Air India Boeing 787 crash report says fuel switches cut off
(www.npr.org)
from Wilshire@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 02:14
https://lemmy.world/post/32842741
from Wilshire@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 02:14
https://lemmy.world/post/32842741
#world
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If that’s all true: Why do these suicidal fucks take others out with them?
If it’s not true: Does Boeing have another catastrophic pattern failure?
Why? I don’t know. But some really do.
2015 there was the Germanwings flight where one suicidal pilot locked the other one out of the cockpit after he went to the loo and then intentionally crashed the plane in the Alps, killing everyone on board.
…cnn.com/…/air-india-crash-report-intl-latam
This article has a photo of the switches in question, and goes into more detail about how they work.
<img alt="" src="https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/c-gettyimages-951922648-20250711223914009.jpg?q=w_680%2Cc_fill%2Ff_webp">
Apparently they need to be pulled to change their orientation, I’m wondering if the mechanism simply wore out?
Not likely. These things are checked before every flight.
Dude. It’s Air India.
ndtv.com/…/multiple-failures-low-fuel-zero-visibi…
Never take Air India.
If that does not take away from the fact that these Pilots were very well skilled.
If the company is at fault it’s due to over scheduling since preliminary report indicates no mechanical failures.
It’s not the skills I’m interested in
Skilled yes, but apparently concealing a mental health issue. This is a huge cultural issue in aviation. Nobody wants to lose their job, so you just bury it.
There’s absolutely no proof that these Pilots were suicidal. I think speculation of such is disrespectful until further evidence shows such things such as in the case of MH 370 which is highly speculated with a lot of evidence to be a pilot suicide.
I’m not the person you replied to and I’m not familiar with India’s certificate process, but the FAA is a stickler about mental health - even for a PPL on a class 3. It doesn’t matter if you’re getting treatment or not. The fact that you have any history of mental illness is huge. It seems really fucking stupid to me, especially if you are getting help.
I hope to god indias certificate procedures aren’t as ridiculous as the FAA
Unfortunately I have bad news for you A lot of the time these countries are worse when it comes to Mental Health in the FAA.
I try to get a simple recreational pilot license that they got very upset with my history of anxiety. I’d have to get reevaluated every 6 months by a state psychologist on my own dime continue to fly.
Still there there’s not any evidence indicating any sort of mental health history. Like the pilot of MH370 supposedly lost all of his money and a bunch of bad trades. Not only that they found the exact flight the plane seems to have taken on the dude’s personal simulator.
Before we judge this to be a suicide let’s at least wait to hear about the Pilot’s personal lives and what conditions they were in.
I do get where so many people are coming from in this but it is so disrespectful to the pilots and their families to just immediately assume that this is a suicide when there’s not even good speculative evidence for it
I am also declining to speculate - just hoping to add some context about mental health and the FAA.
Oh it’s never a bad thing to have context.
I do appreciate the additional info friend
All evidence points to a deliberate toggling of the fuel cutoff switches, and whoever did it then denied they did anything on CVR. It’s not an issue with the plane itself, this is either someone deliberately crashing the plane or someone absentmindedly crashing the plane.
Really, there’s evidence that the switch was purposely flipped to commit suicide?
I didn’t see that in the report.
Tell you what.
Why don’t you take this as an opportunity to prove to everyone that you’re not baselessly slandering these pilots.
Support this opinion with a quote from some sort of evidence.
Because otherwise you look like a racist dick.
You’re right, I can’t say the motive. The evidence points to an intentional cutoff by one of the pilots, however. Maybe it’s an accident, maybe it’s deliberate.
It has nothing to do with their race so fuck off with the racism accusation. I never said a single thing regarding their race or culture, so don’t accuse me of such things.
This reeks the same way the Ethiopian flight 302 did. A ton of people initially believed that the pilots committed suicide until it was revealed that there was a misbehaving system that wasn’t properly recorded on the black boxes.
What they have right now is that the data on the black boxes Doesn’t indicate a mechanical failure. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
As you pointed out it could be fatigue. I talked with a pilot that’s the one a 787. He mentioned the detent system in the fuel cutoff valve can weaken over time causing them to be easily tripped.
