David Shepardson and Dan Catchpole
(Reuters) – Cockpit records of conversations between Air India flights crashed last month showed the captain flowing fuel to the aircraft’s engines, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The newspaper cites early assessments of evidence by people familiar with U.S. officials’ investigation into the June 12 crash in Ahmedabad, India, killing 260 people.
The first official driving the Boeing 787 Dreamliner asked the more experienced captain why he moved the fuel to the “cutoff” position seconds after the runway.
The two pilots involved were Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and co-pilot Clive Kunder, whose total flight experience was 15,638 hours and 3,403 hours, respectively.
India’s AAIB, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Air India, and the general bureau of the two unions representing Indian pilots did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment for the Wall Street Journal report. Boeing declined to comment.
On Saturday, the preliminary report of the crash released by the Indian Aircraft Accident Investigation Agency (AAIB) said fuel switches after takeoff had switched from running to cut-off for one second, but did not say how they flipped.
Almost immediately after the plane lifted the ground, CCTV footage showed a backup energy source called RAM air turbines had been deployed, indicating that the engine had lost power.
Then he heard a pilot on the cockpit recorder asking another pilot why he was cutting off the fuel. “Another pilot replied that he did not do this,” the report said.
No fuel flows to the engine and the London-bound aircraft begins to lose thrust. After reaching an altitude of 650 feet, the plane began to sink.
The report said that both engines’ fuel switches flow back to operation and the aircraft automatically attempted to restart the engine.
But aviation safety expert John Nance told Reuters the plane was too low and too slow to recover.
The plane cut some trees and chimneys and then crashed the fireball into a building on the nearby medical school campus, killing 19 people on the ground, while 242 out of 242 in 787 were reported.
No safety advice
In an internal memorandum on Monday, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the preliminary report found no mechanical or maintenance failures and that all necessary maintenance had been performed.
AAIB’s preliminary report has no safety advice on Boeing or engine manufacturer GE.
The report was released after the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing private notice saying that the fuel switch locking on Boeing aircraft was safe, a Reuters document showed that there were four sources identifying the matter.
Indirect evidence is increasingly showing that the crew flipped the engine fuel switch, given that there is no “other reason to explain” consistent with the information released so far, Nance said.
Still, investigators “have to dig out all factors” and rule out other possible factors that may take time.
Most air collapses are caused by a variety of factors, and according to international rules, a final report is expected within one year of the accident.
The collapse of Air India has rekindled the debate over adding flight deck cameras (called cockpit recorders) to passenger planes.
Nance said investigators could benefit greatly from cockpit videos during Air India flights.
Air India has been subjected to additional scrutiny in other respects after the crash.
The EU Aviation Safety Agency said this month it plans to investigate its budget airline, Air India Express.
(Reported by David Shepards of Washington and Dan Catchpole of Seattle; other reports by Anusha Shah of Bangalore; edited by Jamie Freed)
