Assuming this is a murder-suicide and not a mistake or malfunction somehow, it's very damning of the FAA's policy to revoke the pilot's licenses of anyone seeking treatment for mental health issues. This was in India and thus not FAA jurisdiction, but it still would be a case where an untreated mental health issue lead to hundreds of deaths. By making pilots choose between their careers & medical treatment (since they can't continue as pilots if they seek treatment) the FAA encourages hiding mental illness by pilots. The Pilot Mental Health Campaign[1] has been advocating for legislation to change, HR 2591 the "Mental Health in Aviation Act of 2025"[2] has just been approved by committee for a general vote. I certainly hope it passes, and that other nations with dangerous policies prohibiting pilots from seeking treatment change as well.
The murder suicide angle isn't particularly worthy of assumption yet. Have you ever put your phone in the fridge?
Pilots deactivate the fuel cutoff at the end of the final taxi to the gate. This makes flipping these switches a practiced maneuver, capable of being performed without conscious thought, regardless of whether they came with safety locks installed.
Brain farts are a real phenomenon, and an accidental fuel cutoff most closely resembles the transcript from within the cockpit.
The report is actually a little cagey about whether the locks were properly installed on these switches. Said locks are supposedly optional. Until I receive a more direct confirmation that the switches were installed with their full safety features, I will assume that it is more likely for the plane to have had improperly installed switches than not, given that the shutoff was the reason for the crash, and if they turn out to have been installed, I will assume that simple pilot error is responsible until a motive for murder is found. The pilots lives are under quite a lot of scrutiny, and I do not believe that a motive for murder is likely to be found.
> The report is actually a little cagey about whether the locks were properly installed on these switches. Said locks are supposedly optional.
The locks/gates on the switches are definitely NOT optional. There was an SAIB about some switches that may have been installed improperly. It didn't result in an AD, which likely means the extent was limited or potentially even nil.
The switches were moved to cutoff with a one second delay between the first and second switch. That's pretty suggestive of deliberate movement. I've flown a Max9 simulator, which has the same switches. Moving one of them by accident would be impossible, let alone two of them.
I agree with not jumping to conclusions about the pilots and possible motives or circumstances, but I will bet a lot of money that the switches were just fine.
The CVR will likely have audio of the switch movement to confirm as well.
If you were correct, the only situation it would happen in is when the pilot flying asks for X to happen, and the pilot monitoring instead does Y. Pilots don’t just randomly reach over and screw with the controls. Everything is called out, and as far as I know there were no callouts here (e.g. “gear up”).
This is a bit like someone parking their car, pulling the handbrake, turning off the car and putting their keys in their pocket, then arguing that it’s a practiced maneuver because it happens at the end of every car ride.
Turning the fuel off seems roughly equivalent to turning the ignition off when you've parked your car. It's really something rather unlikely to do as a brain fart during takeoff.
First of all, thank you for calling attention to this. You’re absolutely right, despite what others are saying here. That’s why there’s a movement for reforms.
Secondly, yes, it was likely a deliberate action to cut off the fuel switches, as you say.
You are absolutely right that there’s an epidemic in the airline industry that forces pilots to stay quiet rather than risk their careers if they’re dealing with mental health issues.
In a sibling comment: “shouldn’t they be given alternate career paths?” No. Perpetuating the myth that people with mental health issues are somehow broken beyond repair is mistaken. Current policy lead directly to that one fellow to lock the cockpit door and slam the plane into a hillside. If Air India 171 has any chance of being a mental health issue today, it should be highlighted and explored. You’re exactly right to be doing that, and thank you.
Anyone who disagrees with this should watch https://youtu.be/988j2-4CdgM?si=G39BwNy1zJEeUi2k. It’s a video from a well-respected pilot. The whole point of the video is that aviation forces people to conceal their problems instead of seek treatment, and that this has to change.
Sorry, that conclusion is just silly. I know people in the airline industry (some pilots and a number of flight attendants) and the problem is not that they're forced to conceal mental issues.
The problem is that many people in aviation imagine that they need to conceal their problems. And they point to videos like this one as proof of that, ignoring that the events of discussed in the video are actually proof of the opposite.
Emerson (the suicidal pilot in the video from Alaska Airlines Flight 2509) self-medicated himself using hallucinogenic substances and developed suicidal ideations, because he didn't seek treatment (like therapy) for his mental issues after the death of a friend. If he had sought treatment, he'd still be flying today because he wouldn't have tried to kill several dozen people, and he would have learned to cope with his depression.
>since they can't continue as pilots if they seek treatment)
You have your facts wrong. Pilots can and do fly if they have mental health diagnoses, as long as they are well managed and there is no history of psychosis or suidical ideation. This is how it should be.
No, it is not damning evidence or strong evidence either way. It would be strong evidence only if treatment significantly reduces the probability of a pilot's committing suicide.
Wouldn't it be better to provide such pilots alternate career paths? That way they can still make a living and the traveling public is not placed under unnecessary risk.
It is known that the switches cannot effectively be flipped by accident.
It is known that the switches were set to "cut-off" because they were then later restored to "run", so it was not an electrical fault (i.e. switches pointing to run but reporting cut-off).
Pilot dialogue and engine telemetry confirms the cause of power loss was fuel cut-off.
The question I can't help but think is how did the pilot realize it was the cut-off switches?
I'm sure there's a warning message for them somewhere but in the few seconds of time when you're losing thrust right after rotate, and you're bombarded by a lot of warnings and errors on the screen and in the speakers: how likely are you to notice the fuel cut-off switches have been flipped?
Those switches are something you never, ever think about during operation because you're trained to only operate them when starting up and parking (and yes, in an emergency where you need to shut down the engine quick).
How long would it take for an average pilot to realize it's not one of the dozens of memory items pointing to more likely scenarios causing loss of thrust, ones that they've been training to check in case of an imminent emergency? And why didn't the first pilot who was recorded to notice the fuel cut-off didn't immediately flip the switches to "run" position first instead of asking the other pilot about it?
Given what you're vaguely implying -- that the switches would be nowhere near the first thing a pilot would normally think of in the kind of situation -- what are the odds the pilot asking on record "did you flip the fuel cut-off switch?" is the one who actually flipped the switches and was simply trying to fool the would-be investigation (even knowing they all are about to perish)?
> what are the odds the pilot asking on record "did you flip the fuel cut-off switch?" is the one who actually flipped the switches and was simply trying to fool the would-be investigation (even knowing they all are about to perish)?
This is such a diabolical mind-game that it never occurred to me. Like, they would all die, why would he want to incriminate someone else? But yet, people are weird and crazy. And maybe he didn't go down as a killer and decided to incriminate the other pilot? Anyway, it is totally possible to have happen. Sadly there are no cameras the cockpit, and a camera in the cockpit would really have help to find who did what.
I'd say the odds are 50%. The odds of the opposite scenario - where the pilot who said "did you flip the fuel cutoff" wasn't the one who did it are also 50%.
Based on the cutoffs for both engines being flipped 1 second apart, the above exchange being caught on the CVR, and then within 10 seconds the (presumably the other) pilot switching them back to Run, it's pretty clear that this was a deliberate act.
I would assume that the engines cur of due to fault in the shared control system.
And to restore power the pilots toggled the switches to off and then back on to get them running again.
Hopefully the timestamps tell if the engines lost power before switches were turned off? Or is there some time window that was not recorded due to the lost power to systems?
This is one of the first scenarios that came to mind for me as well.
i.e. hypothetically, no one flipped the switches to cutoff initially, but a glitch in a computer component caused the same effect, including some indication (a status light?) that the switches were in cutoff state. One of the pilots saw the indication, and asked the other. The other (truthfully) said they hadn't. Ten seconds of confusion later, one of them flipped the switches off and back on to reset the state to what it should have been.
That assumes that the switches are part of a fly-by-wire system, of course. I am not an aircraft engineer, so maybe that's not a safe assumption. But if they're fly-by-wire, seems like there might not be a way to know for sure without cockpit video, because the logging system might only log an event when the switches cause the state to change from what the computer thinks the current state is, not necessarily when the switches change to the state the computer thinks they're already in.
Someone bumping the switches accidentally seems worthy of investigation as well, given the potential for an "Oops! No locking feature! Our bad!" scenario on the part of Boeing that's mentioned in the BBC article.
I’m more familiar with the 737 (as a hobby, not as a pilot), but for that aircraft the “loss of thrust on both engines” checklist has the start levers as the second item on the list.
Note that in the checklist I am looking at the goal is to restart the engines rather than diagnose the failure and that involves these levers. I suspect you’d notice pretty quickly if they were not in the expected location.
Thanks, this is good information. So it then fits the overall picture that they would've actually bumped into these switches in the rush of emergency eventhough they're never expecting the switches to actually be off.
Maybe the pilot who cut-off the fuel was the one who asked “why did you cut-off?”. Knowing full-well the conversation is recorded in order to fool investigators, lay blame and confuse his colleague.
How can it be known that the switches were moved physically and not some electrical signal occured on its own (fault) equivalent of switches operated, without actual physical moement of the switch? Some electronic fault in the line of the signal. I do not expect having an independent sensor for this switch monitoring actual physical movements of the switch in parallel of the intended fuel controlling signals occurring, so the faulty signal reaching valves may have been registered and assumed that actual physical movement of the switch caused it?
We know that they restarted a few seconds later a few seconds apart from each other, and shut off a second part from each other.
It's extremely unlikely for a pilot to decide to react by shutting both switches off, then turning them on within seconds (this is not a failure mode they'd have expected, deciding to shut the engine off a couple hundred feet in the air would be... a fairly reckless decision).
That leaves both switches spontaneously turning off, then back on, a couple seconds after takeoff, which is a failure mode that's never been seen before once let alone twice. Also the pilots didn't make a statement about an incongruity between the report from the plane's systems about the switch being off vs the physical position, which they very likely would have in such a situation.
I find these comments very illustrative when taken together- they nicely show how different explanations sound spot on until you read the next one. Inexplicable is one of the great words in the English language
it makes sense to me that the pilot who said "I did not do it" actually did do it without realizing it, was supposed to be putting the landing gear up when he committed a muscle memory mistake. it happened around the time the landing gear should be up, and this explanation matches what was said in the cockpit, and the fact that the landing gear wasn't retracted. I think this idea was even floated initially by the youtube pilot/analysts I watch but dismissed as unlikely.
The landing gear lever is rather prominently featured in the 787 in a panel central to the cockpit layout so that either pilot can easily reach it. For decades and across many manufacturers, the landing gear lever has traditionally featured a knob that deliberately resembles an airplane wheel. It's very hard to mistake it for anything else. It's actuated by simply moving it up or down.
The fuel control switches are behind the throttle stalks above the handles to release the engine fire suppression agents. These switches are markedly smaller and have guards on each side protecting them from accidental manipulation. You need to reach behind and twirl your fingers around a bit to reach them. Actuating these switches requires pulling the knob up sufficiently to clear a stop lock before then rotating down. There are two switches that were activated in sequence and in short order.
The pilot monitoring is responsible for raising the gear in response to the pilot flyings' instruction.
I would find it very difficult to believe this was a muscle memory mistake. At the very least, I would want to more evidence supporting such a proposition.
This idea strikes me as even more unlikely than someone shifting their moving vehicle into reverse while intending to activate the window wipers.
> There is no possible way to confuse these two actions.
This is obviously an overstatement. Any two regularly performed actions can be confused. Sometimes (when tired or distracted) I've walked into my bathroom intending to shave, but mistakenly brushed my teeth and left. My toothbrush and razor are not similar in function or placement.
The other day I was eating dinner while chatting with my partner. I finished eating and needed to pee and throw away the fast food container. I walked straight to the bathroom, raised the toilet lid and threw the fast food container right into the toilet.
One of the nice things about finally having the preliminary report is I get to stop hearing all of the same assumptions/theories/YouTuber said/"a guy I know got a leaked report"/etc in water cooler talk at work because the preliminary report solidly disproved all of them so far. If anyone even had and stuck with an idea matching this report it wouldn't have stood out in the conversations anyways.
The collection of comments on this post remind me it'll just be a brand new set of random guesses until the final report is released. Or worse - the final report reaches no further conclusions and it just has to fade out of interest naturally over time.
It's human nature to want to guess at possible explanations for things that are unusual and unexpected.
If hearing those guesses annoys you, nobody is forcing you to read through comments on a thread of people making them! (I hope - sorry if you are being forced after all.)
> I get to stop hearing all of the same assumptions/theories/YouTuber said/"a guy I know got a leaked report"/etc in water cooler talk
This was a really disappointing incident for aviation YouTube - I unsubscribed from at least three different channels because of their clickbait videos and speculation.
Double engine failure was confirmed, not disproven. RAT deployment was confirmed, not disproved. Pilot error, confirmed, not disproven. Preliminary and final aviation reports are mostly guesses.
This is exactly how the investigations are NOT conducted. You don't find the evidence that confirms your theory and call it a day when the pieces sorta fit together. You look solely at the evidence and listen to what they tell you leaving aside what you think could have happened.
Is there a video feed of the cockpit inside the black box?
If not there should be one as even my simple home wifi camera can record hours of hd video on the small sd card. And If there is, wouldn't that help to instantly identify such things?
No neither black box stores video. One stores audio on flash memory and the other stores flight details, sensors etc.
I don’t think video is a bad idea. I assume there is a reason why it wasn’t done. Data wise black boxes actually store very little data (maybe a 100mbs), I don’t know if that is due to how old they are, or the requirements of withstanding extremes.
In fact, you could add some AI to it, even, as an embedded system with a decent GPU can be bought for under $2000. It could help prevent issues from happening in the first place. Of course airgapped from the actual control system. But an AI can be very helpful in detecting and diagnosing problems.
Landing gear controls are nothing like the fuel shutoffs. And they are in completely different locations. Landing gear controls are in front of the throttle, fuel shutoffs are aft of the throttles.
Is that "nothing like" though? You are saying they are in different places, ok, but are they similar in other ways? Are both controls the same shape? size? colour? texture?
Not possible. Two fuel cutoffs. Two engines. Two intentional acts in rapid succession. Plane would have survived one cutoff. It is what it appears. Captain crashed the plane.
that makes it less likely, not impossible, we're trying to match against the data we have. I think distracted muscle memory is more likely than suicide and sounding innocent while lying about it
If you shut off the engines a couple of dozen meters above ground shouldn’t every alarm be blaring or there should be some sort of additional lever you have to pull way out of the way to enable shutting off the engine that close to the ground.
Each of the fuel switches on the 787 is equipped with a locking mechanism that is supposed to prevent accidental movement, experts said. To turn the fuel supply on, the switch must be pulled outward and then moved to a “RUN” position, where it is released and settles back into a locked position. To turn the fuel supply off, the switch must be pulled outward again, moved to the “CUTOFF” position and then released again.
Or they could be inadvertently flipped if the "locking" version was not installed:
(see the avherald link):
>>India's media report that the investigation is NOT focussing on a human action causing the fuel switches to appear in the CUTOFF position, but on a system failure. Service Bulletins by Boeing issued in year 2018 recommending to upgrade the fuel switches to locked versions to prevent inadvertent flip of the switches, as well as the FAA/GE issued Service Bulletin FAA-2021-0273-0013 Attachment 2 relating to loss of control issue (also see above) were NOT implemented by Air India.
> Recommendations
The FAA recommends that all owners and operators of the affected airplanes incorporate the
following actions at the earliest opportunity:
1) Inspect the locking feature of the fuel control switch to ensure its engagement. While the
airplane is on the ground, check whether the fuel control switch can be moved between the
two positions without lifting up the switch. If the switch can be moved without lifting it up,
the locking feature has been disengaged and the switch should be replaced at the earliest
opportunity.
2) For Boeing Model 737-700, -700C, -800, and -900ER series airplanes and Boeing Model 737-
8 and -9 airplanes delivered with a fuel control switch having P/N 766AT613-3D: Replace the
fuel control switch with a switch having P/N 766AT614-3D, which includes an improved
locking feature.
Throttle control module (TCM) was replaced twice in the past 2019 and 2023 which is not very usual.
Now pure speculation, both pilots have long record of flying, you have to literally pull up and move each fuel control switches to cut off. Either one of the pilots did this intentionally or control unit was faulty. Considering past history and pilot experience, my bet is on faulty controls but we will never know.
