Seconds after takeoff and before an Air India flight crashed last month, the fuel was cut off to both engines of the plane, investigators said on Friday, in a preliminary assessment of information from the aircraft’s voice and data recorder.
The narrowed focus on the fuel switches on Air India Flight 171 raised questions about the pilots’ actions and appeared to rule out mechanical failure or design flaws. The report said “there are no recommended actions” to the aircraft and engine manufacturers, Boeing and General Electric.
“In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff,” the report, by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, said. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so.”
The London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner went down on June 12, moments after takeoff from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. All but one of the 242 people aboard were killed.
The plane rammed into the dining hall of a medical college before exploding in flames. Altogether, more than 270 people were killed, including dozens on the ground, officials said. It was India’s worst aviation disaster since 1996.
The flight was captained by Sumeet Sabharwal, with over 10,000 hours of experience flying large aircraft, and First Officer Clive Kunder, who brought 3,400 hours of flying experience, Air India said. That is more experience than officials attributed to the pilots last month, when they estimated a combined experience of about 10,000 hours.
India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing have been trying to determine what caused Flight 171 to crash. The cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, usually referred to as the black boxes, were found from the debris.
While there was initial concern that the devices might have been damaged in the extreme heat of the fire, investigating teams have downloaded information contained in the boxes for study.
Video filmed by residents in nearby homes, as well as CCTV footage, showed the plane struggling to gain lift immediately after taking off. A New York Times analysis of photos and videos suggested that the plane may have experienced a catastrophic loss of hydraulic, electrical or engine power.
It could take months, possibly years, to reach definitive conclusions. But as a signatory of the International Civil Aviation Organization, India was obliged to submit a preliminary investigative report within 30 days of the accident.
The crash brought scrutiny not only to Boeing, but also to Air India, the country’s oldest carrier, which was acquired by Tata Group after half a century as a state-owned enterprise. The crash came just as Air India was trying to pitch itself as a modernizing carrier.
The airline’s last major crash was in 2020, when a passenger plane operated by Air India Express, a subsidiary, skidded and cracked in half on a rain-soaked runway, killing at least 17 people in the southern Indian state of Kerala. In 2010, an Air India Express plane overshot a hilltop runway in Mangalore, in the western state of Karnataka, killing more than 150 people.
Mujib Mashal is the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, helping to lead coverage of India and the diverse region around it, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan.
Suhasini Raj is a reporter based in New Delhi who has covered India for The Times since 2014.
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