We have no idea what the scheduling of these people like it could also be due to fatigue which would mean they are not at fault.
I called you out on this comment being racist because it feels racist to accuse these Indian Pilots of committing suicide when they have such extensive records, the 787 has already had several whistleblowers come out on it and it’s had to be grounded for other issues, it’s made by Boeing who seems to suck at making planes, There is absolutely no proof a suicidal intention from their personal life or professional life.
To keep claiming this is a pilot suicide Is extraordinarily disrespectful To the pilots who lost their lives in this crash.
When these type of crashes happen in the United States we don’t immediately turn around and claim pilot suicide. We wait and see the way we’re supposed to instead of speculating.
If you don’t want to get called out for racism don’t act racist.
So the detent was not strong enough to hold the two cutoff switches through some bumps, but it was strong enough to hold them during the crash? That makes absolutely no sense to me. The forces experienced during the crash are significantly more severe than any kind of turbulence they’d experience during climb out.
Sorry dude, I don’t buy it. This is either one of the worst aviation mistakes ever made or a deliberate action. Race has absolutely nothing to do with it, nor did I ever imply that. Also, both pilots had 0 hours of flying in the previous 24 hours, so I don’t think fatigue of the mechanical or physiological kind, are at play here.
Unless you work for the FAA, NHSTA, Boeing, or relevant Indian equivalents, I’m going to have to ask you to stop speculating.
If it’s spring based, and one side failed, it’s possible that next to no force will flip it to one side, but it takes the expected amount of force to move it in the other direction.
These determinations always require more knowledge than is publicly available.
I’d like to remind you Air India has a notorious record of bad maintenance in the case of AI101 in 2018. I’d like to further point out that they landed that plane and demonstrated that Air India has hired very skilled pilots.
It doesn’t seem like you’re familiar with the sequence of events in the crash.
The switches moved from run to cut off - who knows why. I believe the pilots did it, you believe it’s the detents.
The pilots then moved them from cutoff to run.
The switches stayed in run throughout the entire crash sequence. If the detents were bad before, why would they not be bad again here?
If the detent failed when they moved from run to cutoff during climb out, it would have also failed during the crash sequence, when significantly higher forces were experienced.
I’ll keep speculating until the final report is out.
I don’t believe it’s the detents. I don’t have an opinion because I’m not speculating. I’m adding that based on the hardware it’s possible that the exact statement you made is wrong. I’m not familiar with the parts list nor am I type rated to fly that particular plane.
Well specifically related to this:
It’s the same direction for the supposed accidental move to CUTOFF you propose and the move to CUTOFF that didn’t happen when the plane didn’t hit the ground. The switches were placed in RUN and stayed that way until they were recovered. I have a very hard time believing they went to CUTOFF from some relatively light force during climb out, yet did not move at all when experiencing high forces during the crash.
Wow those are some wild assumptions.
The report directly calls this out and says that it could be a contributing factor.
Okay so fatigue may not be an issue but you have no clue if there are other issues at play here.
The report mentions no indication of pilot suicide. There is no evidence or reporting or comments from anywhere indicating that these Pilots had issues.
There is some evidence that Captain may have had a legitimate medical issue during takeoff which could have resulted in this crash however that is not the same as intentionally making mistake or attempting suicide.
If these were American Pilots you would not be so insistent on this being suicide.
See, there you go again. Don’t assume how I would judge American pilots either, I have no dog in this fight, and if an American pilot made a grave mistake or committed suicide that’s just as bad. The issue I see clouding your vision, as well as many other Indians, is nationalism. You need to let go of your national pride and take an objective look at this, I would say the exact same thing if it was a pilot from the United States. I don’t care what their motives are or how it reflects on a certain carrier from any country, it’s just what seems most plausible given all available evidence.
You’re the only one bringing race and nationality into this conversation.
I’m American dipshit.
I just find your characterization of these Pilots super disrespectful Which is my primary reason for objecting.
There’s a million other explanations other than suicide.
Maybe you should read something other than all Rags whipping everybody up and thinking it’s a pilot suicide and wait and see to what the NTSB actually has to say about this crash since this was a mandated report by ICAO.