I just want to call out that, whatever the facts of this case, pilot heroism is way more common than pilot murder. This is off the top of my head, so don't quote me on the precise details, I'm probably misremembering some things. But a few of my favorite examples:
- British Airways 5390: An incorrect repair causes the windshield of a plane to be blown out mid flight. A pilot is nearly sucked out. The head flight attendant holds onto his legs to keep him in the plane. The copilot and flight attendant think he is dead, but they keep the situation under control and land the plane.
- United 232: An engine explodes in the tail of an MD-10. Due to rotten luck and weaknesses in the design, it takes out all three of the redundant hydraulic systems, rendering the control surfaces inoperable.
There's a pilot onboard as a passenger who, it just so happens, has read about similar incidents in other aircraft and trained for this scenario on his own initiative. He joins the other pilots in the cockpit and they figure out how to use the engines to establish rudimentary control.
They crash just short of the runway. 112 people die, but 184 people survive.
- Pinnacle 3701: Two pilots mess around with an empty plane. They take it up to it's operational ceiling. While they're goofing off, they don't realize they're losing momentum. They try to correct too late and cannot land safely.
In their last moments they decide to sacrifice any chance they have to survive by not deploying their landing gear. They choose to glide for the maximum distance to avoid hitting houses, rather than maximizing how much impact is absorbed. They do hit a house but no one else is killed.
> British Airways 5390: An incorrect repair causes the windshield of a plane to be blown out mid flight. A pilot is nearly sucked out.
This one is a good illustration of how better design can help prevent accidents or make them less severe.
The error the maintenance people made was that when they replaced the window and the 90 screws that hold it on 84 of the screws they used were were 0.66 mm smaller in diameter than they should have been.
The window on that model plane was fitted from the outside, so the job of the screws was to hold it there against the force of the pressure difference at altitude. The smaller screws were too weak to do that.
If instead the designers of the plane had used plug type windows which are fitted from the inside then the pressure difference at altitude works to hold the window in place. Even with no screws it would be fine at altitude. Instead the job of the screws would be to keep gravity from making the window fall in when the plane is not high enough for the pressure difference to keep it in place.
My vague memory of the Air Emergency episode on this (AKA Air Crash Investigation, Air Disasters, Mayday, and maybe others depending on what country and channel you are watching it on) is that after this accident many aircraft companies switched to mostly using plug windows on new designs.
Aviation is full of those design choices. Similar to how a multi-engine propeller plane will use oil pressure to keep the props in the flying angle, which means that when oil pressure is lost (catastrophic engine failure) it will feather giving the other engine the best chances of keeping the plane flying with the least amount of drag. While on a single-engine plane it's installed exactly opposite, in case of oil pressure loss the prop goes to fine pitch giving you the best hope of creating some trust in case the engine may still be working.
Most of these things were figured out over 100 years of carefully analysing accidents and near accidents to continuously improve safety.
- Pilot calculated incorrect fuel due to metric/imperial unit mixup, and ran out of fuel midair.
- Said pilot performed an impossible glider-sideslip maneuver to rapidly bleed airspeed just-in-time for an emergency landing at an abandoned airfield, having to completely rely on eyeballing the approach.
It was a series of events and failures rather than simply “pilot calculated incorrect”. And it was a bit more nuanced than metric/imperial conversion.
Via wiki (but accident section is more detailed):
“ The accident was caused by a series of issues, starting with a failed fuel-quantity indicator sensor (FQIS). These had high failure rates in the 767, and the only available replacement was also nonfunctional. The problem was logged, but later, the maintenance crew misunderstood the problem and turned off the backup FQIS. This required the volume of fuel to be manually measured using a dripstick. The navigational computer required the fuel to be entered in kilograms; however, an incorrect conversion from volume to mass was applied, which led the pilots and ground crew to agree that it was carrying enough fuel for the remaining trip. ”
Anyone who does on-call should look into aviation disasters. Crew resource management, the aviate-navigate-communicate loop, it's all very applicable. ('WalterBright is an excellent source of commentary on applying lessons from the airline industry to software.)
But I did burn out on Mentour Pilot after a while, I just had my fill of tragedy.
If you're focused on whether or not the pilot cares (or is even alive), you've lost the plot. The point is to keep passengers alive regardless of the pilot.
There's no real point to considering what happens if the pilot wants to murder people on board. Of course they will succeed....
The thing is, people always want something to be done. And politicians want to do something. No matter what kind of action it is, someone knifed a kid on the street, we must ban knives of a certain length. A pilot downs a plane while the other leaves the cockpit - we must mandate two pilots always present. Someone hides explosives in his shoe - we must X-ray all shoes of all passengers forever. Etc.
The human brain can't take the idea that yeah an exceedingly rare thing happened and we're not going to do anything, because rare things do happen sometimes. And the medicine can be worse than the disease. We just accept that yeah, despite best efforts, some pilots will be hostile for whatever mental reasons. Not saying that is what happened in this case, but just saying that IF that happened.
We need more tradeoff thinking, instead of do something! thinking.
> On Jul 12th 2025 (UTC) India's media report that the investigation is NOT focussing on a human action causing the fuel switches to appear in the CUTOFF position, but on a system failure. Service Bulletins by Boeing issued in year 2018 recommending to upgrade the fuel switches to locked versions to prevent inadvertent flip of the switches, as well as the FAA/GE issued Service Bulletin FAA-2021-0273-0013 Attachment 2 relating to loss of control issue (also see above) were NOT implemented by Air India. The stated MN4 computer with faulty soldering, that might weaken and lose contact due to the thermal stress after a number of cycles, interprets data and commands fuel metering valves - with the lost contact attaching the MN4 processor to the EEC intermittent electrical contact, loss of signal processing and engine control faults can occur. The SB writes under conditions for the SB: "An LOTC (Loss Of Thrust Control) event has occurred due to an EEC MN4 microprocessor solder ball failure." According to discussions in the industry it may be possible with the number of cycles VT-ANB had already completed, the solder balls were weakened sufficiently to detach the MN4 from the EEC momentarily due to loads during the takeoff rotation leading to the loss of control of thrust and shut down of the engines.
Still quite early in the investigation, and so many things to consider. I don't know why online communities have been so quick to gravitate towards the murder/suicide theory. I thought aviation enthusiasts of all people would want to keep an open mind until every other possibility is ruled out, however minuscule it might seem.
> I don't know why online communities have been so quick to gravitate towards the murder/suicide theory.
Because the hardware failure theories seem preposterously far-fetched and require an unnecessary multiplication of deities.
Your ghost in the machine needs to be “just so” so that it can cause both switches to be read in “cutoff” nearly simultaneously. Then, 10 seconds later one of the switches needs to be read in “run”, then 4 seconds after that the second one needs to read “run”. You also need to explain why there have been zero single engine failures of this type before this double failure.
The ghost also needs to explain why one pilot asked the other “why did you cutoff?” instead of something like “what happened to the engines?” (which is the more natural response, unless you already know the switches are in cutoff).
My concern would be that the investigation in this case is more likely to be biased towards a system failure. Disgracing a major flag carrier is something very few regulars have the independence and courage to get away with.
The one thing automatic system failure theory can't explain is whether there is a reverse connect from the machine back to the switches where if the machine decides to cut off fuel, would the physical switches toggle to cut-off or stay in run position while the fuel is actually cut off, this would require an actuator setup to flip the switches from inside the system which there is no documentation of if that is even support let alone reported?
Respectfully, media reports on what the investigation is focusing on should be taken with a grain of salt unless said media is known to be reputable and have credible sources.
If they had a credible indication of a technical failure that causes engines to randomly shut down, they would have already grounded 787 fleets, which hasn't happened.
> The EGT was observed to be rising for both engines indicating relight. Engine 1’s core deceleration stopped, reversed and started to progress to recovery. Engine 2 was able to relight but could not arrest core speed deceleration and re-introduced fuel repeatedly to increase core speed acceleration and recovery.
I know it's probably not worth the hazmat tradeoff for such a rare event, but the F-16 has an EPU powered by hydrazine that can spool up in about a second.
The F-16 EPU is to keep the flight controls powered so the plane doesn't immediately become uncontrollable following engine failure. The EPU doesn't provide thrust of any kind.
The 787 and nearly every other commercial aircraft with powered flight controls [1] (fly-by-wire or traditional) has emergency power available via RAT and/or APU, and any fly-by-wire aircraft has batteries to keep the flight control computers running through engine failure to power supply being restored by the RAT and/or APU. Due to its unusually high use of electrical systems, the 787 has particularly large lithium batteries for these cases. There is no need for an additional EPU because the emergency systems already work fine (and did their jobs as expected in this case). You just can't recover from loss of nearly all engine thrust at that phase of takeoff. [2]
1. The notable exceptions to having a RAT for emergency flight controls are the 737 and 747 variants prior to the 747-8. In the 747 case, the four engines would provide sufficient hydraulic power while windmilling in flight and thus no additional RAT would be necessary. The 737 has complete mechanical reversion for critical flight controls, and so can be flown without power of any kind. There is sufficient battery power to keep backup instruments running for beyond the maximum glide time from altitude - at which point the aircraft will have "landed" one way or another.
2. There is only one exception of a certified passenger aircraft with a system for separate emergency thrust. Mexicana briefly operated a special version of the early 727 which would be fitted with rocket assist boosters for use on particularly hot days to ensure that single-engine-out climb performance met certification criteria. Mexicana operated out of particularly "hot and high" airports like Mexico City, which significantly degrade aircraft performance. On the worst summer days, the performance degradation would have been severe enough that the maximum allowable passenger/baggage/fuel load would have been uneconomical without the margin provided by the emergency rockets. I'm not aware of them ever being used on a "real" flight emergency outside of the testing process, and I think any similar design today would face a much higher bar to reach certification.
Wouldn't be able to save a fully-loaded 787 in low & slow conditions because the area of canopies needed to deploy would be several acres. And they'd add several tonnes.
The Cirrus system is deployed by rockets, allowing it to function at a very low altitude. They say that you should deploy it no matter what altitude you are at, and it will add at least some friction. The system has a very impressive track record.
However, at this altitude, with an airplane this heavy, you might have to put the rockets on the plane to decelerate enough to save lives.
The four Indian pilots on her show are clearly not convinced that the pilots are to blame.
As they mention, it's important to know what else was spoken in the cockpit. Quite possible that there's more, and that might have implicated the pilots. However, if that's not the case, this is a very poorly worded report.
This is BBC, they have a history of being uncharitable when it comes to reporting on their erstwhile colonies. Jumping to a conclusion about pilot's fault when the recorded dialogues show both had no idea who cut it off (leaving ground for a possibility of some malfunction) is irresponsible, especially when the report could have been worded better without needing to reach a definitive conclusion.
Both pilots have a long history of flying, a lot of experience, so while there is a chance one of them did it unknowingly, it's a small one in my opinion. Because it's not just a small switch, but a multi step procedure. The reporting on such a sensitive issue has been shocking to say the very least,
Where in the BBC coverage are the pilots blamed? Sounds like you might have a bit of a chip on your shoulder, and indeed it sounds like you are the one who is biased towards a particular conclusion (namely that the Indian pilots bear no blame).
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?
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.
This is true for boing, but not true dor Airbus design philosophy. Airbus tends to limit the pilot control inout pushing the plane out of safe operation conditions. I'm not sure of it's possible/not possible to cut the engine fuel supply during take-off in any Airbus though.
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.
> 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.
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.
> The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, 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. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off.
So the fuel supply was cut off intentionally. The switches in question are also built so they cannot be triggered accidentally, they need to be unlocked first by pulling them out.
> 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.
And both pilots deny doing it.
It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
well hold your horses there... from the FAA in their 2019 report linked above:
> The Boeing Company (Boeing) received reports from operators of Model 737 airplanes that the fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged. The fuel control switches (or engine start switches) are installed on the control stand in the flight deck and used by the pilot to supply or cutoff fuel to the engines. The fuel control switch has a locking feature to prevent inadvertent operation that could result in unintended switch movement between the fuel supply and fuel cutoff positions. In order to move the switch from one position to the other under the condition where the locking feature is engaged, it is necessary for the pilot to lift the switch up while transitioning the switch position. If the locking feature is disengaged, the switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting the switch during transition, and the switch would be exposed to the potential of inadvertent operation. Inadvertent operation of the switch could result in an unintended consequence, such as an in-flight engine shutdown. Boeing informed the FAA that the fuel control switch design, including the locking feature, is similar on various Boeing airplane models. The table below identifies the affected airplane models and related part numbers (P/Ns) of the fuel control switch, which is manufactured by Honeywell.
> If the locking feature is disengaged, the switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting the switch during transition, and the switch would be exposed to the potential of inadvertent operation. Inadvertent operation of the switch could result in an unintended consequence, such as an in-flight engine shutdown
Both of these extremely-experienced pilots say that there was near zero chance that the fuel switches were unintentionally moved. They were switched off within one second of each other, which rules out most failure scenarios.
If it was an issue with the switches, we also would have seen an air worthiness directive being issued. But they didn’t, because this was a mass murder.
These switches are operated at startup and shutdown. So pretty much daily. By pilots and likely maintenance crews. Such a defect with not to unnoticed for long
What is "01 second" as quoted above? If it's 1 second, you could possibly conclude that it was intentional. If it's 0.1 second you might think it was an accident and the lock was disengaged.
You don’t inadvertently turn off both switches. The linked SAIB was in 2018 and addresses faulty installations, not a failure after use. And preflight over thousands of flights would have detected if the switches had a failed locking mechanism. And for both to fail at once? Practically impossible. Also the recommended inspection — that was almost 7 years ago. If a major airline didn’t comply with the SAIB, that’s on them, not Boeing. There hasn’t been a single reported instance of fuel switches being accidentally switched off on any Boeing airliner — in 320 million flight hours over the past 10 years.
> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
You're leaping into the minds of others and drawing conclusions of their intent. One of them moved the levers. It could've been an unplanned reaction, a terrible mistake, or it could've been intentional. We may never know the intention even with a comprehensive and complete investigation. To claim otherwise is arrogance.
The car equivalent is being on a highway and "mistakenly" pulling the hand brakes, except that there are 2 hand brakes and you need to first unlock both of them.
That's very hard to do by panic and mistake, if not impossible by design.
> One of them moved the levers. It could've been an unplanned reaction, a terrible mistake, or it could've been intentional.
Fuel levers are designed to only be moved deliberately; they cannot be mistaken for something else by a professional pilot. It's literally their job to know where these buttons are, what they do, and when to (not) push them.
It's not arrogance to assume the most likely conclusion is true, despite how uncomfortable that outcome may be.
Yeah and the other pilot flipped the switches back on and one of the engines started spooling up but it was too late.
Murder-suicide looks like the likely conclusion, given that flipping the cutoff switches requires a very deliberate action. That said, it's not entirely impossible that due to stress or fatigue the pilot had some kind of mental lapse and post-flight muscle memory (of shutting off the engines) kicked in when the aircraft lifted off.
I once worked with a software engineer who would do things and then bald face lie about it. This reminds me of that person.
Me: “The build is breaking right after you checked in. Why did you do that?”
Him:”I did not do so.”
Me: “The commit shows it as you. And when I rolled back everything builds.”
Him:”It must have been someone else.”
I’ve worked with some chronic liars. They would deny reality no matter how much evidence you had.
The weirdest thing was how often it worked for them. In each case their lying eventually caught up with them, but in some cases they’d get away with lying for years.
It’s amazing how often someone would have clear evidence against what they were saying, but the people in positions of authority just wanted to de-escalate the situation and move on. They could turn anything into an ambiguous he-said she-said situation, possibly make a scene, and then make everyone so tired of the drama that they just wanted to move on.
> So the fuel supply was cut off intentionally. The switches in question are also built so they cannot be triggered accidentally
FAA issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin SAIB NM-18-33 in 2018 warning that on several Boeing models including the 787 the locking mechanism of the fuel switches could be inoperative.
> The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, 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. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off.
> As per the EAFR, the Engine 1 fuel cutoff switch transitioned from CUTOFF to RUN at about 08:08:52 UTC.
Damn. That's pretty quick to diagnose and take action.
