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Fuel to engines of Air India plane that crashed cut off moments after take-off, report finds
Fuel to the engines of the Air India plane that crashed last month appears to have cut off shortly after take-off, a preliminary report has found.
According to the report by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), switches in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner's cockpit that controlled fuel moved to a "CUTOFF" position. It said: "Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of one second.
"The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off." There was then confusion in the cockpit. In the voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why he "cut off".
The other pilot responds that he did not do so. The 15-page report did not identify which comments were made by the flight's captain and which were made by the first officer.
One of the pilots made a "mayday, mayday, mayday" call just before the crash. Both pilots were experienced, with around 19,000 flying hours between them, including more than 9,000 on the 787.
Flipping to cutoff almost immediately cuts the engines, and is most often used to turn the engines off once a plane has arrived at its airport gate and in certain emergency situations, such as an engine fire - though both switches together are rarely used simultaneously. The report does not indicate there was any emergency requiring an engine cutoff.
It also does not give a conclusion as to how the switches moved. However, aviation expert David Learmount told Sky News "it sounds deliberate.
Amir Nisi
Creative and experienced content writer with 6+ years of experience lazy to create unique content strategy for News5 to turn website visitors into customers.
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