Many people thought Air France flight 447 was caused my pilot suicide but it turned out to be caused by a massive amount of confusion through Frozen pito tubes.
It’s entirely too early to be this speculative.
There’s more evidence indicating it was a deliberate or accidental action by one of the pilots than evidence pointing to a mechanical issue, and that’s what I’m going with. There’s not “a million other explanations”. You seem emotionally invested in the outcome, calling various real life pilots making videos “rags”, calling me racist when I made absolutely no claims of the sort, claiming I’d feel different about various nations…
Guess we’ll see in that final report. I know what I’d be putting my money on, if I gambled. The preponderance of evidence at this point suggest an accidental or deliberate manipulation of the switches by one of the pilots.
Pretty sure if you want to off yourself you’d do it differently
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
There are redundant systems on modern planes that can handle multiple failures. If they’re saying it’s fuel related my guess is dirty jet fuel. It would explain a stuck fuel valve. There’s lots of ground crew checks before flight, and one is checking the fuel tanks for contamination. Just a speculation.
From the article:
These switches are evidently monitored by the aircraft’s systems, as the investigators seem to know for a fact when these switches were moved. This is not a “failure”, unless the switch moved by itself.
I’m not sure why you’re trying to “I reckon” this, when we know why the engines stopped.
So I know there has to be a reason why these switches are vitally important but doesn’t it seem weird that you can take a catastrophic action like turning the fuel supply off when you’re in mid-takeoff? If you try and put a modern car in reverse at 65 MPH, the car is like “haha no” and ignores you.
You can also just throttle back, which would have the same effect.
Yeah and of course, you can also just ram the thing into the ground. I’d hate to think this was a deliberate act, but it’s certainly possible.
If one pilot tries to ram it into the ground, or just throttles back, the other pilot can fight them for the controls and possibly prevent a crash. When those switches are flipped the engines almost immediately flame out. Even if the other pilot quickly flips them back and prevents the first pilot from doing anything else, it takes time for the engines to automatically relight and spool back up. Done right around liftoff, which seems to be the case from the RAT deployment, there might not be anything the other pilot can do no matter how fast they act.
Edit: According to the flight data recorder, the cutoff switches were flipped 3 seconds after takeoff, one was flipped back on 10 seconds later, the other flipped back 4 seconds after that, and the recording ended 15 seconds later.
From the article…
And the photo of the throttle (middle) and fuel cutoff switches (bottom):
…cnn.com/…/c-gettyimages-951922648-20250711223914…
There’s just one-level-deeper of questions I’d have here. How were the switches designed such that they prevented accidental activation? Because it looks like they just get simply flipped down. Could it be pull-out-and-down? Or maybe there’s a lot of resistance during the switch action?
The lever-lock fuel switches are designed to prevent accidental activation - they must be pulled up to unlock before flipping, a safety feature dating back to the 1950s. This isn’t a new or weird design. It’s essentially the standard used in basically every plane because it works.
“It would be almost impossible to pull both switches with a single movement of one hand, and this makes accidental deployment unlikely,” a Canada-based air accidents investigator, who wanted to remain unnamed, told the BBC.
They have metal detents; you have to pull the lever out, then push it down against a reasonably heavy spring.
These had to be very deliberately moved to the cutoff position.
Sounds like the pilots killed the fuel, and did not mean to do so. Having watched the video, and being totally ignorant of this sort of thing, that makes sense of what I saw.
I’m not trusting any report until I have had heard from Admiral Cloudberg. If you’re not familiar, plane crash investigation is what he does. He’s completely unbiased and seems to be the expert, at least for us layman.
Cloudberg is a she! You are absolutely correct that she is an excellent subject matter expert though.
No way, really?
Yes way bsky.app/profile/kyracloudy.bsky.social
Why the surprise? 😅
Reasonable assumption in a male dominated industry.
A woman? On the internet?!
…A hyuwmon feemayle?! [Clutches strips of latinum to my chest in surprise]
Mentour Pilot did a livestream today, he’s also one of the major commercial aviation YouTubers.