Boeing's probably gonna have a big sigh of relief over this one.
> Boeing's probably gonna have a big sigh of relief over this one.
The 787 is 15 years old, and this particular plane was 10 years old. It always seemed unlikely to be a major, new issue. My money was actually on maintenance.
Does the Flight Data Recorder consider the physical position of the fuel switches or does it get the information from some fly-by-wire part that could be buggy?
The conversation would suggest that the switches were in CUTOFF position, but there is also a display that summarizes the engine status.
There is no conversation that mentions flipping the switch to RUN again.
EDIT: Why is there no Cockpit Video Recorder? The days of limited storage are over.
I've had discussions on HN with people who insisted that having a video camera always pointed out the control tower at the runway was some sort of impossibility. Despite every 7-11 having such a system.
This would leave accident investigators with a lot of work to do to try to figure out how a collision happened.
Airlines are decades behind on tech. You can get satellite internet almost anywhere on the planet and GPS can give you ten-foot accurate positioning, but we've still _lost_ planes because we haven't mandated a system that sends the realtime position of the plane over the satellite internet. The days of limited storage are still going strong in the industry.
Suicide is quite a stretch without any supporting evidence from the pilots' backgrounds. I would take mental fog, cognitive overload, wrong muscle memory, even a defective fuel cutoff system over suicide.
Agreed. The sequence of events also supports this.
I believe one of the pilots made a terrible muscle memory mistake and cutoff the fuel instead of raising the landing gear. This would explain why the landing gear was never raised, why the pilot who was accused of cutting off the fuel denied it (in his mind he had only retracted the landing gear) and why the engines were turned back on after presumably realizing the mistake.
Not that humans are known to behave rationally when trying to commit suicide, but it’s interesting that the switches were re-engaged successfully without protest or a fight. It’s just an interesting detail to wonder about.
The reasoning I’ve heard is: it didn’t matter anymore, the damage was already done and there was no way any attempts at recovering from it would have been successful.
and immediately thereafter, 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
Or more precisely, the signals which come from them were found to behave as such.
Without any audible record of turning the switches off, I wouldn't blame the pilots without first checking the wiring and switches themselves for faults. This reminds me of the glitches caused by tin whiskers.
But from the audio recording it seems like one pilot is noticing them bering in the CUTOFF position, and asking why (and moving it back). If the switch was actually in RUN, but some other issue caused the signal to be sendt, the pilot would see it beeing in the RUN position, not CUTTOF.
I agree, there's a significant distinction between "the switches were (physically) flipped" and "the circuit was opened/closed".
In this case, it may be a moot distinction, particularly if no physical evidence of fault or tampering has been discovered in investigation. But, in theory, very important - there's a lot of potential grey-area between the two statements.
The proximity of the incident to the ground may also increase the possible attack vectors for simple remote triggers.
If that was the case, it does seem a bit odd that there was a one second gap. But yeah, still worth investigating, if that’s even possible given the extensive damage.
> And both pilots deny doing it.
> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
You’re trying to prove a negative here.
I am not familiar with the 787 operations, but there are a few issues that need to be sorted out first:
- altitude when pilots start the after takeoff checklist
- if there are any other switches that are operated in tandem in the general vicinity of where the engine cutoff switches are
- if the cutoff switches had the locking mechanisms present, and if not, if they could be moved inadvertently by the pilot flying hand
Discarding other possibilities in an investigation can have adverse consequences.
Did you ever always push the right buttons every time?
The switches have lockout mechanisms that prevent accidental triggering. I'm not a pilot, but these guys are, and they find it exceedingly unlikely that anyone would switch both off by accident:
> Did you ever always push the right buttons every time?
A whole world full of 787’s is pushing the right buttons every single day. If we’re talking about accidentally pressing buttons it seems we’d have seen incidents before.
I wonder if the switches are still in tact after the crash? Can they verify that the switches are mechanically sound? If so, seems highly likely it was intentional.
I'd suspect the wiring leading from the switches to the engine controllers first, especially since it looked like both circuits cut out nearly at the same time.
> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
The balance of probability might tend to support that hypothesis. However I'm wondering if it was just something involuntary. My ex for instance who learned to drive on a stick shift would randomly stall the engine after a few weeks driving an automatic.
You have to pull the switches out (against a spring) to be able to move them over a notch and flip them. Not really something you can just mistake for another switch or bump into by accident.
I'd liken it to turning off the ignition by turning the key while driving your car. Possibly something that could happen if you're really fatigued, but requires quite a mental lapse.
It could be defective switch springs, fatigue-induced muscle memory error, or something else. The pilot who did it saying he did not may not have realized what he did. It's pretty common under high workload when you flip the wrong switch or move a control the wrong way to think that you did what you intended to do, not what you actually did.
That said Boeing could take a page out of the Garmin GI275. When power is removed it pops up a "60s to shutdown dialog" that you can cancel. Even if you accidentally press SHUTDOWN it only switches to a 10s countdown with a "CANCEL" button.
They could insert a delay if weight on wheels is off. First engine can shutdown when commanded but second engine goes on 60s delay with EICAS warning countdown. Or just always insert a delay unless the fire handle is pulled.
Still... that has its own set of risks and failure modes to consider.
Reminds me of 2017 Las Vegas shooting. The perpetrator looked and acted completely normal till the day of shooting and all his issues like anxiety or losing money was nothing far from ordinary. And what seems all of a sudden did a well planned shooting and didn't bother to leave a note or tell his story.
There's 0 reason to conclude murder-suicide, there's an infinitude of things that could have the same result, and both pilots denied it to eachother: how is that presented as proof?
I hope I don't need to explain why the fact no one knew in advance the Las Vegas shooter was going to shoot has ~0 similarities with the situation as we know it, and banal similarities with every murder.
>It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
This kind of attitude gets innocent people behind bars for life. Disgusting.
It's difficult to conclude anything until the investigation is finished and I hope the ones who are carrying it out are as levelheaded, neutral and professional as possible.
This is highly reminiscent to me of this case. [0] The co-pilot accidentally hit the wrong switch and then quietly corrected his mistake later, without resetting the previous switch (which led to feathering).
Cutting the engines within seconds of leaving the ground doesn't fit suicide very well. I'd expect something more like flying into the side of a mountain or heading really far out into the Indian ocean until you vanish from radar and cause a big mystery.
For instance, you might deliberately kill yourself by driving your car really fast into something solid, but you probably wouldn't try to do that while backing out of the garage.
I think it is opposite.
Flying into a mountain & etc would require one pilot to somehow incapacitate another pilot.
Cutting fuel off, if done on takeoff, is not recoverable (engines can’t relight and spin up quickly enough).
I know this thread runs the gamut of armchair experts, pretend experts, and actual experts and there's no telling who is which but I really want to know why the downvotes and why this is not a good idea.
The idea is to notify for crucial settings, replace vocal confirmation (probably) already in the SOP anyway, reducing mistakes in bad faith or otherwise.
Don't some planes already have an automated announcement for seatbelts on?
Only reason I can think of why it's not there yet is the cost (whether $$$ or design opportunity) of cramming that in the already-cramped cockpit.
It's interesting to see how people manage incomplete information.
You could have made the same assumptions after the first MCAS crash, much like boeing assumed pilot error. It's easy, comforting and sometimes kills people because it makes you stop looking.
Do you know if the mechanical position of the switch guarantees its electronic state without any possibility for hardware malfunction? If no, then you are claiming a person made one of the most grave acts of inhumanity ever.
This sounds to me like an electronics issue - an intermittent, inadvertent state transition likely due to some PCB component malfunction
The time between the two switches being activated and then them being switched back on after being noticed strongly suggests that they were actually manipulated. Malice looke very likely to me. An investigation into the pilots life may turn something up, I guess.
It’s worth noting that Premeditation or “intention” doesn’t have to factor into this.
Studies of survivors of impulse suicides (jumping off of bridges etc) indicate that many of them report having no previous suicidal ideation, no intention or plan to commit suicide, and in many cases no reported depression or difficulties that might encourage suicide.
Dark impulses exist and they don’t always get caught in time by the supervisory conscious process. Most people have experienced this in its more innocuous forms, the call of the void and whatnot, but many have also been witness to thoughtless destructive acts that defy reason and leave the perpetrator confused and in denial.
And then 10s later the switches magically fixed themselves? The likely not electronically connected switches since that would compromise engine redundancy?
>Service Bulletins by Boeing issued in year 2018 recommending to upgrade the fuel switches to locked versions to prevent inadvertent flip of the switches, as well as the FAA/GE issued Service Bulletin FAA-2021-0273-0013 Attachment 2 relating to loss of control issue (also see above) were NOT implemented by Air India.
You've linked to something regarding an ECU component. Nothing about fuel switches. "This Service Bulletin provides instructions to replace the EEC MN4 bridge ball
grid array (BGA) microprocessor"
Because that maintenance check is an optional one as stipulated by Boeing. I don't think most users of the 787 themselves carry out the check, so singling out Air India for this alone is just bad faith
These airplanes reject a lot of the pilot inputs if they don’t align with the expectations. Any idea why the system even allows the cut engine fuel input at that time of flight? Sounds to me that it should be just ignored. Even if both engines were on fire while climbing that early, what could cutting fuel offer?
What makes me more inclined to suicide is that this might have been the perfect time to do this so that even a small interruption in fuel would be catastrophic.
If this is the case, you have to then think about why this pilot would want suicide but also murder all aboard the plane. It's a bit irrational if they wanted to just suicide - you can easily just cut your own throat, hang yourself, or jump off a tall building.
This report is outlining the known facts of the flight at present. The main one being the movement of the fuel switches to the off position did occur a few seconds after take-off, almost certainly by one of the pilots. And this was the primary cause of the crash. However, blame has not been apportioned and the reason for why is not known.
Three things:-
1) Pilot clearly said I didn't do it.
2) Report talks about the second switch being turned off in a second.
3) Known advisory on switches getting flipped.
If you see these three together, it becomes easy to deduce that based on point 2, switch was not human induced as the actions required take more than a second.
Next the third point, advisory was for this exact scenario which played out, though rare but still it shouldn't have been just an advisory, but more than that.
The switches are right next to each other and have a very short throw[1]- it would definitely be possible to do them in under a second and it looks possible to throw them together.
IMO that looks like a spot that would be pretty difficult to hit accidentally even if the ward failed. You'd have to push them down and the throttles are in the way.
Doesn't mean the switch couldn't have failed in some other way- eg the switch got stuck on the ward but was still able to activate with a half-throw, and spring pressure pushed it back into off during a bump. But switches generally only activate when fully thrown, and failing suddenly at the exact same time is not really what you would expect.
Where do you get this from? You have to pull up the switch with two fingers and move it to the other position and put it back in. This doesn't seem to take more than a second if deliberate.
To me, it points to a Germanwings-style sabotage. And the "I didn't do it" seems to be a lie. Not very confident in it, just the likeliest to me. Though one can ask why not just push the nose down instead. Maybe he thought that's too easy for the other pilot to counteract. The fuel switches are more out-of-mind and more startling to change.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, even if one of the pilots did deliberately move the switches, it's not clear from the reporting so far if that's the same pilot who responded to the question. In other words, it's possible one pilot flipped the switches and then asked the other pilot why he cut off the fuel to misdirect and create more confusion.
Edit: Of course this is all speculation, we don't know if the switches were moved deliberately and if so which pilot did so and which pilot was which in the exchange. More investigation is clearly needed.
If there was any worry that 787 switch lockouts are not working properly, wouldn't they release an immediate bulletin for inspections on all aircraft? It seems like the lack of any bulletins implies the lack of any suspicion on hardware problems.
In this phase of flight the pilot’s hands should be nowhere near the thrust levers let alone the fuel cutoff switches. There is no way they could accidentally knock them with their hands.
On the contrary, it's quite normal that the PF's hands are on the throttle levers throughout the climb (until the switch to automation), which are directly in front of the cutoff switches.
> it becomes easy to deduce that based on point 2, switch was not human induced
This just isn’t correct at all. The evidence isn’t conclusive but if a human operated switch was flipped, and one of the humans present says to the other one hey why did you do that, then Ockham’s razor points to a human flipping the switch.
It’s not the only option, but it’s certainly the most likely.
The advisory was for the lock being disengaged meaning you would still need to manually move it. it wasn't for being moved by factors such as vibrations also If it was from vibration how would a crash impact not move them back to cut off?
Not sure where this is asserted? These aren't complicated mechanisms, it's just a pull lock, right? Pilots flip the switches twice on every flight at startup/shutdown, it's a routine action.
Fire, probably. But also, how complicated would you make the system if you needed to prevent certain switches from working during certain times of flight? At some point... we're all just in the hands of the people in the cockpit.
Engine overheating even on idle thrust (if this happens after V1, you would idle it and continue the takeoff anyway; you are beyond the point at which you can safely abort).
Engine oil leak has drained the oil completely and the engine is about to fail catastrophically (unlikely on takeoff but you never know).
Engine is on fire (out of all of the things that can go wrong with an engine during takeoff, this is very likely).
Engine has blown up (ditto).
Engine is missing from the aircraft (not likely, but engines have fallen from planes on takeoff before).
Debris / Ash / etc is in the engine (not likely).
Severe fuel leak (not something I'd worry about during takeoff).
Disable the fuel system cutoff controls during the takeoff climb phase of flight. Once the aircraft loses contact with the runway, these controls shouldn't function without tripping certain thresholds (speed & altitude), or following a two-man procedure that is physically impossible to execute solo. In any other flight regime, the controls function as originally designed.
The danger of a burning engine is irrelevant if you are heading into terrain.
As long as you also eliminate the possibility of maintenance problems and defects in automation, and have perfect microscale weather forecasts, and still have overrides for the human safety pilot that can still... wait a minute.
I recall something similar to this happened in the USA in 2023. An off-duty pilot in the cockpit tried to pull that fuel shut-off handle (edit: I'm informed it's a different fuel shut-off mechanism), but was overpowered by the other two:
> "Both pilots then saw Emerson grab on to the red fire handles, also known as the “T-handles,” which are used to extinguish engine fires and shut off all fuel to the engines, potentially turning the plane into a glider, the pilots told federal investigators."
> "“If the T-handle is fully deployed, a valve in the wing closes to shut off fuel to the engine. In this case, the quick reaction of our crew to reset the T-handles ensured engine power was not lost,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement."
> "One pilot struggled with Emerson for about 25 or 30 seconds before the off-duty pilot “quickly settled down,” according to the complaint."
That's not the same one, that's the big red FIRE ones on the overhead panel. They're not reversible and are under a plastic cover. As far as I know these ones are. They're also used to just switch them off at the end of a flight which can of course be reversed. But I guess in this case there wasn't enough time. They only had 30 seconds.
Why didn't they turn them back on then? Or does it take too long to spin up again even if they are still spooling down? This is one of the worst possible moments for this to happen of course. Low speed, low altitude, lots of drag...
They did, about 10 seconds later (which is both incredibly short and an eternity). But the engines almost immediately start losing thrust and it takes them much more time to restart. At the end of the flight, FDR records that one engine was gaining thrust, and the other was attempting to spin up, but it was too late and they didn't have enough glide time for both to gain enough thrust to climb.
The NYTimes states that there was an advisory on the switches but that the FAA had not deemed them unsafe. It also states that on this plane the switches were changed in 2023.
It's safe to state these fuel cutoff switches aren't to be touched in-flight unless the word 'fire' is said beforehand. Even then, you only perform fuel cutoff for the flaming engine. If the copilot was busy with takeoff, there is exactly one other person in the entire world that could have flipped both switches. We may never know which one flipped them back.
Yep. Fan blade off, shroud separation, HP disc separation, compressor stall, FOD ingestion/bird strike, EGT rise, oil system issues. Very unlikely events but still possible events that need a prepared response to and capabilities to manage the aircraft. The presumption is that the crew is trained, diligent, disciplined, and concerned with survival. Without that, aircraft would need to be unmanned and flown by AI lacking in ability to handle any unforeseen events creatively.
As we just reported, the report says that according to data from the flight recorder both the fuel control switches, which are normally used to switch the engines on or off when on the ground, were moved from the run to the cutoff position shortly after takeoff. This caused both engines to lose thrust.
