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Preliminary report into Air India crash released

(www.bbc.co.uk)
315 points cjr | 3 comments | 11 Jul 25 20:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.669s | 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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WalterBright ◴[12 Jul 25 02:32 UTC] No.44538814[source]▶
> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.

Remember that incident where a cop pulled out his taser and tased the suspect? Except he pulled out his pistol and fired it.

The taser looks nothing like a pistol, feels nothing like it, yet it is still possible to confuse the two in the heat of the moment.

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1. throwawaycan ◴[12 Jul 25 03:47 UTC] No.44539121[source]▶
It’s always easy in those threads to see who’s familiar with the world of aviation and who’s not.

No it’s not comparable to a cop that confuses things in the heat of the moment. Not anywhere close to be relatable.

If it was, planes would be crashing down the sky quite often (and it would have been fixed for decades already).

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2. octo888 ◴[12 Jul 25 06:54 UTC] No.44539930[source]▶
WalterBright is not totally unfamiliar with the aviation world...:

> Bright is the son of the United States Air Force pilot Charles D. Bright

> Bright graduated from Caltech in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Aeronautical Engineering

> He worked for Boeing for 3 years on the development of the 757 stabilizer trim system

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3. nosianu ◴[12 Jul 25 09:24 UTC] No.44540597[source]▶
So? The comparison still makes no sense. Those switches cannot be accidentally flipped, and they are in a place where the pilots' hands have no action to take at all during that period. That is very different from mixing up two similar weapons in a similar location.

Location of the switches: https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/c-gettyimag...

Here is a video of a takeoff and climb in a 787: https://youtu.be/TTZozTaWiRo

The pilots have no business with their hands in the area of those switches in that phase of the flight (9:30+ in the video). They don't even have to touch the throttle, and even if they did, that's a long way from where you touch the throttle down to the base where those switches are. Which you can't just flip either.

How is that even remotely similar to that cop's situation?