I watched a very comprehensive and professional video by Captain Steeeve on this subject earlier today. He didn't outright literally say that one of the pilots deliberately downed the plane, but it was very clear that he thought that was the only explanation that really made sense here. Why do you say it sounds like they "did not mean to do so"? The switches are designed to not be movable without considerable deliberation and intent, you can't just bump these with your knee and switch them off. And both pilots were plenty experienced enough to know that you don't turn those switches off at that point in the flight.
Until there’s independent evidence otherwise I’m going to assume either fudged maintenance reports or the switch designer at boeing is about to commit suicide by shooting themself in the back of the head hours before talking to the press.
Surely someone committing suicide and taking hundreds of people with him in the process wouldn't lie about it.
It’s also possible that the one that did it said “why did you do that” to try and shift blame for reason(s) of insurance payout, shame, or something else and the one that said “I didn’t” is telling the truth.
Whichever one did it, that video from Captain Steeeve makes a pretty good case that one of them did.
So a mechanical failure let the switches go from RUN to CUTOFF during flight, but they remained in RUN during the entire crash sequence? I don’t buy that. The forces experienced by the plane would be magnitudes greater during impact with the ground than any kind of turbulence or other bumps.
Highly recommend everyone give this a listen. It covered most of the other possibilities people are bringing up in this thread:
Captain Steve really tried to not blame the pilots in previous videos about this crash, in fact he really believed it had to be something else, so it says a lot that this is the only conclusion he can come up with.
Don’t know anything about planes. Could these switches be “cross-linked” with some physical link on the other side of the cockpit, so that the other pilot has to pull something to allow the first pilot to even move these switches?
Fuck fly by wire and glass cockpit crap. A physical interlock.
Petter and Ben from Mentour Pilot all but said they came to the same conclusion
When I watched the crash video, I thought that something cut the fuel off. Because that was the most likely reason for all engines to stop.
So, if the pilot or copilot did not do it (I assume it is not just a switch that you can trigger accidentally), what other system has the capability to switch off all fuel lines? Fire suppression systems? Some general “switch off”? And how hard would it be to restart fuel supply? Is it possible to override e.g. such a fire suppression system?
Both the left and right switchs were moved to ‘cutoff’, one pilot recognized this and asked the other pilot why, the other pilot denied doing it, then the switches were returned to ‘run’ and the engines began to re-light (this is all straight from the black box recorder). It was too late to recover though, so the plane went down.
There is a mechanical detent requiring you to pull each switch out, then down. They had to be moved deliberately.
So either this was a suicide, or a coverup for just another Boeing failure.
The report specifically says that “cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec”. They were later switched back to RUN. It wasn’t some other system.
This is such a bizarre situation that with just the voice recording we will probably never know what really happened.
Given the mechanical saftey built into those switches, Unfortunately I guess that leaves us with two reasonable possibilities:
A) One of the pilots was somehow mistaken on the function of those switches and toggled them when they should not have. Then they genuinely thought they hadn’t when asked why they had cutoff fuel.
Or
B) One of the pilots chose to cut off fuel supply to both engines, intentionally bringing down the plane. They then lied to the other pilot when asked why they’d cutoff fuel.
Could have been cut off by one pilot as part of a troubleshooting attempt, maybe? Thinking “it’s not cut off, just a temporary state of affairs” or something like that. Just trying to think of ways this could be a miscommunication instead of blatant misconduct :(
There’s no communication between the two pilots before the switches were moved to cutoff to suggest they encountered any problems prior to fuel cutoff.
Yeah, I didn’t realize how soon after takeoff this was when I proposed that idea either. There’s no way shutting off the fuel during takeoff would be a reasonable decision.
There is no procedure that involves cutting off fuel to both engines while in-flight; one at a time, but not both. Then, there is no procedure that ever involves touching those controls during takeoff. Finally; there would be communication between the pilots discussing any such troubleshooting, they wouldn’t just take it upon themselves to start flipping switches without at the very least letting the other pilot know what they’re doing. Particularly when it comes to troubleshooting; there is a strict set of checklists they go through as a team, with one reading out questions, the other responding with data/answers from the instruments and the first confirming that response.
These were both experienced pilots with ample flight hours; they knew what they were doing at those controls. I’m not going to throw human error out the window entirely, but it’s not looking very likely unfortunately.