The preliminary report suggests this is pilot error.
From my (limited) understanding you cannot really switch these off inadvertently as they require a couple of actions in order to be switched off. So it would mean one of the pilots switched these off (and they were a few seconds later switched on again but it was too late).
But there was audio, too, and one pilot asked the other "why did you switch these off" and the second one said "I didn't".
Most importantly it's extremely problematic that BBC is pushing the pilot error angle subtly! This is a preliminary report! No news organization should spread opinion pieces based on this.
Somehow it feels like Boeing paid BBC to shift the narrative.
We should all wait for the final report. Pilot error or Machine fault, either way it's a huge tragedy.
Where did you see that? You say subtle. What does that mean?
It's a fact that there are no recommendations to manufacturers or airlines yet. If they had found anything seriously suspicious they would already issue recommendations as soon as possible, not just in the final report, not even just at the prelim report, but as fast as possible. Grounding planes, forcing maintenance etc. That has not happened.
It's easy to fall in the other direction and jump on the Boeing hate bandwagon. It's become a trendy thing online.
The report contains significant evidence that one of the pilots switched off the engines.
It doesn’t rule out other options, and it doesn’t explain why they might have done that or if it was inadvertent but it’s still new information, and presenting new important information is what the news is for.
The India AAIB website (https://aaib.gov.in/) is not responding ... For anyone who read the report, was there information about the age & experience of the pilots?
Is it really desirable though? Sure, it might eliminate human error, but it also probably eliminate pilots saving planes. I don't think an autopilot would have put US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson.
Video would definitively show whether either pilot moved these switches or if some other mechanism caused the movement.
The aviation industry has consistently resisted cockpit video recording despite decades of available technology. The pilot unions argue privacy concerns, but cases like this demonstrate the value it would have. Current audio captured the pilots' denials, but without visual confirmation we may never be able to definitively determine who turned the engines off.
reached v1, then when airborn fuel cut off. Seems like there was a FAA report like in 2018 that recommended few airplane models (incl this one) to check the fuel valves correctly, seems like air india didn't do it. Turns out it was made by Honeywell
It’s interesting to see how many people are bending over backwards here to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion. If this was pilot suicide, it’s a terrible thing. If it was somehow an error (which seems very unlikely) or two defective controls (which seems even more unlikely), then it remains a tragedy. But I don’t need to do mental gymnastics to come up with implausible hypotheticals.
This comment stream on HN is not a jury. We don’t have to refrain from making judgments right now about what happened. There is nothing wrong with rational people reaching a preliminary conclusion based on available evidence.
Rational people should also remain open to revising their judgments/conclusions if new information becomes available.
And we shouldn’t demand any specific consequences for anyone absent a trial.
It’s nowhere near an obvious conclusion. A failure with the locking mechanism or muscle memory confusion are just as likely, and probably other theories I’m not thinking of. More investigation is clearly needed, which is why this is called a preliminary report.
Dual failure of the locking mechanism is extremely unlikely.
These are not switches that are regularly used so a muscle memory issue also seems very unlikely (but is still the most likely non-suicide scenario)
And this can't possibly be all the audio if the other pilot noticed the switch position, I would expect a lot more cussing and struggle.
So they didn't notice the switch position? The switch was in the right position but not really? Is this a rarely used switch that one might not look at (or know where to look) during regular use?
Dual engine failure on takeoff gives them about as much time to react as if the front passenger grabbed the steering wheel while on a windy mountain road and yanked them off a cliff.
It only takes a few seconds to completely screw everyone, but a bit longer for the consequences to occur.
The switch had to be operated deliberately, but still a UX fail on a modern aircraft if cutting off fuel to the engines does not result in an audible alert/alarm which both pilots can hear - especially at that altitude.
It would not make any difference. They were too low and did not have enough time to recover. They immediately switched back to on. Two captains is discussing it here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE0BetkXsLg).
The switches were re-engaged within 10 seconds so isn't it possible they quickly heard a warning alarm, realised the issue and fixed it? (Of course, not quick enough in this case)
Studying how humans make errors is a fascinating field. Simply banning someone who's made a "slip" error as hypothesized wouldn't actually reduce the likelihood of this error occurring in the future. These sorts of errors are stochastic and could happen to anyone at any time. Preventing them requires a lot of thought.
The report says the black box reports the fuel cutoff switches being activated. That doesn't necessarily mean that either of the two pilots activated them, it just means that the fly-by-wire system reacted to a fuel cutoff event.
"The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, 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. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cutoff.
In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff.
> That doesn't necessarily mean that either of the two pilots activated them
It does:
1. Those switches have physical interlocks and cannot be manipulated by any computer system.
2. The flight data recorder is measuring the position of the switches; they aren't inferring the position from some system state. There's a "position of this switch" channel.
The switches were physically moved in the cockpit, that's basically ground truth. The question now is who and why.
> This was not suicide, or murder-suicide; it was one of the most horrific mass murders in history, in which the guy that did it happened to lose his life in the process.
Why wouldn’t this qualify as a murder-suicide, assuming your theory is correct?
I guess I let my emotions get in the way. But nobody seems to be saying that we’ve witnessed one of the worst acts of mass murder in history. Most of the notorious serial killers don’t come close to killing 300 people.
It feels qualitatively different than someone pointing a gun at someone else and then themselves, which is usually what pops to mind when you hear “murder-suicide”.
> This was not suicide, or murder-suicide; it was one of the most horrific mass murders in history, in which the guy that did it happened to lose his life in the process.
Even taking intent for granted, to deny suicide in a case like this would be to suppose that the person responsible expected to survive while everyone else died. What could possibly support that conclusion?
He appears to have meant something like “this isn’t just common murder-suicide: it is a particularly heinous version of murder-suicide that I wish there were a stronger word for” but phrased it confusingly.
As someone with no qualifications on this beyond occasionally playing some flight simulators, I can't think of a reason you would ever intentionally move the switches in flight (barring an emergency like a leak or fire or something) and unintentionally doing so seems extremely unlikely since generally "switches meant to be operated on the ground" are located well out of the way of "switches meant to be operated in flight". Though I believe Boeing does have them by the thrust levers, every type of fuel control switch I've seen has some sort of guard or mechanism that makes it effectively impossible to move the switch by simply bumping it.
So I can't imagine how it could have been done accidentally.
I am, and I’m willing to stake my reputation on it. If I’m wrong, I’ll hang up my hat and never cover live news again.
Pilots are drilled from day one that the fuel switches are sacred. After a few accidents where one engine failed and the pilot accidentally turned off the remaining functional engine, the training was overhauled so that it would be impossible for it to be an easy action done by mistake. One pilot is required to ask the other for confirmation before toggling the switch, I believe. It wouldn’t be something you’d do from muscle memory.
The switches require that you pull them out, move them to the end position and then push them back down, and it was two switches. It could have still took off on one engine. This is essentially the turn off plane switch. It would seem to almost impossible that it would be an accident.
You mention "brain fart". There is certainly a long history of pilots selecting the wrong lever, or wrong switch. So, it is possible the pilot who denied switching the fuel off thought he had switched something else.
My understanding is that after several incidents of pilots shutting off the wrong engine, the training was overhauled so that from day one they treat fuel switches as sacred. I heard that it’s required to ask for confirmation before toggling the switch, just to be absolutely certain. It’s not really something that can be done by muscle memory during flight, and especially not during takeoff.
If he was trying to do something else, he would have called it out. E.g. an audible “gear up.”
Sadly not. It’s a physical switch with no capability of a remote toggle. The flight data recorder clearly shows one was toggled off within a second of the other, which rules out almost every non-intentional scenario.
It did glide briefly, the glide path took it directly into a school building.
Right after takeoff at low altitude is basically the worst place for this to happen. Speed and altitude are low so gliding is going to be a short distance and happen quickly.
If there had been a perfect empty long flat grass field in that location it may have been salvageable, but also right after takeoff the plane usually has a heavy fuel load which makes for a much riskier landing.
Edit: This article has a map showing the glide path:
They only ever got a few hundred feet off the ground.
Yes of course the plane glided once the engines stopped, producing thrust, just like all planes do. But just like all planes, and all gliders, gliding means trading altitude for velocity - giving up precious height every second in order to maintain flight. At that stage in the flight, they just didn’t have enough to give. If the same thing had happened at 30,000 feet, it would be a non-event. They would glide down a few thousand feet as the engines spool back up and once they return to full power, everything will be back to normal. Or if for some reason, the engines were permanently cooked, you’d have maybe 20 to 30 minutes of glide time so you’ve got a lot of time to look around and find a flat spot. But you just don’t have enough time for all that to happen When you’re a few hundred feet off the ground.
I’ll take this as an honest question. The simple answer: too much mass, no clear landing path, not enough speed or altitude to turn to find one and glide to it. In short, not enough time. Once the engines cut, that thing probably dropped like a brick.
Impossible. Low and slow conditions with insufficient energy to 180 return or crash land safely straight ahead in any form. The power loss happened at the most critical phase of flight. Plus, they were on the heavy side.
There's literally hundreds of such settings. When you get into the combinations there's such a multitude of scenarios that you certainly can't have dedicated code for everything.
I suppose you could have it attempt to run a full forward-looking flight simulation to predict but part of the reason for there being so many controls is to deal with situations where the plane isn't acting like it should be, situations which would invalidate the simulation.
Assuming this is a murder-suicide and not a mistake or malfunction somehow, it's very damning of the FAA's policy to revoke the pilot's licenses of anyone seeking treatment for mental health issues. This was in India and thus not FAA jurisdiction, but it still would be a case where an untreated mental health issue lead to hundreds of deaths. By making pilots choose between their careers & medical treatment (since they can't continue as pilots if they seek treatment) the FAA encourages hiding mental illness by pilots. The Pilot Mental Health Campaign[1] has been advocating for legislation to change, HR 2591 the "Mental Health in Aviation Act of 2025"[2] has just been approved by committee for a general vote. I certainly hope it passes, and that other nations with dangerous policies prohibiting pilots from seeking treatment change as well.
[1] https://www.pmhc.org/
[2] https://www.congress.gov/119/bills/hr2591/BILLS-119hr2591ih....
The murder suicide angle isn't particularly worthy of assumption yet. Have you ever put your phone in the fridge?
Pilots deactivate the fuel cutoff at the end of the final taxi to the gate. This makes flipping these switches a practiced maneuver, capable of being performed without conscious thought, regardless of whether they came with safety locks installed.
Brain farts are a real phenomenon, and an accidental fuel cutoff most closely resembles the transcript from within the cockpit.
The report is actually a little cagey about whether the locks were properly installed on these switches. Said locks are supposedly optional. Until I receive a more direct confirmation that the switches were installed with their full safety features, I will assume that it is more likely for the plane to have had improperly installed switches than not, given that the shutoff was the reason for the crash, and if they turn out to have been installed, I will assume that simple pilot error is responsible until a motive for murder is found. The pilots lives are under quite a lot of scrutiny, and I do not believe that a motive for murder is likely to be found.
> The report is actually a little cagey about whether the locks were properly installed on these switches. Said locks are supposedly optional.
The locks/gates on the switches are definitely NOT optional. There was an SAIB about some switches that may have been installed improperly. It didn't result in an AD, which likely means the extent was limited or potentially even nil.
The switches were moved to cutoff with a one second delay between the first and second switch. That's pretty suggestive of deliberate movement. I've flown a Max9 simulator, which has the same switches. Moving one of them by accident would be impossible, let alone two of them.
I agree with not jumping to conclusions about the pilots and possible motives or circumstances, but I will bet a lot of money that the switches were just fine.
The CVR will likely have audio of the switch movement to confirm as well.
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If you were correct, the only situation it would happen in is when the pilot flying asks for X to happen, and the pilot monitoring instead does Y. Pilots don’t just randomly reach over and screw with the controls. Everything is called out, and as far as I know there were no callouts here (e.g. “gear up”).
This is a bit like someone parking their car, pulling the handbrake, turning off the car and putting their keys in their pocket, then arguing that it’s a practiced maneuver because it happens at the end of every car ride.
Turning the fuel off seems roughly equivalent to turning the ignition off when you've parked your car. It's really something rather unlikely to do as a brain fart during takeoff.
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Brain farts are literally not a real phenomenon.
First of all, thank you for calling attention to this. You’re absolutely right, despite what others are saying here. That’s why there’s a movement for reforms.
Secondly, yes, it was likely a deliberate action to cut off the fuel switches, as you say.
You are absolutely right that there’s an epidemic in the airline industry that forces pilots to stay quiet rather than risk their careers if they’re dealing with mental health issues.
In a sibling comment: “shouldn’t they be given alternate career paths?” No. Perpetuating the myth that people with mental health issues are somehow broken beyond repair is mistaken. Current policy lead directly to that one fellow to lock the cockpit door and slam the plane into a hillside. If Air India 171 has any chance of being a mental health issue today, it should be highlighted and explored. You’re exactly right to be doing that, and thank you.
Anyone who disagrees with this should watch https://youtu.be/988j2-4CdgM?si=G39BwNy1zJEeUi2k. It’s a video from a well-respected pilot. The whole point of the video is that aviation forces people to conceal their problems instead of seek treatment, and that this has to change.
Sorry, that conclusion is just silly. I know people in the airline industry (some pilots and a number of flight attendants) and the problem is not that they're forced to conceal mental issues.
The problem is that many people in aviation imagine that they need to conceal their problems. And they point to videos like this one as proof of that, ignoring that the events of discussed in the video are actually proof of the opposite.
Emerson (the suicidal pilot in the video from Alaska Airlines Flight 2509) self-medicated himself using hallucinogenic substances and developed suicidal ideations, because he didn't seek treatment (like therapy) for his mental issues after the death of a friend. If he had sought treatment, he'd still be flying today because he wouldn't have tried to kill several dozen people, and he would have learned to cope with his depression.
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>since they can't continue as pilots if they seek treatment)
You have your facts wrong. Pilots can and do fly if they have mental health diagnoses, as long as they are well managed and there is no history of psychosis or suidical ideation. This is how it should be.
https://www.faa.gov/ame_guide/app_process/exam_tech/item47/a...
On the contrary: https://youtu.be/988j2-4CdgM?si=G39BwNy1zJEeUi2k
The whole reason a pilot made that video is because there’s a huge problem in the airline industry right now.
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No, it is not damning evidence or strong evidence either way. It would be strong evidence only if treatment significantly reduces the probability of a pilot's committing suicide.
> if treatment significantly reduces the probability of a pilot's committing suicide
Psychotherapy significantly reduces the risk of suicide. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6389707/
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For anyone who didn’t already know, this concern is a key plot point in the second season of HBO’s “comedy” series The Rehearsal.
Personally, found it simultaneously one of the greatest and most insane seasons of television ever. YMMV.
Wouldn't it be better to provide such pilots alternate career paths? That way they can still make a living and the traveling public is not placed under unnecessary risk.
A “dead airspace”, perhaps?
Psychopathy isn’t the category you’re thinking of I’m sure.
It is known that the switches cannot effectively be flipped by accident.
It is known that the switches were set to "cut-off" because they were then later restored to "run", so it was not an electrical fault (i.e. switches pointing to run but reporting cut-off).
Pilot dialogue and engine telemetry confirms the cause of power loss was fuel cut-off.
The question I can't help but think is how did the pilot realize it was the cut-off switches?
I'm sure there's a warning message for them somewhere but in the few seconds of time when you're losing thrust right after rotate, and you're bombarded by a lot of warnings and errors on the screen and in the speakers: how likely are you to notice the fuel cut-off switches have been flipped?
Those switches are something you never, ever think about during operation because you're trained to only operate them when starting up and parking (and yes, in an emergency where you need to shut down the engine quick).
How long would it take for an average pilot to realize it's not one of the dozens of memory items pointing to more likely scenarios causing loss of thrust, ones that they've been training to check in case of an imminent emergency? And why didn't the first pilot who was recorded to notice the fuel cut-off didn't immediately flip the switches to "run" position first instead of asking the other pilot about it?
Given what you're vaguely implying -- that the switches would be nowhere near the first thing a pilot would normally think of in the kind of situation -- what are the odds the pilot asking on record "did you flip the fuel cut-off switch?" is the one who actually flipped the switches and was simply trying to fool the would-be investigation (even knowing they all are about to perish)?
