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A preliminary report suggests that the catastrophic accident of Air India flight AI-171, which caused the death of 260 people in June, may have originated from an intentional or accidental disconnection of the fuel supply to both engines by the captain.
According to The Wall Street Journal citing sources from the investigation, the fuel control switches of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner went from the “RUN” position to “CUT OFF” with barely a second difference, which caused an abrupt loss of power just seconds after takeoff in Ahmedabad.
The black box recordings capture the first officer, "Clive Kunder," asking the captain, "Sumeet Sabharwal," why he had cut the fuel. The pilot's response was: "I didn't do it." The exchange occurred while the plane was already in the air, at which point the crew tried to restart the engines without enough success to avoid the crash.
The report from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), released on July 12, confirms that the fuel interruption occurred almost immediately after takeoff. Although one of the engines showed signs of recovery, the other did not restart, and the aircraft lost altitude before crashing into a residential area near the airport.
Authorities have not yet determined if it was a deliberate accident
The authorities have not yet determined whether the fuel cut was deliberate, accidental, or the result of a technical failure. Nor have possible medical or psychological factors been ruled out. For its part, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation of India ordered inspections of the fuel control switches of all Boeing 787s in the country, although no failures have been detected so far.You may be interested in: India orders an inspection of Air India's Boeing 787 fleet after the accident
The case has reactivated previous warnings from the U.S. FAA, which in 2018 alerted about vulnerabilities in the locking system of those switches. Air India admitted that it did not apply the measures suggested then, considering them non-mandatory. In an internal communication, the airline asked for caution regarding speculation. However, U.S. officials do not rule out that the case could lead to a criminal investigation, given the content of the recording and the circumstances of the power outage.