Either that plane was brought down intentionally, or there was a stunning error in judgment wildly disregarding procedure in that cockpit that was not communicated at all. (note: the mics record to the blackbox continuously, they’re not ptt, if one of the pilots had said something, it’d be on the tape.)
the planes also arent supposed to automatically dip downwards but here we are
You can’t exactly expect a plane to keep flying when you’ve commanded the engines to stop running/taken away their fuel at such a critical time…
I think they’re referring to the software issues that bought down multiple 737 MAXs, though it shouldn’t be relevant here because 787s don’t have the modified software that caused the crashes.
He is blaming Boeing, or more correctly he doesn’t trust Boeing to be 100% innocent.
both pilots were experienced and had also passed breathalyser tests before the flight too (source)
Breathalysers don’t detect tired or suicidal pilots.
The interim report stated copilot was pilot flying meaning they only focus on flying and he had also just flown already today. Captain however was his first flight in his shift and was also pilot monitoring.
Technically 260 people died on the ground. Because that is where the plane crashed.
However, nineteen people on the ground died.
There is a critical difference in that word order. The former includes everyone who had reached the ground by the time they died, the latter only includes those who were on the ground to begin with, and not those who were on the plane.
Or in other words, the first phrasing highlights destination, the second highlights source. Everyone died on the ground after the plane impacted it, but only 19 were already on the ground when the impact killed them.
The placement of the word “died” is what makes all the difference.
Isn’t English fun?
Please delete your account
didn’t you hear? waterSticksToMyBalls@lemmy.world wants you to delete your account!
While I generally support the proper usage of my Nation’s language, as well as making linguistic education available and fun for all, pedantry on the wording surrounding the horrific deaths of hundreds of innocent men, women, and children is uncouth.
There is a time and a place for everything, and this wasn’t it. I’m sorry to be blunt.
If I remember correctly, those switches need to be physically lifted up and rotated for the engines to switch from RUN to CUTOFF. there’s also physical guards there to prevent pilots from knocking them. here’s a diagram of the layout (source).
I’ve read theories that the pilot who manipulated the fuel switches could’ve mistook them for the stabiliser cutout switch but the switches are very different. the timing is also sus because it would’ve been at just the right time for things to have not been recoverable. 10 seconds earlier and the takeoff could’ve been aborted, 10 seconds later and the plane could’ve had enough altitude and speed to land in a safer area. also the way the pilot reacted to the other pilot suggests he saw the other pilot shut off the fuel to both engines one after the other and was in a state of shock
They lift up over a gate and you move them down to shut off, rather than turning. There’s no guard over them though. They’re not really close to any other switches you’d be manipulating at any time, especially right after takeoff, and they are a different shape than any other switch (Boeing likes to shape their switches differently so that if you grab the wrong one you’ll feel it). I cannot imagine how one could accidentally move one, let alone both switches do cutoff. But sometimes my brain does inexplicably dumb shit, so I dunno.
by guards I meant the guard brackets which help prevent accidental movement (source) but I agree I just can’t see this being done accidentally. the look and feel of the switches are just so different it’d be almost like mistaking a red light for a green one with normal colour vision or something. it’s still early days so i’m sure more will come out about the history of the pilots with time. if this does turn out to be intentional it’s pretty scary because it’s something that’s unrecoverable at that phase of flight if it happens and that needs to not happen again
Oh, ya, ok. Those guards are really more to stop you whacking the side of the switches and breaking the plastic lens and lightbulbs in the top of the switch, but because the switches move up and down and not side to side, those brackets really have no impact on the actual moving of the switches, accidental or otherwise.
So, so many poorly informed people in here jumping to conclusions, many of which were already ruled out in the preliminary report.
I don’t know any more than what’s in that document myself.
Perhaps some of the armchair aircraft safety investigators in here might want to at least skim the details before coming up with wild theories? Or at least provide reasoning and evidence to support them.
May those who lost their lives, and their loved ones, find peace and closure as best they can once we have all the details. Until then, it would be crass to speculate, especially as non-experts not privvy to the details of the investigation.
is it clear that FADEC cannot cut-off via software?
one would think such a fail state should be only accessible after the user has bypassed and confirmed the action.
let’s be honest, do we trust boeing at this point?