> what are the odds the pilot asking on record "did you flip the fuel cut-off switch?" is the one who actually flipped the switches and was simply trying to fool the would-be investigation (even knowing they all are about to perish)?
This is such a diabolical mind-game that it never occurred to me. Like, they would all die, why would he want to incriminate someone else? But yet, people are weird and crazy. And maybe he didn't go down as a killer and decided to incriminate the other pilot? Anyway, it is totally possible to have happen. Sadly there are no cameras the cockpit, and a camera in the cockpit would really have help to find who did what.
I'd say the odds are 50%. The odds of the opposite scenario - where the pilot who said "did you flip the fuel cutoff" wasn't the one who did it are also 50%.
Based on the cutoffs for both engines being flipped 1 second apart, the above exchange being caught on the CVR, and then within 10 seconds the (presumably the other) pilot switching them back to Run, it's pretty clear that this was a deliberate act.
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I would assume that the engines cur of due to fault in the shared control system. And to restore power the pilots toggled the switches to off and then back on to get them running again.
Hopefully the timestamps tell if the engines lost power before switches were turned off? Or is there some time window that was not recorded due to the lost power to systems?
This is one of the first scenarios that came to mind for me as well.
i.e. hypothetically, no one flipped the switches to cutoff initially, but a glitch in a computer component caused the same effect, including some indication (a status light?) that the switches were in cutoff state. One of the pilots saw the indication, and asked the other. The other (truthfully) said they hadn't. Ten seconds of confusion later, one of them flipped the switches off and back on to reset the state to what it should have been.
That assumes that the switches are part of a fly-by-wire system, of course. I am not an aircraft engineer, so maybe that's not a safe assumption. But if they're fly-by-wire, seems like there might not be a way to know for sure without cockpit video, because the logging system might only log an event when the switches cause the state to change from what the computer thinks the current state is, not necessarily when the switches change to the state the computer thinks they're already in.
Someone bumping the switches accidentally seems worthy of investigation as well, given the potential for an "Oops! No locking feature! Our bad!" scenario on the part of Boeing that's mentioned in the BBC article.
I’m more familiar with the 737 (as a hobby, not as a pilot), but for that aircraft the “loss of thrust on both engines” checklist has the start levers as the second item on the list.
Note that in the checklist I am looking at the goal is to restart the engines rather than diagnose the failure and that involves these levers. I suspect you’d notice pretty quickly if they were not in the expected location.
Thanks, this is good information. So it then fits the overall picture that they would've actually bumped into these switches in the rush of emergency eventhough they're never expecting the switches to actually be off.
Maybe the pilot who cut-off the fuel was the one who asked “why did you cut-off?”. Knowing full-well the conversation is recorded in order to fool investigators, lay blame and confuse his colleague.
How can it be known that the switches were moved physically and not some electrical signal occured on its own (fault) equivalent of switches operated, without actual physical moement of the switch? Some electronic fault in the line of the signal. I do not expect having an independent sensor for this switch monitoring actual physical movements of the switch in parallel of the intended fuel controlling signals occurring, so the faulty signal reaching valves may have been registered and assumed that actual physical movement of the switch caused it?
We know that they restarted a few seconds later a few seconds apart from each other, and shut off a second part from each other.
It's extremely unlikely for a pilot to decide to react by shutting both switches off, then turning them on within seconds (this is not a failure mode they'd have expected, deciding to shut the engine off a couple hundred feet in the air would be... a fairly reckless decision).
That leaves both switches spontaneously turning off, then back on, a couple seconds after takeoff, which is a failure mode that's never been seen before once let alone twice. Also the pilots didn't make a statement about an incongruity between the report from the plane's systems about the switch being off vs the physical position, which they very likely would have in such a situation.
I think it's reasonable to rule that theory out.
I find these comments very illustrative when taken together- they nicely show how different explanations sound spot on until you read the next one. Inexplicable is one of the great words in the English language
it makes sense to me that the pilot who said "I did not do it" actually did do it without realizing it, was supposed to be putting the landing gear up when he committed a muscle memory mistake. it happened around the time the landing gear should be up, and this explanation matches what was said in the cockpit, and the fact that the landing gear wasn't retracted. I think this idea was even floated initially by the youtube pilot/analysts I watch but dismissed as unlikely.
The landing gear lever is rather prominently featured in the 787 in a panel central to the cockpit layout so that either pilot can easily reach it. For decades and across many manufacturers, the landing gear lever has traditionally featured a knob that deliberately resembles an airplane wheel. It's very hard to mistake it for anything else. It's actuated by simply moving it up or down.
The fuel control switches are behind the throttle stalks above the handles to release the engine fire suppression agents. These switches are markedly smaller and have guards on each side protecting them from accidental manipulation. You need to reach behind and twirl your fingers around a bit to reach them. Actuating these switches requires pulling the knob up sufficiently to clear a stop lock before then rotating down. There are two switches that were activated in sequence and in short order.
The pilot monitoring is responsible for raising the gear in response to the pilot flyings' instruction.
I would find it very difficult to believe this was a muscle memory mistake. At the very least, I would want to more evidence supporting such a proposition.
This idea strikes me as even more unlikely than someone shifting their moving vehicle into reverse while intending to activate the window wipers.
> This idea strikes me as even more unlikely than someone shifting their moving vehicle into reverse while intending to activate the window wipers.
I suspect you've never driven an older vehicle with the shifter on the steering column.
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> It's very hard to mistake it for anything else. It's actuated by simply moving it up or down.
On some aircraft types you also have to pull it towards you before moving it to avoid hitting it by mistake.
But I agree it's very unlikely to be a muscle memory mistake.
This photo: https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ai-171-...
from this article: https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/ai171-investigatio...
shows you the switches on a 787. They are protected and hard to futz around with by mistake.
There is no possible way to confuse these two actions. There's a reason a wheel is attached to the gear lever.
> There is no possible way to confuse these two actions.
This is obviously an overstatement. Any two regularly performed actions can be confused. Sometimes (when tired or distracted) I've walked into my bathroom intending to shave, but mistakenly brushed my teeth and left. My toothbrush and razor are not similar in function or placement.
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The other day I was eating dinner while chatting with my partner. I finished eating and needed to pee and throw away the fast food container. I walked straight to the bathroom, raised the toilet lid and threw the fast food container right into the toilet.
Weird mistakes can happen.
My partner got a good laugh out of it
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I want you to guess how many traffic accidents are caused by accidentally reversing when you intended to go forward.
Test your mental model against the real world. This is your opportunity.
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Sometimes people put cleaning liquid in the fridge.
Given a long enough span of time, every possible fuck up eventually will happen.
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One of the nice things about finally having the preliminary report is I get to stop hearing all of the same assumptions/theories/YouTuber said/"a guy I know got a leaked report"/etc in water cooler talk at work because the preliminary report solidly disproved all of them so far. If anyone even had and stuck with an idea matching this report it wouldn't have stood out in the conversations anyways.
The collection of comments on this post remind me it'll just be a brand new set of random guesses until the final report is released. Or worse - the final report reaches no further conclusions and it just has to fade out of interest naturally over time.
It's human nature to want to guess at possible explanations for things that are unusual and unexpected.
If hearing those guesses annoys you, nobody is forcing you to read through comments on a thread of people making them! (I hope - sorry if you are being forced after all.)
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> I get to stop hearing all of the same assumptions/theories/YouTuber said/"a guy I know got a leaked report"/etc in water cooler talk
This was a really disappointing incident for aviation YouTube - I unsubscribed from at least three different channels because of their clickbait videos and speculation.
Double engine failure was confirmed, not disproven. RAT deployment was confirmed, not disproved. Pilot error, confirmed, not disproven. Preliminary and final aviation reports are mostly guesses.
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> it makes sense to me that..
This is exactly how the investigations are NOT conducted. You don't find the evidence that confirms your theory and call it a day when the pieces sorta fit together. You look solely at the evidence and listen to what they tell you leaving aside what you think could have happened.
Is there a video feed of the cockpit inside the black box?
If not there should be one as even my simple home wifi camera can record hours of hd video on the small sd card. And If there is, wouldn't that help to instantly identify such things?
No neither black box stores video. One stores audio on flash memory and the other stores flight details, sensors etc.
I don’t think video is a bad idea. I assume there is a reason why it wasn’t done. Data wise black boxes actually store very little data (maybe a 100mbs), I don’t know if that is due to how old they are, or the requirements of withstanding extremes.
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My thoughts exactly.
In fact, you could add some AI to it, even, as an embedded system with a decent GPU can be bought for under $2000. It could help prevent issues from happening in the first place. Of course airgapped from the actual control system. But an AI can be very helpful in detecting and diagnosing problems.
Landing gear controls are nothing like the fuel shutoffs. And they are in completely different locations. Landing gear controls are in front of the throttle, fuel shutoffs are aft of the throttles.
Is that "nothing like" though? You are saying they are in different places, ok, but are they similar in other ways? Are both controls the same shape? size? colour? texture?
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Not possible. Two fuel cutoffs. Two engines. Two intentional acts in rapid succession. Plane would have survived one cutoff. It is what it appears. Captain crashed the plane.
even though that raising the gear is a up motion and fuelcut off is a down motion?
And fuel cutoff is _two_ down motions? That's the death knell for this theory, imo.
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that makes it less likely, not impossible, we're trying to match against the data we have. I think distracted muscle memory is more likely than suicide and sounding innocent while lying about it
If you shut off the engines a couple of dozen meters above ground shouldn’t every alarm be blaring or there should be some sort of additional lever you have to pull way out of the way to enable shutting off the engine that close to the ground.
Consider a case where the engine starts to violently vibrate. This can tear the structure apart. Delaying shutting off the engine can be catastrophic.
It's very hard to solve one problem without creating another. At some point, you just gotta trust the pilot.
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On an Airbus yes, engines won't stop if the thrust lever isn't on "idle".
Not so much on a Boeing.
Each of the fuel switches on the 787 is equipped with a locking mechanism that is supposed to prevent accidental movement, experts said. To turn the fuel supply on, the switch must be pulled outward and then moved to a “RUN” position, where it is released and settles back into a locked position. To turn the fuel supply off, the switch must be pulled outward again, moved to the “CUTOFF” position and then released again.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/world/asia/air-india-cras...
Or they could be inadvertently flipped if the "locking" version was not installed: (see the avherald link):
>>India's media report that the investigation is NOT focussing on a human action causing the fuel switches to appear in the CUTOFF position, but on a system failure. Service Bulletins by Boeing issued in year 2018 recommending to upgrade the fuel switches to locked versions to prevent inadvertent flip of the switches, as well as the FAA/GE issued Service Bulletin FAA-2021-0273-0013 Attachment 2 relating to loss of control issue (also see above) were NOT implemented by Air India.
https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/NM-18-33.pdf/SIB_NM-18-33_1
> Recommendations The FAA recommends that all owners and operators of the affected airplanes incorporate the following actions at the earliest opportunity: 1) Inspect the locking feature of the fuel control switch to ensure its engagement. While the airplane is on the ground, check whether the fuel control switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting up the switch. If the switch can be moved without lifting it up, the locking feature has been disengaged and the switch should be replaced at the earliest opportunity. 2) For Boeing Model 737-700, -700C, -800, and -900ER series airplanes and Boeing Model 737- 8 and -9 airplanes delivered with a fuel control switch having P/N 766AT613-3D: Replace the fuel control switch with a switch having P/N 766AT614-3D, which includes an improved locking feature.
I’m sorry to tell you this, but that appears to be an AI hallucination.
https://www.regulations.gov/document/FAA-2021-0273-0013
None of the attachments reference the fuel cutoff switches.
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Throttle control module (TCM) was replaced twice in the past 2019 and 2023 which is not very usual.
Now pure speculation, both pilots have long record of flying, you have to literally pull up and move each fuel control switches to cut off. Either one of the pilots did this intentionally or control unit was faulty. Considering past history and pilot experience, my bet is on faulty controls but we will never know.
They can be tested if there's a mechanical failure ifthe switches survived the crash.
I just want to call out that, whatever the facts of this case, pilot heroism is way more common than pilot murder. This is off the top of my head, so don't quote me on the precise details, I'm probably misremembering some things. But a few of my favorite examples:
- British Airways 5390: An incorrect repair causes the windshield of a plane to be blown out mid flight. A pilot is nearly sucked out. The head flight attendant holds onto his legs to keep him in the plane. The copilot and flight attendant think he is dead, but they keep the situation under control and land the plane.
Everyone survives - including the pilot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGwHWNFdOvg
- United 232: An engine explodes in the tail of an MD-10. Due to rotten luck and weaknesses in the design, it takes out all three of the redundant hydraulic systems, rendering the control surfaces inoperable.
There's a pilot onboard as a passenger who, it just so happens, has read about similar incidents in other aircraft and trained for this scenario on his own initiative. He joins the other pilots in the cockpit and they figure out how to use the engines to establish rudimentary control.
They crash just short of the runway. 112 people die, but 184 people survive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT7CgWvD-x4
- Pinnacle 3701: Two pilots mess around with an empty plane. They take it up to it's operational ceiling. While they're goofing off, they don't realize they're losing momentum. They try to correct too late and cannot land safely.
In their last moments they decide to sacrifice any chance they have to survive by not deploying their landing gear. They choose to glide for the maximum distance to avoid hitting houses, rather than maximizing how much impact is absorbed. They do hit a house but no one else is killed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCMmCekKO_c
> British Airways 5390: An incorrect repair causes the windshield of a plane to be blown out mid flight. A pilot is nearly sucked out.
This one is a good illustration of how better design can help prevent accidents or make them less severe.
The error the maintenance people made was that when they replaced the window and the 90 screws that hold it on 84 of the screws they used were were 0.66 mm smaller in diameter than they should have been.
The window on that model plane was fitted from the outside, so the job of the screws was to hold it there against the force of the pressure difference at altitude. The smaller screws were too weak to do that.
If instead the designers of the plane had used plug type windows which are fitted from the inside then the pressure difference at altitude works to hold the window in place. Even with no screws it would be fine at altitude. Instead the job of the screws would be to keep gravity from making the window fall in when the plane is not high enough for the pressure difference to keep it in place.
My vague memory of the Air Emergency episode on this (AKA Air Crash Investigation, Air Disasters, Mayday, and maybe others depending on what country and channel you are watching it on) is that after this accident many aircraft companies switched to mostly using plug windows on new designs.
Aviation is full of those design choices. Similar to how a multi-engine propeller plane will use oil pressure to keep the props in the flying angle, which means that when oil pressure is lost (catastrophic engine failure) it will feather giving the other engine the best chances of keeping the plane flying with the least amount of drag. While on a single-engine plane it's installed exactly opposite, in case of oil pressure loss the prop goes to fine pitch giving you the best hope of creating some trust in case the engine may still be working.
Most of these things were figured out over 100 years of carefully analysing accidents and near accidents to continuously improve safety.
> the pressure difference at altitude works to hold the window in place
Curious, is the pressure difference actually greater than the force of 800km/h wind pushing on the window? Or is it just for side windows?
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> plug windows
Surprisingly hard to search for this phrase
This article covers the topic though:
https://www.witpress.com/elibrary/wit-transactions-on-the-bu...
Here's another one:
Air Canada 143
- Pilot calculated incorrect fuel due to metric/imperial unit mixup, and ran out of fuel midair.
- Said pilot performed an impossible glider-sideslip maneuver to rapidly bleed airspeed just-in-time for an emergency landing at an abandoned airfield, having to completely rely on eyeballing the approach.
- No fatalties or serious injuries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVvt7hP5a-0
It was a series of events and failures rather than simply “pilot calculated incorrect”. And it was a bit more nuanced than metric/imperial conversion.
Via wiki (but accident section is more detailed):
“ The accident was caused by a series of issues, starting with a failed fuel-quantity indicator sensor (FQIS). These had high failure rates in the 767, and the only available replacement was also nonfunctional. The problem was logged, but later, the maintenance crew misunderstood the problem and turned off the backup FQIS. This required the volume of fuel to be manually measured using a dripstick. The navigational computer required the fuel to be entered in kilograms; however, an incorrect conversion from volume to mass was applied, which led the pilots and ground crew to agree that it was carrying enough fuel for the remaining trip. ”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
It's not an impossible maneuver. Glider pilots do this all the time especially if they don't have spoilers
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Mentour Pilot is a fantastic channel.
