Preliminary report into Air India crash released

I'm completely ignorant about this matter, but why is it even possible to cut off fuel while taking off? Shouldn't there be a control that completely disables this? Is there actually a situation where cutting off both engines could be necessary and wouldn't lead to a catastrophe?

Engine fire requires you to cut fuel to the affected engine.

Is cutting off fuel while taking off a better solution than letting them burn?

I'm assuming fuel being cut off is salvageable if not in the middle of a densely populated city, especially if above a plain or water. So it could be the favorable option in case of an engine fire.

Also, such complexity would introduce additional points of failure - as a sister comment mentions, a faulty altimeter (or whatever sensor) could prevent you from cutting off fuel when you need to.

Sometimes? If you have enough altitude to trade for speed then after the cutoff you could glide to a hypothetical miraculously-placed runway right in front of you, vs. having fire quickly consume the entire plane if you don't cutoff..

The general principle of aircraft control is that the pilot has the final say on how it is operated, not the designer, because you never know when you will need to take extraordinary measures. And the pilot generally prefers to return to the ground safely.

> if not in the middle of a densely populated city, especially if above a plain or water

What is on the ground below does not matter at that point - how far above that ground you are is what is important. More altitude is more time.

This flight was less than 200 meters up in the air. Sully's flight that you probably remember, that made a successful emergency landing on the river, was about 860 meters high, giving them much more time - about 3.5 minutes of glide time, vs. 32 seconds in the air, total, for the Air India flight.

Airbus liners don't allow cutting fuel with trust lever on.

This is actually very clever and elegant!

Pretty sure nearly all runbooks have you first move the thrust lever to idle before cutting off fuel. That suggests you shouldn't be able to cut fuel independently of the throttle.