Report says fuel to engines cut off moments before crash
\n NEW DELHI
\nFuel control switches to the engines of an Air India flight that crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 260 people, were moved from the \u201crun\u201d to the \u201ccutoff\u201d position moments before impact, a preliminary investigation report said on Saturday.
\nThe report, issued by India\u2019s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), did not offer any conclusions or apportion blame for the June 12 disaster, but indicated that one pilot asked the other why he cut off fuel, and the second pilot responded that he had not.
\nThe Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was headed from Ahmedabad in western India to London when it crashed, killing all but one of the 242 people on board as well as 19 people on the ground.
\nIn its 15-page report, the investigation bureau said that once the aircraft achieved its top recorded speed, \u201cthe Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec\u201d. \u201cIn 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,\u201d it said.
\nThe aircraft quickly began to lose altitude.
\nThe switches then returned to the \u201cRUN\u201d position and the engines appeared to be gathering power, but \u201cone of the pilots transmitted \u2018MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY\u2019\u201d, the report said.
\nAir traffic controllers asked the pilots what was wrong, but then saw the plane crashing and called emergency personnel to the scene.
\nCivil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu told reporters that investigators probed in a \u201cmature, transparent\u201d way. \u201cThis is a preliminary report. We want the final report to come in, so let us wait for it,\u201d he said.
\nEarlier this week, specialist website The Air Current, citing multiple sources familiar with the probe, reported it had \u201cnarrowed its focus to the movement of the engine fuel switches\u201d, while noting that full analysis will \u201ctake months \u2014 if not longer\u201d.
\nIt added that \u201cthe focus of the investigators could change during that time\u201d.
\nThe Indian agency\u2019s report said the US Federal Aviation Administration had issued an information bulletin in 2018 about \u201cthe potential disengagement of the fuel control switch locking feature\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Report says fuel to engines cut off moments before crash NEW DELHI Fuel control switches to the engines of an Air India flight that crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 260 people, were moved from the \u201crun\u201d to the \u201ccutoff\u201d position moments before impact, a preliminary investigation report said on Saturday. The report, issued by India\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490120,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-490108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n