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Preliminary report into Air India crash released

(www.bbc.co.uk)
294 points cjr | 4 comments | 11 Jul 25 20:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.651s | 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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burnt-resistor ◴[12 Jul 25 03:59 UTC] No.44539178[source]▶
> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.

You're leaping into the minds of others and drawing conclusions of their intent. One of them moved the levers. It could've been an unplanned reaction, a terrible mistake, or it could've been intentional. We may never know the intention even with a comprehensive and complete investigation. To claim otherwise is arrogance.

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epolanski ◴[12 Jul 25 04:13 UTC] No.44539240[source]▶
The car equivalent is being on a highway and "mistakenly" pulling the hand brakes, except that there are 2 hand brakes and you need to first unlock both of them.

That's very hard to do by panic and mistake, if not impossible by design.

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1. burnt-resistor ◴[12 Jul 25 05:30 UTC] No.44539562[source]▶
Bad analogy because pilots are trained and rehearse and practice memory items until they are instinctual.

> impossible by design.

Deflecting that the human is the weakest part of the system. One or other may have panicked and made a mistake, made a mistake unintentionally, went crazy and doomed the flight, or intentionally doomed the flight for some socioeconomic reasons. These are speculative possibilities that we don't know yet, and may never know; we only know what has definitely happened from the evidence per the investigation. It's standing way out over one's feet to declare from an armchair that it was "definitely" X or Y before the investigation is complete.

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2. epolanski ◴[12 Jul 25 05:38 UTC] No.44539597[source]▶
Forget my words then and take those from aviation experts.

The fact that a pilot would cut off fuel from both engines, in sequence while taking off is virtually impossible to happen unless deliberate.

Hence the hand brake comparison, it does not come natural to use it while driving.

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3. burnt-resistor ◴[12 Jul 25 07:22 UTC] No.44540022[source]▶
It was done. Yes. There is no way to determine from the evidence why it was done, how much conscious or not thought was put into it, or the thought process behind it.
4. shawabawa3 ◴[12 Jul 25 08:24 UTC] No.44540283[source]▶
Bare in mind there have been there have been what, 100+ million flights? so "virtually impossible" things can, and will happen