Anyone who does on-call should look into aviation disasters. Crew resource management, the aviate-navigate-communicate loop, it's all very applicable. ('WalterBright is an excellent source of commentary on applying lessons from the airline industry to software.)
But I did burn out on Mentour Pilot after a while, I just had my fill of tragedy.
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Also green dot aviation has some great videos. Excellent animations. A calmer style. Both are great.
Eh. His older videos are indeed phenomenal, but newer ones are "you won't believe what happened, right after this sponsor break"
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If you're focused on whether or not the pilot cares (or is even alive), you've lost the plot. The point is to keep passengers alive regardless of the pilot.
There's no real point to considering what happens if the pilot wants to murder people on board. Of course they will succeed....
The thing is, people always want something to be done. And politicians want to do something. No matter what kind of action it is, someone knifed a kid on the street, we must ban knives of a certain length. A pilot downs a plane while the other leaves the cockpit - we must mandate two pilots always present. Someone hides explosives in his shoe - we must X-ray all shoes of all passengers forever. Etc.
The human brain can't take the idea that yeah an exceedingly rare thing happened and we're not going to do anything, because rare things do happen sometimes. And the medicine can be worse than the disease. We just accept that yeah, despite best efforts, some pilots will be hostile for whatever mental reasons. Not saying that is what happened in this case, but just saying that IF that happened.
We need more tradeoff thinking, instead of do something! thinking.
Almost 400 comments and no avherald link for reference?
https://avherald.com/h?article=528f27ec
> On Jul 12th 2025 (UTC) India's media report that the investigation is NOT focussing on a human action causing the fuel switches to appear in the CUTOFF position, but on a system failure. Service Bulletins by Boeing issued in year 2018 recommending to upgrade the fuel switches to locked versions to prevent inadvertent flip of the switches, as well as the FAA/GE issued Service Bulletin FAA-2021-0273-0013 Attachment 2 relating to loss of control issue (also see above) were NOT implemented by Air India. The stated MN4 computer with faulty soldering, that might weaken and lose contact due to the thermal stress after a number of cycles, interprets data and commands fuel metering valves - with the lost contact attaching the MN4 processor to the EEC intermittent electrical contact, loss of signal processing and engine control faults can occur. The SB writes under conditions for the SB: "An LOTC (Loss Of Thrust Control) event has occurred due to an EEC MN4 microprocessor solder ball failure." According to discussions in the industry it may be possible with the number of cycles VT-ANB had already completed, the solder balls were weakened sufficiently to detach the MN4 from the EEC momentarily due to loads during the takeoff rotation leading to the loss of control of thrust and shut down of the engines.
Still quite early in the investigation, and so many things to consider. I don't know why online communities have been so quick to gravitate towards the murder/suicide theory. I thought aviation enthusiasts of all people would want to keep an open mind until every other possibility is ruled out, however minuscule it might seem.
> I don't know why online communities have been so quick to gravitate towards the murder/suicide theory.
Because the hardware failure theories seem preposterously far-fetched and require an unnecessary multiplication of deities.
Your ghost in the machine needs to be “just so” so that it can cause both switches to be read in “cutoff” nearly simultaneously. Then, 10 seconds later one of the switches needs to be read in “run”, then 4 seconds after that the second one needs to read “run”. You also need to explain why there have been zero single engine failures of this type before this double failure.
The ghost also needs to explain why one pilot asked the other “why did you cutoff?” instead of something like “what happened to the engines?” (which is the more natural response, unless you already know the switches are in cutoff).
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My concern would be that the investigation in this case is more likely to be biased towards a system failure. Disgracing a major flag carrier is something very few regulars have the independence and courage to get away with.
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The one thing automatic system failure theory can't explain is whether there is a reverse connect from the machine back to the switches where if the machine decides to cut off fuel, would the physical switches toggle to cut-off or stay in run position while the fuel is actually cut off, this would require an actuator setup to flip the switches from inside the system which there is no documentation of if that is even support let alone reported?
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Respectfully, media reports on what the investigation is focusing on should be taken with a grain of salt unless said media is known to be reputable and have credible sources.
If they had a credible indication of a technical failure that causes engines to randomly shut down, they would have already grounded 787 fleets, which hasn't happened.
Kneejerk patriotic reaction ?
> The EGT was observed to be rising for both engines indicating relight. Engine 1’s core deceleration stopped, reversed and started to progress to recovery. Engine 2 was able to relight but could not arrest core speed deceleration and re-introduced fuel repeatedly to increase core speed acceleration and recovery.
I know it's probably not worth the hazmat tradeoff for such a rare event, but the F-16 has an EPU powered by hydrazine that can spool up in about a second.
The F-16 EPU is to keep the flight controls powered so the plane doesn't immediately become uncontrollable following engine failure. The EPU doesn't provide thrust of any kind.
The 787 and nearly every other commercial aircraft with powered flight controls [1] (fly-by-wire or traditional) has emergency power available via RAT and/or APU, and any fly-by-wire aircraft has batteries to keep the flight control computers running through engine failure to power supply being restored by the RAT and/or APU. Due to its unusually high use of electrical systems, the 787 has particularly large lithium batteries for these cases. There is no need for an additional EPU because the emergency systems already work fine (and did their jobs as expected in this case). You just can't recover from loss of nearly all engine thrust at that phase of takeoff. [2]
1. The notable exceptions to having a RAT for emergency flight controls are the 737 and 747 variants prior to the 747-8. In the 747 case, the four engines would provide sufficient hydraulic power while windmilling in flight and thus no additional RAT would be necessary. The 737 has complete mechanical reversion for critical flight controls, and so can be flown without power of any kind. There is sufficient battery power to keep backup instruments running for beyond the maximum glide time from altitude - at which point the aircraft will have "landed" one way or another.
2. There is only one exception of a certified passenger aircraft with a system for separate emergency thrust. Mexicana briefly operated a special version of the early 727 which would be fitted with rocket assist boosters for use on particularly hot days to ensure that single-engine-out climb performance met certification criteria. Mexicana operated out of particularly "hot and high" airports like Mexico City, which significantly degrade aircraft performance. On the worst summer days, the performance degradation would have been severe enough that the maximum allowable passenger/baggage/fuel load would have been uneconomical without the margin provided by the emergency rockets. I'm not aware of them ever being used on a "real" flight emergency outside of the testing process, and I think any similar design today would face a much higher bar to reach certification.
> at which point the aircraft will have "landed" one way or another.
Ah
Also we need more rocket thrust takeoff airplanes.
> the maximum allowable passenger/baggage/fuel load would have been uneconomical without the margin provided by the emergency rockets.
Your momma so fat…
But seriously, is there a commercial aircraft that can’t climb on only engine?
I suspect any civil aviation engineer who goes "let's add hydrazine!" to fix problems has a fairly short career, lol.
To my knowledge, hydrazine is extremely toxic. Most likely no regulator will allow it on commercial aircraft.
Yeah, now you have at least two problems.
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The RAT was already out and doing its job. Adding hydrazine or a nuclear reactor isn't going to help matters when there's no thrust.
The only solution I can think of is emergency parachutes. Like lots of them. would also be useful for other types of in air engine/control failures.
At least it worked for me on Kerbal Space Program. At least sometimes.
Wouldn't be able to save a fully-loaded 787 in low & slow conditions because the area of canopies needed to deploy would be several acres. And they'd add several tonnes.
This is an actual thing on smaller aircraft: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_Sy...
There's precedent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_8qCTAjsDg [30s]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT58pzY41wA [15m]
The Cirrus system is deployed by rockets, allowing it to function at a very low altitude. They say that you should deploy it no matter what altitude you are at, and it will add at least some friction. The system has a very impressive track record.
However, at this altitude, with an airplane this heavy, you might have to put the rockets on the plane to decelerate enough to save lives.
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Here's another point of view: https://x.com/BDUTT/status/1944012769323626682
The four Indian pilots on her show are clearly not convinced that the pilots are to blame.
As they mention, it's important to know what else was spoken in the cockpit. Quite possible that there's more, and that might have implicated the pilots. However, if that's not the case, this is a very poorly worded report.
This is BBC, they have a history of being uncharitable when it comes to reporting on their erstwhile colonies. Jumping to a conclusion about pilot's fault when the recorded dialogues show both had no idea who cut it off (leaving ground for a possibility of some malfunction) is irresponsible, especially when the report could have been worded better without needing to reach a definitive conclusion.
Both pilots have a long history of flying, a lot of experience, so while there is a chance one of them did it unknowingly, it's a small one in my opinion. Because it's not just a small switch, but a multi step procedure. The reporting on such a sensitive issue has been shocking to say the very least,
Where in the BBC coverage are the pilots blamed? Sounds like you might have a bit of a chip on your shoulder, and indeed it sounds like you are the one who is biased towards a particular conclusion (namely that the Indian pilots bear no blame).
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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?
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.
This is true for boing, but not true dor Airbus design philosophy. Airbus tends to limit the pilot control inout pushing the plane out of safe operation conditions. I'm not sure of it's possible/not possible to cut the engine fuel supply during take-off in any Airbus though.
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.
> 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.
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Airbus liners don't allow cutting fuel with trust lever on.
This is actually very clever and elegant!
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Engine fire requires you to cut fuel to the affected engine.
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.
Is cutting off fuel while taking off a better solution than letting them burn?
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> The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, 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. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off.
So the fuel supply was cut off intentionally. The switches in question are also built so they cannot be triggered accidentally, they need to be unlocked first by pulling them out.
> 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.
And both pilots deny doing it.
It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
https://ad.easa.europa.eu/ad/NM-18-33
well hold your horses there... from the FAA in their 2019 report linked above:
> The Boeing Company (Boeing) received reports from operators of Model 737 airplanes that the fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged. The fuel control switches (or engine start switches) are installed on the control stand in the flight deck and used by the pilot to supply or cutoff fuel to the engines. The fuel control switch has a locking feature to prevent inadvertent operation that could result in unintended switch movement between the fuel supply and fuel cutoff positions. In order to move the switch from one position to the other under the condition where the locking feature is engaged, it is necessary for the pilot to lift the switch up while transitioning the switch position. If the locking feature is disengaged, the switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting the switch during transition, and the switch would be exposed to the potential of inadvertent operation. Inadvertent operation of the switch could result in an unintended consequence, such as an in-flight engine shutdown. Boeing informed the FAA that the fuel control switch design, including the locking feature, is similar on various Boeing airplane models. The table below identifies the affected airplane models and related part numbers (P/Ns) of the fuel control switch, which is manufactured by Honeywell.
> If the locking feature is disengaged, the switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting the switch during transition, and the switch would be exposed to the potential of inadvertent operation. Inadvertent operation of the switch could result in an unintended consequence, such as an in-flight engine shutdown
https://www.youtube.com/live/SE0BetkXsLg?si=LPss_su3PVTAqGCO
Both of these extremely-experienced pilots say that there was near zero chance that the fuel switches were unintentionally moved. They were switched off within one second of each other, which rules out most failure scenarios.
If it was an issue with the switches, we also would have seen an air worthiness directive being issued. But they didn’t, because this was a mass murder.
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These switches are operated at startup and shutdown. So pretty much daily. By pilots and likely maintenance crews. Such a defect with not to unnoticed for long
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What is "01 second" as quoted above? If it's 1 second, you could possibly conclude that it was intentional. If it's 0.1 second you might think it was an accident and the lock was disengaged.
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Is it easy to inadvertantly move both switches in such a scenario?
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Well, can you move it back, when accidentally activated?
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Same manufacturer, Air India 171 was a 787-8 though.
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You don’t inadvertently turn off both switches. The linked SAIB was in 2018 and addresses faulty installations, not a failure after use. And preflight over thousands of flights would have detected if the switches had a failed locking mechanism. And for both to fail at once? Practically impossible. Also the recommended inspection — that was almost 7 years ago. If a major airline didn’t comply with the SAIB, that’s on them, not Boeing. There hasn’t been a single reported instance of fuel switches being accidentally switched off on any Boeing airliner — in 320 million flight hours over the past 10 years.
Totally different airplane with a totally different flight deck, designed generations apart. The fact that the manufacturer is the same is irrelevant.
You are trying to draw parallels between the ignition switch in a 1974 Ford Pinto and a 2025 Ford Mustang as if there could be a connection. No.
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They don't mention the locking mechanism being disabled
One would assume a toggle like that would come with blaring alarms and blinking lights… right? Right??
Edit: It also seems like the engine cutoff is immediate after the toggle. I wonder if a built in delay would make sense for safety.
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> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
You're leaping into the minds of others and drawing conclusions of their intent. One of them moved the levers. It could've been an unplanned reaction, a terrible mistake, or it could've been intentional. We may never know the intention even with a comprehensive and complete investigation. To claim otherwise is arrogance.
The car equivalent is being on a highway and "mistakenly" pulling the hand brakes, except that there are 2 hand brakes and you need to first unlock both of them.
That's very hard to do by panic and mistake, if not impossible by design.
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> One of them moved the levers. It could've been an unplanned reaction, a terrible mistake, or it could've been intentional.
Fuel levers are designed to only be moved deliberately; they cannot be mistaken for something else by a professional pilot. It's literally their job to know where these buttons are, what they do, and when to (not) push them.
It's not arrogance to assume the most likely conclusion is true, despite how uncomfortable that outcome may be.
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Yeah and the other pilot flipped the switches back on and one of the engines started spooling up but it was too late.
Murder-suicide looks like the likely conclusion, given that flipping the cutoff switches requires a very deliberate action. That said, it's not entirely impossible that due to stress or fatigue the pilot had some kind of mental lapse and post-flight muscle memory (of shutting off the engines) kicked in when the aircraft lifted off.
> post-flight muscle memory (of shutting off the engines) kicked in
Possible, and if so it is too early to conclude it was murder-suicide.
See also: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dgca-slaps-80-lakh-fi...
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> Murder-suicide looks like the likely conclusion
But why cutoff the fuel instead of flying into terrain? It's such a passive action
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I once worked with a software engineer who would do things and then bald face lie about it. This reminds me of that person.
Me: “The build is breaking right after you checked in. Why did you do that?” Him:”I did not do so.” Me: “The commit shows it as you. And when I rolled back everything builds.” Him:”It must have been someone else.”
That person was really annoying.
I’ve worked with some chronic liars. They would deny reality no matter how much evidence you had.
The weirdest thing was how often it worked for them. In each case their lying eventually caught up with them, but in some cases they’d get away with lying for years.
It’s amazing how often someone would have clear evidence against what they were saying, but the people in positions of authority just wanted to de-escalate the situation and move on. They could turn anything into an ambiguous he-said she-said situation, possibly make a scene, and then make everyone so tired of the drama that they just wanted to move on.
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> So the fuel supply was cut off intentionally. The switches in question are also built so they cannot be triggered accidentally
FAA issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin SAIB NM-18-33 in 2018 warning that on several Boeing models including the 787 the locking mechanism of the fuel switches could be inoperative.
https://www.aviacionline.com/recommended-versus-mandatory-th...
Per FAA the checks were recommended but not mandatory.
> The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, 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. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off.
> As per the EAFR, the Engine 1 fuel cutoff switch transitioned from CUTOFF to RUN at about 08:08:52 UTC.
Damn. That's pretty quick to diagnose and take action.
Boeing's probably gonna have a big sigh of relief over this one.
> Boeing's probably gonna have a big sigh of relief over this one.
The 787 is 15 years old, and this particular plane was 10 years old. It always seemed unlikely to be a major, new issue. My money was actually on maintenance.
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> Damn. That's pretty quick to diagnose and take action.
I have to imagine that “You are flying” and “You just cut off all fuel to the engines” must generate a pretty obvious claxon of warnings.
Does the Flight Data Recorder consider the physical position of the fuel switches or does it get the information from some fly-by-wire part that could be buggy?
The conversation would suggest that the switches were in CUTOFF position, but there is also a display that summarizes the engine status.
There is no conversation that mentions flipping the switch to RUN again.
EDIT: Why is there no Cockpit Video Recorder? The days of limited storage are over.
