A preliminary investigation report released early Saturday stated that the fuel control switches to the engines of an Air India flight, which crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 260 people, were moved from the “run” to the “cutoff” position moments before impact.
The report, issued by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), did not offer any conclusions or apportion blame for the June 12 disaster. However, it indicated that one pilot asked the other why he cut off fuel, to which the second pilot responded that he had not.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was en route from Ahmedabad in western India to London when it crashed, killing all but one of the 242 people on board, as well as 19 people on the ground.
In its 15-page report, the investigation bureau detailed that once the aircraft reached its top recorded speed, “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.”
“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,” the report noted. The aircraft quickly began to lose altitude.
The switches then returned to the “RUN” position, and the engines appeared to be gathering power, but “one of the pilots transmitted ‘MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY’,” the report said. Air traffic controllers queried the pilots about the issue but then observed the plane crashing and alerted emergency personnel.
