Early investigation into accident in Ahmedabad in June also contains details of pilots discussing the switches

Fuel to both engines of the Air India plane that crashed and killed 260 people last month appears to have been cut off seconds after the flight took off, a preliminary report has found.

Air India flight AI171, bound for London, crashed into a densely populated residential area in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on 12 June, killing all but one of the 242 people on board and 19 others on the ground. It was India’s deadliest air crash in almost three decades.

According to a preliminary report by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, moments after take-off both the switches in the cockpit that controlled fuel going to the engines had been moved to the “cut-off” position. Moving the fuel switches almost immediately cuts the engine.

  • atticus88th@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    What killed them was poor crew resource management. Instead of quickly working the issues and increasing their survival chances, they chose to investigate and argue about who shut off the fuel.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Your argument: they did so little in those 5 seconds of descent before crashing. Shame.

      • atticus88th@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Yes, the full 5 seconds could have been enough to increase their survival. Instead they spent some of that 5 seconds debating.

        I would rather my pilot be an expert at keeping us alive, not being a master debater like you.

        • stoly@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          You should read the article with states that one engine was beginning to provide thrust and the other still had not regained thrust. It takes a very long time for an engine to start and longer to create thrust. Read more. Learn more. Don’t be angry at your ignorance.

    • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      What killed them was a deliberate action by one of the pilots. The motive we may never know, but it doesn’t look good either way.

        • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          The probability of both failing would be the probability of one failing squared. I find this scenario to be far less plausible than someone toggling them, regardless of motive.

            • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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              1 day ago

              The far more plausible scenario is someone toggled them both, especially since there was a 1s delay. That’s not something jostling the plane or falling and hitting the switches.

              That bulletin says they were potentially installed without the locking feature but to my knowledge these weren’t new switches on the AI flight, nor were there any issues reported on earlier flights.

    • FelixCress@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      What killed them was poor crew resource management

      Have you actually read the article?