> EDIT: Why is there no Cockpit Video Recorder? The days of limited storage are over.
Pilots unions are dead against it.
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I've had discussions on HN with people who insisted that having a video camera always pointed out the control tower at the runway was some sort of impossibility. Despite every 7-11 having such a system.
This would leave accident investigators with a lot of work to do to try to figure out how a collision happened.
Yes there is.
Airlines are decades behind on tech. You can get satellite internet almost anywhere on the planet and GPS can give you ten-foot accurate positioning, but we've still _lost_ planes because we haven't mandated a system that sends the realtime position of the plane over the satellite internet. The days of limited storage are still going strong in the industry.
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> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
Remember that incident where a cop pulled out his taser and tased the suspect? Except he pulled out his pistol and fired it.
The taser looks nothing like a pistol, feels nothing like it, yet it is still possible to confuse the two in the heat of the moment.
It’s always easy in those threads to see who’s familiar with the world of aviation and who’s not.
No it’s not comparable to a cop that confuses things in the heat of the moment. Not anywhere close to be relatable.
If it was, planes would be crashing down the sky quite often (and it would have been fixed for decades already).
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What were they confusing the switches with though? Are there two other switches they would be toggling at that phase?
Perhaps they were very very confused and thought they had just arrived at the terminal?
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Also, a cop who can either read or write can't be expected to not make mistakes.
Suicide is quite a stretch without any supporting evidence from the pilots' backgrounds. I would take mental fog, cognitive overload, wrong muscle memory, even a defective fuel cutoff system over suicide.
>mental fog, cognitive overload, wrong muscle memor
Agreed. The sequence of events also supports this.
I believe one of the pilots made a terrible muscle memory mistake and cutoff the fuel instead of raising the landing gear. This would explain why the landing gear was never raised, why the pilot who was accused of cutting off the fuel denied it (in his mind he had only retracted the landing gear) and why the engines were turned back on after presumably realizing the mistake.
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Not that humans are known to behave rationally when trying to commit suicide, but it’s interesting that the switches were re-engaged successfully without protest or a fight. It’s just an interesting detail to wonder about.
The reasoning I’ve heard is: it didn’t matter anymore, the damage was already done and there was no way any attempts at recovering from it would have been successful.
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and immediately thereafter, 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
Or more precisely, the signals which come from them were found to behave as such.
Without any audible record of turning the switches off, I wouldn't blame the pilots without first checking the wiring and switches themselves for faults. This reminds me of the glitches caused by tin whiskers.
But from the audio recording it seems like one pilot is noticing them bering in the CUTOFF position, and asking why (and moving it back). If the switch was actually in RUN, but some other issue caused the signal to be sendt, the pilot would see it beeing in the RUN position, not CUTTOF.
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I agree, there's a significant distinction between "the switches were (physically) flipped" and "the circuit was opened/closed".
In this case, it may be a moot distinction, particularly if no physical evidence of fault or tampering has been discovered in investigation. But, in theory, very important - there's a lot of potential grey-area between the two statements.
The proximity of the incident to the ground may also increase the possible attack vectors for simple remote triggers.
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If that was the case, it does seem a bit odd that there was a one second gap. But yeah, still worth investigating, if that’s even possible given the extensive damage.
> And both pilots deny doing it. > It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
You’re trying to prove a negative here.
I am not familiar with the 787 operations, but there are a few issues that need to be sorted out first: - altitude when pilots start the after takeoff checklist
- if there are any other switches that are operated in tandem in the general vicinity of where the engine cutoff switches are
- if the cutoff switches had the locking mechanisms present, and if not, if they could be moved inadvertently by the pilot flying hand
Discarding other possibilities in an investigation can have adverse consequences.
Did you ever always push the right buttons every time?
The switches have lockout mechanisms that prevent accidental triggering. I'm not a pilot, but these guys are, and they find it exceedingly unlikely that anyone would switch both off by accident:
https://www.youtube.com/live/SE0BetkXsLg?feature=shared
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> Did you ever always push the right buttons every time?
A whole world full of 787’s is pushing the right buttons every single day. If we’re talking about accidentally pressing buttons it seems we’d have seen incidents before.
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Have you ever turned your car off when you meant to turn on the windshield wiper?
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I wonder if the switches are still in tact after the crash? Can they verify that the switches are mechanically sound? If so, seems highly likely it was intentional.
There are pictures of them in the report.
I'd suspect the wiring leading from the switches to the engine controllers first, especially since it looked like both circuits cut out nearly at the same time.
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> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
The balance of probability might tend to support that hypothesis. However I'm wondering if it was just something involuntary. My ex for instance who learned to drive on a stick shift would randomly stall the engine after a few weeks driving an automatic.
> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
Is it possible it could have been an accident or a mistake by one of the pilots? How intention-proofed are engine cutoffs?
You have to pull the switches out (against a spring) to be able to move them over a notch and flip them. Not really something you can just mistake for another switch or bump into by accident.
I'd liken it to turning off the ignition by turning the key while driving your car. Possibly something that could happen if you're really fatigued, but requires quite a mental lapse.
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It could be defective switch springs, fatigue-induced muscle memory error, or something else. The pilot who did it saying he did not may not have realized what he did. It's pretty common under high workload when you flip the wrong switch or move a control the wrong way to think that you did what you intended to do, not what you actually did.
That said Boeing could take a page out of the Garmin GI275. When power is removed it pops up a "60s to shutdown dialog" that you can cancel. Even if you accidentally press SHUTDOWN it only switches to a 10s countdown with a "CANCEL" button.
They could insert a delay if weight on wheels is off. First engine can shutdown when commanded but second engine goes on 60s delay with EICAS warning countdown. Or just always insert a delay unless the fire handle is pulled.
Still... that has its own set of risks and failure modes to consider.
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Reminds me of 2017 Las Vegas shooting. The perpetrator looked and acted completely normal till the day of shooting and all his issues like anxiety or losing money was nothing far from ordinary. And what seems all of a sudden did a well planned shooting and didn't bother to leave a note or tell his story.
Free memento mori: you're both free-associating.
There's 0 reason to conclude murder-suicide, there's an infinitude of things that could have the same result, and both pilots denied it to eachother: how is that presented as proof?
I hope I don't need to explain why the fact no one knew in advance the Las Vegas shooter was going to shoot has ~0 similarities with the situation as we know it, and banal similarities with every murder.
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Given the recent boundless incompetence by Boeing why not ask if their is any way for such to fail out of scope of the normal interface?
[flagged]
>It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
This kind of attitude gets innocent people behind bars for life. Disgusting.
It's difficult to conclude anything until the investigation is finished and I hope the ones who are carrying it out are as levelheaded, neutral and professional as possible.
Or a mechanical failure
Both switches, at slightly different times? Seems pretty unlikely.
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Serious question: why is it so difficult to fathom that a deranged pilot could decide to commit suicide by plane?
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This is highly reminiscent to me of this case. [0] The co-pilot accidentally hit the wrong switch and then quietly corrected his mistake later, without resetting the previous switch (which led to feathering).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeti_Airlines_Flight_691
Cutting the engines within seconds of leaving the ground doesn't fit suicide very well. I'd expect something more like flying into the side of a mountain or heading really far out into the Indian ocean until you vanish from radar and cause a big mystery.
For instance, you might deliberately kill yourself by driving your car really fast into something solid, but you probably wouldn't try to do that while backing out of the garage.
I think it is opposite. Flying into a mountain & etc would require one pilot to somehow incapacitate another pilot. Cutting fuel off, if done on takeoff, is not recoverable (engines can’t relight and spin up quickly enough).
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See Germanwings 9525 for an example of a conclusive suicide with no doubt from all the evidence.
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So you're telling me that those switches don't have a voice that says "fuel cutoff switches transitioned" like in the movies? That's bad design
I know this thread runs the gamut of armchair experts, pretend experts, and actual experts and there's no telling who is which but I really want to know why the downvotes and why this is not a good idea.
The idea is to notify for crucial settings, replace vocal confirmation (probably) already in the SOP anyway, reducing mistakes in bad faith or otherwise.
Don't some planes already have an automated announcement for seatbelts on?
Only reason I can think of why it's not there yet is the cost (whether $$$ or design opportunity) of cramming that in the already-cramped cockpit.
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WHOOP WHOOP
TERRAIN, TERRAIN! PULL UP! PULL UP! (WHOOP WHOOP)
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It's interesting to see how people manage incomplete information.
You could have made the same assumptions after the first MCAS crash, much like boeing assumed pilot error. It's easy, comforting and sometimes kills people because it makes you stop looking.
Do you know if the mechanical position of the switch guarantees its electronic state without any possibility for hardware malfunction? If no, then you are claiming a person made one of the most grave acts of inhumanity ever.
This sounds to me like an electronics issue - an intermittent, inadvertent state transition likely due to some PCB component malfunction
The time between the two switches being activated and then them being switched back on after being noticed strongly suggests that they were actually manipulated. Malice looke very likely to me. An investigation into the pilots life may turn something up, I guess.
It’s worth noting that Premeditation or “intention” doesn’t have to factor into this.
Studies of survivors of impulse suicides (jumping off of bridges etc) indicate that many of them report having no previous suicidal ideation, no intention or plan to commit suicide, and in many cases no reported depression or difficulties that might encourage suicide.
Dark impulses exist and they don’t always get caught in time by the supervisory conscious process. Most people have experienced this in its more innocuous forms, the call of the void and whatnot, but many have also been witness to thoughtless destructive acts that defy reason and leave the perpetrator confused and in denial.
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Murder-suicide has happened on a few occasions. How many times has your malfunction occurred on an aircraft fuel system?
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There is also audio of the pilots discussing the issue.
And then 10s later the switches magically fixed themselves? The likely not electronically connected switches since that would compromise engine redundancy?
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So for all the bad rep $BA gets, it was just pure incompetence by unqualified pilots? Best to not fly Indian-based airlines
Excellent analysis here, those switches are stout, no one is moving them by accident:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA_UZeHZwSw
Except when they are not:
From the avherald link:
>Service Bulletins by Boeing issued in year 2018 recommending to upgrade the fuel switches to locked versions to prevent inadvertent flip of the switches, as well as the FAA/GE issued Service Bulletin FAA-2021-0273-0013 Attachment 2 relating to loss of control issue (also see above) were NOT implemented by Air India.
You've linked to something regarding an ECU component. Nothing about fuel switches. "This Service Bulletin provides instructions to replace the EEC MN4 bridge ball grid array (BGA) microprocessor"
Because that maintenance check is an optional one as stipulated by Boeing. I don't think most users of the 787 themselves carry out the check, so singling out Air India for this alone is just bad faith
These airplanes reject a lot of the pilot inputs if they don’t align with the expectations. Any idea why the system even allows the cut engine fuel input at that time of flight? Sounds to me that it should be just ignored. Even if both engines were on fire while climbing that early, what could cutting fuel offer?
In case of engine fire they need to cut fuel
In general yes. But that early in the takeoff sequence cutting fuel will only kill you. If the engines can still provide thrust, I would take it.
In this YouTube short you can see the pilot switching both fuel cutoff to run
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bd4Bler36Nk
there's literally two other similar switches right next to those?
The switches on the lower panel that are switched, are the fuel cutoffs
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What makes me more inclined to suicide is that this might have been the perfect time to do this so that even a small interruption in fuel would be catastrophic.
If this is the case, you have to then think about why this pilot would want suicide but also murder all aboard the plane. It's a bit irrational if they wanted to just suicide - you can easily just cut your own throat, hang yourself, or jump off a tall building.
People do irrational things, especially if they are mentally unwell - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
There are already 5 other cases of pilot suicide with a full plane.
Look at financial motive. Some insurance payout stipulation or pension obligation to his family may have been boosted by death on the job.
This report is outlining the known facts of the flight at present. The main one being the movement of the fuel switches to the off position did occur a few seconds after take-off, almost certainly by one of the pilots. And this was the primary cause of the crash. However, blame has not been apportioned and the reason for why is not known.
blancolrio puts its well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA_UZeHZwSw
Three things:- 1) Pilot clearly said I didn't do it. 2) Report talks about the second switch being turned off in a second. 3) Known advisory on switches getting flipped.
If you see these three together, it becomes easy to deduce that based on point 2, switch was not human induced as the actions required take more than a second. Next the third point, advisory was for this exact scenario which played out, though rare but still it shouldn't have been just an advisory, but more than that.
The switches are right next to each other and have a very short throw[1]- it would definitely be possible to do them in under a second and it looks possible to throw them together.
IMO that looks like a spot that would be pretty difficult to hit accidentally even if the ward failed. You'd have to push them down and the throttles are in the way.
Doesn't mean the switch couldn't have failed in some other way- eg the switch got stuck on the ward but was still able to activate with a half-throw, and spring pressure pushed it back into off during a bump. But switches generally only activate when fully thrown, and failing suddenly at the exact same time is not really what you would expect.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/indianaviation/comments/1lxra3g/b78...
> as the actions required take more than a second
Where do you get this from? You have to pull up the switch with two fingers and move it to the other position and put it back in. This doesn't seem to take more than a second if deliberate.
To me, it points to a Germanwings-style sabotage. And the "I didn't do it" seems to be a lie. Not very confident in it, just the likeliest to me. Though one can ask why not just push the nose down instead. Maybe he thought that's too easy for the other pilot to counteract. The fuel switches are more out-of-mind and more startling to change.
> And the "I didn't do it" seems to be a lie.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, even if one of the pilots did deliberately move the switches, it's not clear from the reporting so far if that's the same pilot who responded to the question. In other words, it's possible one pilot flipped the switches and then asked the other pilot why he cut off the fuel to misdirect and create more confusion.
Edit: Of course this is all speculation, we don't know if the switches were moved deliberately and if so which pilot did so and which pilot was which in the exchange. More investigation is clearly needed.
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If there was any worry that 787 switch lockouts are not working properly, wouldn't they release an immediate bulletin for inspections on all aircraft? It seems like the lack of any bulletins implies the lack of any suspicion on hardware problems.
In this phase of flight the pilot’s hands should be nowhere near the thrust levers let alone the fuel cutoff switches. There is no way they could accidentally knock them with their hands.
On the contrary, it's quite normal that the PF's hands are on the throttle levers throughout the climb (until the switch to automation), which are directly in front of the cutoff switches.
They could be close for retracting the flaps. Completely different control though.
> it becomes easy to deduce that based on point 2, switch was not human induced
This just isn’t correct at all. The evidence isn’t conclusive but if a human operated switch was flipped, and one of the humans present says to the other one hey why did you do that, then Ockham’s razor points to a human flipping the switch.
It’s not the only option, but it’s certainly the most likely.
The advisory was for the lock being disengaged meaning you would still need to manually move it. it wasn't for being moved by factors such as vibrations also If it was from vibration how would a crash impact not move them back to cut off?
1) but what else would they say if they did do it?
> the actions required take more than a second
Not sure where this is asserted? These aren't complicated mechanisms, it's just a pull lock, right? Pilots flip the switches twice on every flight at startup/shutdown, it's a routine action.
Why can the pilot shut off the fuel during takeoff?
Fire, probably. But also, how complicated would you make the system if you needed to prevent certain switches from working during certain times of flight? At some point... we're all just in the hands of the people in the cockpit.
I can't put my car into reverse gear while driving down the freeway.
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Engine overheating even on idle thrust (if this happens after V1, you would idle it and continue the takeoff anyway; you are beyond the point at which you can safely abort).
Engine oil leak has drained the oil completely and the engine is about to fail catastrophically (unlikely on takeoff but you never know).
Engine is on fire (out of all of the things that can go wrong with an engine during takeoff, this is very likely).
Engine has blown up (ditto).
Engine is missing from the aircraft (not likely, but engines have fallen from planes on takeoff before).
Debris / Ash / etc is in the engine (not likely).
Severe fuel leak (not something I'd worry about during takeoff).
Probably other reasons I can't think of.
Completely uneducated guess but if one engine bursts into flames you might want to kill the fuel.
Suggest a system that would prevent this, but only this, without causing other risks.
Disable the fuel system cutoff controls during the takeoff climb phase of flight. Once the aircraft loses contact with the runway, these controls shouldn't function without tripping certain thresholds (speed & altitude), or following a two-man procedure that is physically impossible to execute solo. In any other flight regime, the controls function as originally designed.
