Air India Crash

Are the engine fuel cutoff switches next to any controls usually adjusted just after the plane takes off from the runway?
 
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It has quickly also been reported that a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) (NM-18-33) from 2018 highlighted a possible issue where the switches didn’t lock in position as they should, and they were used on many Boeing aircraft models.

It was not mandatory to do anything and the reports are suggesting it wasn’t looked at on this aircraft.


That two unlocked switches could vibrate to the cutoff position if not fully up is not unfeasible and would explain the pilot’s reactions.
 
Part of preliminary report
"
One of the findings from the report outlines how a pilot could be heard asking the co-pilot in a voice recording of the cockpit in the moments before the crash: why did you cut off?

The report says that both engine fuel cut off switches were turned to "cut-off" with a time delay.

Below is an excerpt of that finding from the preliminary report:

"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.""

Well there it is.. What a mess :( .. Now lets hope they find the reason the switches were set to cut off during take off, not a switch that can just accidentally be knocked and not both at the same time for sure. Now that explains the RAT deploying and can be heard on the good quality video.

Time for them to check the pilots for any issues with the company, any issues at home, any health conditions not known to the company and any life insurance changes made recently.

 
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I know that if a pilot decides to pull these switches there is probably not much that can be done this close to the ground, but as a layperson the fact there's no safeguard against this being possible is pretty shocking. It simply shouldn't be possible to do it, either via software or some kind of hardware feature.
 
I know that if a pilot decides to pull these switches there is probably not much that can be done this close to the ground, but as a layperson the fact there's no safeguard against this being possible is pretty shocking. It simply shouldn't be possible to do it, either via software or some kind of hardware feature.

Maybe a secondary prompt should appear on the flight computers which asks the pilots to confirm the decision if the plane is off the ground.

This is very sad, knowing that one of the pilots potentially made the conscious decision to kill the engines makes this so much worse.
 
I know that if a pilot decides to pull these switches there is probably not much that can be done this close to the ground, but as a layperson the fact there's no safeguard against this being possible is pretty shocking. It simply shouldn't be possible to do it, either via software or some kind of hardware feature.

The problem with this is that there may well be emergencies scenarios during flight that may require these switches to be operable, so soft or hard locking the operation out entirely could potentially also cause problems and sometimes with conflicts like that you have to rely on some level of trust in the operators not to deliberately misuse the equipment.
 
Are the engine fuel cutoff switches next to any controls usually adjusted just after the plane takes off from the runway?

No and they’re not just buttons. You don’t switch them off by mistake.

I hadn't even considered this, it's unthinkable that anyone would take this action. I tried multiple different things in the sim but didn't even bother with this because there could only be one outcome.
 
Yikes, not many options left beyond suicide, mental health issues etc?

It really is time they install cockpit video recorders now on civil airliners as they do on helicopters , so to see which of the pilots is inputting controls or doing anything not normal/incorrect at any time, also if any cockpit intrusions or unauthorised people in the cockpit.

There is zero good reasons not to have these installed in the cockpit and the passenger areas and honestly shocking this has not been done yet, CCTV is a part of life now and especially in public areas and an aeroplane is a public area and transport, even buses and trains have CCTV so why don't aeroplanes ? People even install dash cameras in their cars so to have proof of accidents or events that may happen during journeys.
 
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It has quickly also been reported that a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) (NM-18-33) from 2018 highlighted a possible issue where the switches didn’t lock in position as they should, and they were used on many Boeing aircraft models.

It was not mandatory to do anything and the reports are suggesting it wasn’t looked at on this aircraft.


That two unlocked switches could vibrate to the cutoff position if not fully up is not unfeasible and would explain the pilot’s reactions.
One of them vibrating to cutoff is plausible but both at the same time?
 
Is it not possible for the switches to physically be in the correct position but somewhere in the mechanics/system to have changed through a fault and they show on the readouts as changed and changed in black box even if no crew actually touched them ? Like to the eye they are in correct position, but everything else shows them as cutoff ?
 
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One of them vibrating to cutoff is plausible but both at the same time?
Data from the CVR/FDR.

The CUTOFF switches were clicked engine one first and 1 second later engine two, so were done deliberately (they can't vibrate to any position these baulk type switches). The engine fuel CUTOFF were clicked exactly 3 seconds from when the plane left the ground.
 
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The CUTOFF switches were clicked engine one first and 1 second later engine two, so were done deliberately (they can't vibrate to any position these baulk type switches).
Read the conversation you quoted, I am not disagreeing with you.


Is it not possible for the switches to physically be in the correct position but somewhere in the mechanics/system to have changed through a fault and they show on the readouts as changed and changed in black box even if no crew actually touched them ? Like to the eye they are in correct position, but everything else shows them as cutoff ?
Possible yes, however the probability of a fault causing that to happen to BOTH switches and a second apart is practically zero.
 
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I hadn't even considered this, it's unthinkable that anyone would take this action. I tried multiple different things in the sim but didn't even bother with this because there could only be one outcome.
I've seen this mentioned on some other forums, hoping you could confirm?

People are saying that the fuel must have been cut by the pilot who wasn't flying on take off, because you can't move both of them with a single hand so to set both to cutoff 1 second apart would require two free hands, whereas setting them to run 4 seconds apart implies a single free hand.


Initially reports said the preliminary report wasn't going to be made public but now seeing some reports saying fuel cutoff switches?

Not sure what's correct.
Well I've had a copy of the preliminary report for about six hours now so lets just say the plan to not make it public has gone slightly awry :P
 
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The report is available to anyone on the AAIB India site.

https://aaib.gov.in/What's New Assets/Preliminary Report VT-ANB.pdf

Odd - the thrust levers are at minimum, yet the accident report states one engine was regaining trust, you’d expect one leaver to be forwwrd to command thrust? Or do they mean it had just spun up to minimum?

I see that the relight sequence occured 10 second before the system stopped recording - I have suspected the impact would have been before that point by at least a few seconds.
 
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Odd - the thrust levers are at minimum, yet the accident report states one engine was regaining trust, you’d expect one leaver to be forwwrd to command thrust? Or do they mean it had just spun up to minimum?

I see that the relight sequence occured 10 second before the system stopped recording - I have suspected the impact would have been before that point by at least a few seconds.

Just watching blancolirio, and he addresses this, apparently all the data showed the thrust levers at full power throughout, the physical impact apparently moved them back to idle. The thrust coming back for one engine was after they tried to relight. They just didn’t have enough time to bring them back
 
It really is time they install cockpit video recorders now on civil airliners as they do on helicopters , so to see which of the pilots is inputting controls or doing anything not normal/incorrect at any time, also if any cockpit intrusions or unauthorised people in the cockpit.

There is zero good reasons not to have these installed in the cockpit and the passenger areas and honestly shocking this has not been done yet, CCTV is a part of life now and especially in public areas and an aeroplane is a public area and transport, even buses and trains have CCTV so why don't aeroplanes ? People even install dash cameras in their cars so to have proof of accidents or events that may happen during journeys.
Fair few do already have CCTV in the passenger areas.
A lot have them in the area just outside the cockpit door, we're starting projects for then in the cockpit and in the cargo area as well. There are definitely going to be more and more cameras on board in the future. Not all helicopters have them in the cockpit either.
 
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