Now, I have to worry about suicidal pilots cutting off the flow, bro.
Posted on 07/11/2025 4:00:15 PM PDT by Yossarian
A pair of switches that control the fuel supply to the engines were set to "cutoff" moments before the crash of Air India Flight 171, according to a preliminary report from India's Air Accident Investigation Bureau released early Saturday in India.
A total of 260 people were killed when the Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed shortly after it took off from Ahmedabad last month.
Indian investigators determined the jet was properly configured and lifted off normally. But three seconds after takeoff, the engines' fuel switches were cut off. It's not clear why.
According to the report, data from the flight recorders show that the two fuel control switches were switched from the "run" position to "cutoff" shortly after takeoff. In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots can be heard asking the other "why did he cutoff," the report says, while "the other pilot responded that he did not do so."
Moments later, the report says, the fuel switches were returned to the "run" position. But by then, the plane had begun to lose thrust and altitude. Both the engines appeared to relight, according to investigators, but only one of them was able to begin generating thrust.
The report does not draw any further conclusions about why the switches were flipped, but it does suggest that investigators are focused on the actions of the plane's pilots. The report does not present any evidence of mechanical failures or of a possible bird strike, which could have incapacitated both engines at the same time.
The first officer was the pilot flying at the time of the crash, according to investigators. The report suggests that there was nothing out of the ordinary about its takeoff — until the fuel control switches were flipped off.
There were 242 passengers and crew on board the London-bound flight when it crashed into a medical college and burst into flames. Only one passenger — sitting in seat 11A — was able to walk away from the burning rubble. Nineteen people died on the ground.
This was the first ever hull loss of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which entered service in 2011.
Sorry about using NPR, but it is really hard to find any news-source on this breaking news that isn't locked away behind a paywall.
(Since we pay for NPR in our taxes, let's see if I can post this without excerpting the article...)
The preliminary report can be read here:
https://aaib.gov.in/What's%20New%20Assets/Preliminary%20Report%20VT-ANB.pdf
My God, this is so sad. Sounds like hacking the aircraft’s system.
suicidal pilots are going to have a revelation from this crash.
In the past they would let the plane get to cruising altitude before finding an opportunity to lock the other pilot out of the cockpit. Redirecting the plane into the ground would take several minutes to accomplish.
You are so short of time at takeoff that several unexpected moves can be made that would not allow enough time for the other pilot to prevent the crash.
Haven’t read the article yet but if true, they were turned off on purpose. Those switches have to be manipulated specifically, multiple movements. They aren’t like light switches.
He stated that the fuel switches were found in the "Cutoff" position, but here it is made clear that they were set back into the "Run" position before the crash.
Also of note, from this Boston Globe article:
The switches have safeguards designed to stop them from being inadvertently moved.
“Each switch has a mechanical lock where you have lift the switch up and then move it, so it’s highly unlikely for switches like this to be inadvertently moved absent some mechanical failure,” said Jeff Guzzetti, the former director of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Accident Investigation Division.
It is also unusual that both switches inadvertently moved to the cutoff position “one right after another, one second apart,” Guzzetti added. Guzzetti did not rule out the possibility the switches may have been intentionally moved, citing the need to also investigate the pilots.
Now, I have to worry about suicidal pilots cutting off the flow, bro.
The report’s authors note that they make no recommendations to Boeing, the manufacturer of the plane, or General Electric, the maker of the engine.
So, our home-team neer-do-wells at Boeing didn't gum up this one. Hurray!
Authorities typically provide regular briefings to the public immediately after serious crashes, but in the case of the Air India crash, little official information had been shared. That left a void filled in some cases by misinformation, and it stoked concern among international safety experts that the lack of transparency would make it difficult for other airlines to know whether any broader safety risks needed to be urgently addressed.
The investigation got off to a slow start. The plane’s black boxes, which record conversations between the pilots and log data from the jet’s systems, were recovered from the wreckage in the days after the crash, but investigators did not begin to analyze data from them until June 24 at a lab in Delhi. The information in the boxes will be vital to investigators as they piece together what went wrong.
So, it took the Indians about 10 days to do the time-critical work of actually evaluating the data recorders. Meanwhile the 787 fleet was still flying - so that data was REALLY critical to evaluate for world-wide air travel safety.
Par for the course.
Apparently no electronic hacking on this one.
Those "fuel cutoff" switches are very carefully mechanically designed, to require explicit action.
Each switch a small "ball" a the tip of the switch. To change positions, you:
1. have to pull the switch OUT, so that it
2. gets out of a detent for that switch position,
3. then you rotate it to the new position,
4. then let go and
5. make sure it settles down into the detent for the new position.
On top of that, they have metal blocker structures on the side of them to prevent accidental switching, like catching of the switches on clothing, bracelets, cufflinks, etc.
The PDF says that the fuel switches both were switched off with a 1s gap between them. Ten seconds went by before the Engine 1 switch was turned back on, and another four seconds passed before the Engine 2 switch was moved to the on position. During the ten seconds the fuel was cut, the CVR recorded one of the pilots asking the other why he cut the fuel, and the response was a denial.
This was intentional and one of the bastards in the cockpit did it.
I worked at Boeing on Chinook helicopter flight controls. Aircraft are generally not hackable: there won’t be any physical or RF link that allows anyone outside to affect the flight control system. While there might be interfaces that can do this, those are for Boeing internal flight testing use only and wouldn’t be distributed to the customer.
Hindu names
Hi Sidebar Moderator-
I had put this article in “Breaking News” because it shows that the 787 nor its engines were the cause of the recent Air India air disaster.
As many of us fly a lot, I figured it is good to know when one of the most-used airplanes for international flight has been found to be not at fault.
Can this at least be put into “Extended” news?
(I’ll bag on Boeing when they have it coming, but I’ll also make sure exculpatory news is posted, too.)
Sumeet Sabharwal was the Captain. Sixty years old
Clive Kundar was the Co-pilot. Thirty eight years old.
Both were Hindi.
A Yo-Yo to Yossarian post....
A short of both switches, perhaps? The RAT deployed...the plane certainly acted like the switches were moved. , but I wonder....
Just so everyone is aware, I’m not sure what Captain Steve said in his video, but the Dual Engine Failre Checklist on the Boeing 787 has memory items and the memory items are as follows:
FUEL CONTROL switches (both) .............. CUTOFF, then RUN
RAM AIR TURBINE switch .......................... Push and hold for 1 second
No, this involves manually manipulating two separate switches. They must be pulled out past a spring loaded detent then thrown into the off position. Nothing about that is anything other than intentional human interaction.
It also happened at the worst possible time, when the other pilot could not do anthing about it because they were so low.
Nobody is saying it directly on the pilot blogs and YouTube channels, but murder-suicide is very likely.
The Yolk’s on me...
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