The danger of a burning engine is irrelevant if you are heading into terrain.
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Another comment mentioned that with an Airbus you first have to move the thrust lever to idle before you're able to cutoff the fuel.
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At least an audible alert.
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> Why can the pilot shut off the fuel during takeoff?
Engine failure during takeoff.
Engine fire.
What you are really asking is: would we, the passengers, be safer without human pilots?
Eventually, yes. Soon? Maybe.
Dog and a pilot. The pilot is there to make sure everything is ok and the dog is there to bite the pilot if he tries touching anything
As long as you also eliminate the possibility of maintenance problems and defects in automation, and have perfect microscale weather forecasts, and still have overrides for the human safety pilot that can still... wait a minute.
I recall something similar to this happened in the USA in 2023. An off-duty pilot in the cockpit tried to pull that fuel shut-off handle (edit: I'm informed it's a different fuel shut-off mechanism), but was overpowered by the other two:
> "Both pilots then saw Emerson grab on to the red fire handles, also known as the “T-handles,” which are used to extinguish engine fires and shut off all fuel to the engines, potentially turning the plane into a glider, the pilots told federal investigators."
> "“If the T-handle is fully deployed, a valve in the wing closes to shut off fuel to the engine. In this case, the quick reaction of our crew to reset the T-handles ensured engine power was not lost,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement."
> "One pilot struggled with Emerson for about 25 or 30 seconds before the off-duty pilot “quickly settled down,” according to the complaint."
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-10-24/off-duty...
That's not the same one, that's the big red FIRE ones on the overhead panel. They're not reversible and are under a plastic cover. As far as I know these ones are. They're also used to just switch them off at the end of a flight which can of course be reversed. But I guess in this case there wasn't enough time. They only had 30 seconds.
Why didn't they turn them back on then? Or does it take too long to spin up again even if they are still spooling down? This is one of the worst possible moments for this to happen of course. Low speed, low altitude, lots of drag...
They did, about 10 seconds later (which is both incredibly short and an eternity). But the engines almost immediately start losing thrust and it takes them much more time to restart. At the end of the flight, FDR records that one engine was gaining thrust, and the other was attempting to spin up, but it was too late and they didn't have enough glide time for both to gain enough thrust to climb.
The NYTimes states that there was an advisory on the switches but that the FAA had not deemed them unsafe. It also states that on this plane the switches were changed in 2023.
Another reason to automate humans away.
It's safe to state these fuel cutoff switches aren't to be touched in-flight unless the word 'fire' is said beforehand. Even then, you only perform fuel cutoff for the flaming engine. If the copilot was busy with takeoff, there is exactly one other person in the entire world that could have flipped both switches. We may never know which one flipped them back.
Fire isn't the only instantly severe problem with engines. Another is violent shaking if, say, part of the rotating assembly came off.
Yep. Fan blade off, shroud separation, HP disc separation, compressor stall, FOD ingestion/bird strike, EGT rise, oil system issues. Very unlikely events but still possible events that need a prepared response to and capabilities to manage the aircraft. The presumption is that the crew is trained, diligent, disciplined, and concerned with survival. Without that, aircraft would need to be unmanned and flown by AI lacking in ability to handle any unforeseen events creatively.
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There is a visual cue in the case of fire so the pilot won't turn off the wrong engine.
Quote:
The preliminary report suggests this is pilot error.
From my (limited) understanding you cannot really switch these off inadvertently as they require a couple of actions in order to be switched off. So it would mean one of the pilots switched these off (and they were a few seconds later switched on again but it was too late).
But there was audio, too, and one pilot asked the other "why did you switch these off" and the second one said "I didn't".
Was there are third one in the jump seat?
Sounds likely that one of them was sabotaging the flight.
The report only said the copilot was flying and the pilot was monitoring.
It does not suggest that. It only says they were turned off and no other conclusion given.
Most importantly it's extremely problematic that BBC is pushing the pilot error angle subtly! This is a preliminary report! No news organization should spread opinion pieces based on this. Somehow it feels like Boeing paid BBC to shift the narrative.
We should all wait for the final report. Pilot error or Machine fault, either way it's a huge tragedy.
Where did you see that? You say subtle. What does that mean?
It's a fact that there are no recommendations to manufacturers or airlines yet. If they had found anything seriously suspicious they would already issue recommendations as soon as possible, not just in the final report, not even just at the prelim report, but as fast as possible. Grounding planes, forcing maintenance etc. That has not happened.
It's easy to fall in the other direction and jump on the Boeing hate bandwagon. It's become a trendy thing online.
The report contains significant evidence that one of the pilots switched off the engines.
It doesn’t rule out other options, and it doesn’t explain why they might have done that or if it was inadvertent but it’s still new information, and presenting new important information is what the news is for.
Wondering if it is save to fly with Air India at the moment
Report mirror as the site seems to be down:
https://celsoazevedo.com/files/2025/Preliminary_Report_VT_AN...
I have to wonder how much more time they would have had if the landing gear had been retracted early since the gear adds a lot of drag.
The India AAIB website (https://aaib.gov.in/) is not responding ... For anyone who read the report, was there information about the age & experience of the pilots?
56 years old, 15638 hours (8596 on this type) and 32 years old, 3403 hours (1128 on this type). Page 11 of the PDF report.
So what's the status of full self driving airplanes (aka autopilot , or maybe autodriver to avoid the bad connotations)
Is it really desirable though? Sure, it might eliminate human error, but it also probably eliminate pilots saving planes. I don't think an autopilot would have put US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson.
It's a philosophical matter: even when we have self-driving cars boats and aeroplane a human should always make the final decision.
Report PDF here: https://aaib.gov.in/What's%20New%20Assets/Preliminary%20Repo...
mirror https://web.archive.org/web/20250711203907/https://aaib.gov....
Not accessible. Have they heard about S3 ?
It loads for me, so I think the link will be useful for some people at least.
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Video would definitively show whether either pilot moved these switches or if some other mechanism caused the movement. The aviation industry has consistently resisted cockpit video recording despite decades of available technology. The pilot unions argue privacy concerns, but cases like this demonstrate the value it would have. Current audio captured the pilots' denials, but without visual confirmation we may never be able to definitively determine who turned the engines off.
Is this really the reason they object video recording in the cockpit ?
If so I agree it's not a good enough reason.
Please provide sources for your claims.
Which claim? It is self-evident that video footage would show if a pilot turned the engines off intentionally or accidentally.
The pilot's union opposes cockpit video recording for silly reasons.
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2024-0...
reached v1, then when airborn fuel cut off. Seems like there was a FAA report like in 2018 that recommended few airplane models (incl this one) to check the fuel valves correctly, seems like air india didn't do it. Turns out it was made by Honeywell
All evidence suggests that the plane was fully functional. The switches were moved by one of the pilots.
It’s interesting to see how many people are bending over backwards here to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion. If this was pilot suicide, it’s a terrible thing. If it was somehow an error (which seems very unlikely) or two defective controls (which seems even more unlikely), then it remains a tragedy. But I don’t need to do mental gymnastics to come up with implausible hypotheticals.
This comment stream on HN is not a jury. We don’t have to refrain from making judgments right now about what happened. There is nothing wrong with rational people reaching a preliminary conclusion based on available evidence.
Rational people should also remain open to revising their judgments/conclusions if new information becomes available.
And we shouldn’t demand any specific consequences for anyone absent a trial.
It’s nowhere near an obvious conclusion. A failure with the locking mechanism or muscle memory confusion are just as likely, and probably other theories I’m not thinking of. More investigation is clearly needed, which is why this is called a preliminary report.
Dual failure of the locking mechanism is extremely unlikely. These are not switches that are regularly used so a muscle memory issue also seems very unlikely (but is still the most likely non-suicide scenario)
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Muscle memory? That’s grasping. How many times have you been pulling onto the highway and accidentally turned off your ignition?
I’d buy “mechanical defect” if it was only one switch. Two? At the exact same time? During takeoff? Nope.
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Well, shit. Suicidal?
And this can't possibly be all the audio if the other pilot noticed the switch position, I would expect a lot more cussing and struggle.
So they didn't notice the switch position? The switch was in the right position but not really? Is this a rarely used switch that one might not look at (or know where to look) during regular use?
10 seconds between OFF and ON.
Dual engine failure on takeoff gives them about as much time to react as if the front passenger grabbed the steering wheel while on a windy mountain road and yanked them off a cliff.
It only takes a few seconds to completely screw everyone, but a bit longer for the consequences to occur.
From what I've read, it comes on the display as a warning
The switch had to be operated deliberately, but still a UX fail on a modern aircraft if cutting off fuel to the engines does not result in an audible alert/alarm which both pilots can hear - especially at that altitude.
It would not make any difference. They were too low and did not have enough time to recover. They immediately switched back to on. Two captains is discussing it here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE0BetkXsLg).
Are you sure there wasn't an audible alarm?
The switches were re-engaged within 10 seconds so isn't it possible they quickly heard a warning alarm, realised the issue and fixed it? (Of course, not quick enough in this case)
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More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44536691
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Studying how humans make errors is a fascinating field. Simply banning someone who's made a "slip" error as hypothesized wouldn't actually reduce the likelihood of this error occurring in the future. These sorts of errors are stochastic and could happen to anyone at any time. Preventing them requires a lot of thought.
Human factors portion of the investigation.
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The report says the co-pilot was flying.
The report says the black box reports the fuel cutoff switches being activated. That doesn't necessarily mean that either of the two pilots activated them, it just means that the fly-by-wire system reacted to a fuel cutoff event.
"The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, 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. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cutoff.
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."
> That doesn't necessarily mean that either of the two pilots activated them
It does:
1. Those switches have physical interlocks and cannot be manipulated by any computer system.
2. The flight data recorder is measuring the position of the switches; they aren't inferring the position from some system state. There's a "position of this switch" channel.
The switches were physically moved in the cockpit, that's basically ground truth. The question now is who and why.
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I don’t understand this part of your post:
> This was not suicide, or murder-suicide; it was one of the most horrific mass murders in history, in which the guy that did it happened to lose his life in the process.
Why wouldn’t this qualify as a murder-suicide, assuming your theory is correct?
I guess I let my emotions get in the way. But nobody seems to be saying that we’ve witnessed one of the worst acts of mass murder in history. Most of the notorious serial killers don’t come close to killing 300 people.
It feels qualitatively different than someone pointing a gun at someone else and then themselves, which is usually what pops to mind when you hear “murder-suicide”.
You’re correct though, it qualifies.
> This was not suicide, or murder-suicide; it was one of the most horrific mass murders in history, in which the guy that did it happened to lose his life in the process.
Even taking intent for granted, to deny suicide in a case like this would be to suppose that the person responsible expected to survive while everyone else died. What could possibly support that conclusion?
He appears to have meant something like “this isn’t just common murder-suicide: it is a particularly heinous version of murder-suicide that I wish there were a stronger word for” but phrased it confusingly.
Maybe that one guy who survived did it? Are there fuel cutoff switches near seat 11A?
As someone with no qualifications on this beyond occasionally playing some flight simulators, I can't think of a reason you would ever intentionally move the switches in flight (barring an emergency like a leak or fire or something) and unintentionally doing so seems extremely unlikely since generally "switches meant to be operated on the ground" are located well out of the way of "switches meant to be operated in flight". Though I believe Boeing does have them by the thrust levers, every type of fuel control switch I've seen has some sort of guard or mechanism that makes it effectively impossible to move the switch by simply bumping it.
So I can't imagine how it could have been done accidentally.
> it was one of the most horrific mass murder in history
This implies intent.
> One pilot asked “why did you turn them off?” and the other said “I didn’t.”
To me this reads like an unintentional error with colossol implications.
Are you suggesting there was malicious intent and then a delibrately crafted denial by the perpetrator?
I am, and I’m willing to stake my reputation on it. If I’m wrong, I’ll hang up my hat and never cover live news again.
Pilots are drilled from day one that the fuel switches are sacred. After a few accidents where one engine failed and the pilot accidentally turned off the remaining functional engine, the training was overhauled so that it would be impossible for it to be an easy action done by mistake. One pilot is required to ask the other for confirmation before toggling the switch, I believe. It wouldn’t be something you’d do from muscle memory.
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The switches require that you pull them out, move them to the end position and then push them back down, and it was two switches. It could have still took off on one engine. This is essentially the turn off plane switch. It would seem to almost impossible that it would be an accident.
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I mean lots of people in prison say they are innocent
These are not facts. These are mostly speculation.
You mention "brain fart". There is certainly a long history of pilots selecting the wrong lever, or wrong switch. So, it is possible the pilot who denied switching the fuel off thought he had switched something else.
My understanding is that after several incidents of pilots shutting off the wrong engine, the training was overhauled so that from day one they treat fuel switches as sacred. I heard that it’s required to ask for confirmation before toggling the switch, just to be absolutely certain. It’s not really something that can be done by muscle memory during flight, and especially not during takeoff.
If he was trying to do something else, he would have called it out. E.g. an audible “gear up.”
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If you look at the photo https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/ai171-investigatio... it would be pretty hard to get them by mistake.
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Is there a possibility that they got hacked and remotely toggled ?
Sadly not. It’s a physical switch with no capability of a remote toggle. The flight data recorder clearly shows one was toggled off within a second of the other, which rules out almost every non-intentional scenario.
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A simple wrong flip of a switch killed 260 people and leaving 1 lone survivor who walked away from the plane crash nearly unscathed.
Dudes is extremely lucky or the character from Unbreakable.
A flip of two switches, in sequence, with a locking mechanism on each switch.
Even if the plane had no power, why couldn't they have glided it down safely?
It did glide briefly, the glide path took it directly into a school building.
Right after takeoff at low altitude is basically the worst place for this to happen. Speed and altitude are low so gliding is going to be a short distance and happen quickly.
If there had been a perfect empty long flat grass field in that location it may have been salvageable, but also right after takeoff the plane usually has a heavy fuel load which makes for a much riskier landing.
Edit: This article has a map showing the glide path:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/12/air-india-flig...
They only ever got a few hundred feet off the ground.
Yes of course the plane glided once the engines stopped, producing thrust, just like all planes do. But just like all planes, and all gliders, gliding means trading altitude for velocity - giving up precious height every second in order to maintain flight. At that stage in the flight, they just didn’t have enough to give. If the same thing had happened at 30,000 feet, it would be a non-event. They would glide down a few thousand feet as the engines spool back up and once they return to full power, everything will be back to normal. Or if for some reason, the engines were permanently cooked, you’d have maybe 20 to 30 minutes of glide time so you’ve got a lot of time to look around and find a flat spot. But you just don’t have enough time for all that to happen When you’re a few hundred feet off the ground.
Speed can be traded for altitude, and altitude can be traded for speed. If you have neither, you're dead.
Engine failure shortly after takeoff is a major cause of fatal accidents.
I’ll take this as an honest question. The simple answer: too much mass, no clear landing path, not enough speed or altitude to turn to find one and glide to it. In short, not enough time. Once the engines cut, that thing probably dropped like a brick.
Impossible. Low and slow conditions with insufficient energy to 180 return or crash land safely straight ahead in any form. The power loss happened at the most critical phase of flight. Plus, they were on the heavy side.
how do you "safely" glide into a city?
It's simple - just don't fly Boeing - ever.
You know what? I'm just not going to fly - ever.
Your choice but safer to fly than drive the same journey. Commercial airliners anyway.
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The report says the co-pilot was flying so it's most likely the pilot cut the fuel?
Correct. Which means it’s the older of the two.
The report does not identify which pilot said what. Attempting to extrapolate their identities is speculation.
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Report page that matters: https://x.com/exodusorbitals/status/1943782924576309732
As an amateur UI designer I'm really surprised the plane allows a crash to be initiated without as much as an "Are you sure?" check.
This is a completely computer run plane, and it surely has enough information to know this is a disastrous thing to do.
There's literally hundreds of such settings. When you get into the combinations there's such a multitude of scenarios that you certainly can't have dedicated code for everything.
I suppose you could have it attempt to run a full forward-looking flight simulation to predict but part of the reason for there being so many controls is to deal with situations where the plane isn't acting like it should be, situations which would invalidate the simulation.