12 Jul 25 08:32 UTC] No.44540336[source]▶
This also makes sense with why nobody on the recording mentions re engaging the fuel switches

The pilot denies shutting off the fuel, then realises he'd done it accidentally and quietly reenables them hoping there's enough time to save them

4. cypherpunks01 ◴[12 Jul 25 09:00 UTC] No.44540488[source]▶
Were the landing gear switches and fuel cutoff switches pretty close to each other here?
replies(1): >>44541023 #
5. raphman ◴[12 Jul 25 10:44 UTC] No.44541023{3}[source]▶
Not really. Landing gear switches are above the throttle between the screens¹, fuel cutoff switches are below it².

¹) https://youtu.be/RbmFmWqqq0c?t=19

²) https://youtu.be/33hG9-BCJVQ?t=5

(I'm not an expert, I just watched these videos)