AAIB findings hint “pilot suicide” in Ahmedabad Air India Flight 171 crash

STC NEWS MONITORING DESK
NEW DELHI, JULY 12 ( STC): Soon after India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) published its preliminary findings into the June 12 Air India Flight crash in Ahmedabad, aviation experts have started dishing out their opinions about the possible cause of the crash.
It’s worth mentioning that the AAIB report mentions both fuel control switches governing engines 1 and 2 were turned from “RUN” to “CUTOFF” within one second of each other. The switches, located on the central pedestal of the cockpit, are protected by a guard rail and require deliberate effort to toggle. They are not touch-sensitive and cannot be triggered by turbulence, power failure, or software glitch.
NDTV in a report has picked statement of a leading aviation safety expert, Captain Mohan Ranganathan, suggesting that the fatal crash may have been the result of deliberate human action. This is for the first time, the possibility of a pilot-induced crash has been raised.
According to the report, Captain Mohan Ranganathan has pointed to the sequence of fuel cutoff switches and cockpit audio to suggest that the crash may have stemmed from deliberate actions taken in the cockpit, potentially even suicide.
When asked if any one of the pilots Intentionally switched off the fuel, fully aware that doing so could cause a crash, Captain Ranganathan said, “Absolutely.”
“It has to be manually done,” captain Ranganathan told NDTV when asked if there is any way fuel can be shut off to the engines of the Dreamliner. “It cannot be done automatically or due to a power failure because the fuel selectors are not the sliding type. They are designed to stay in a slot, and you have to pull them out to move them up or down. So, the possibility of inadvertently moving them to the “off” position doesn’t arise. It’s definitely a case of deliberate manual selection to move it to ‘off’.”
As already reported, Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, took off from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at precisely 13:39 IST, en route to London Gatwick. On board were 228 passengers and 14 crew. Thirty-two seconds later, the aircraft lost thrust in both engines, dropped altitude rapidly, and slammed into a medical hostel just 1.2 nautical miles from the runway end.
(STC)