The preliminary report into the Air India flight 171 crash raises numerous additional questions about what led to the fatal incident, an aviation expert has told The i Paper.
The initial report into the 12 June plane crash that killed 260 people shows the flight lasted only 40 seconds between takeoff and the catastrophic impact in a residential area in the city of Ahmedabad.
A conversation between the plane’s pilots reveals confusion over fuel switches being moved into the “cutoff” position, which evidence shows happened seconds after takeoff. Experts say this switch is not easily repositioned, prompting questions about why and how this happened.
The report by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is based on preliminary facts and evidence collected during the investigation, and as such is subject to change.
It is not expected that there would be a conclusion formed about what is responsible for the crash at this stage due to the nature of the report.
Bernard Lavelle, principal analyst at BL Aviation Consulting, said: “I think the focus now from the Indian [AAIB] is to try and understand why those switches were put into this idle position. I think, unfortunately, that’s going to create lots of speculation. Was it some kind of mechanical issue? Was it an accidental movement of those switches, or unfortunately, people are going to [ask], was it a deliberate attempt to crash the aircraft? We don’t know.
“We certainly don’t want to be starting to blame pilots who obviously lost their lives without actually knowing what happened.”
Why have other Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners not been grounded?
When the door of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 plane’s door was blown out mid-air on a flight from Portland, Oregon, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) immediately grounded 171 Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft operated by US airlines or in US territory.
Following the Air India crash, no such action has been taken. Experts have said this is because investigators do not believe there is anything to suggest a wider issue with the aircraft.
Bereaved relatives are still waiting for clear answers about the crash (Photo: Rafiq Maqbool/AP)In December 2018, the FAA issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) that stated some Boeing 737 fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged.
The fuel control switch design for the locking feature is similar onvarious Boeing airplane models, including the Air India plane that crashed.
The preliminary report into the fatal aviation incident states Air India said the suggested inspections were not carried out as the SAIB was advisory and not mandatory.
Mr Lavelle said: “The FAA have been involved in this investigation, and they haven’t put out any amendment to that 2018 advisory as yet. You would have thought that if they believed that was an issue, that you’d expect something to come out on the same day as the report.”
He added: “I would have thought that the FAA should revisit this advisory and perhaps make it mandatory for all aircraft that have the relevant fuel control switches. If nothing else, it would provide comfort for passengers flying the relevant aircraft. We will have to wait and see if they do this.”
Mr Lavelle said there are specific times when pilots would move fuel switches into the cutoff position, and they would need to do so manually.
“They’d normally be used, in particular, in two instances: in flight if there was an engine fire, you’d want to cut off fuel to the relevant engine,” he said.
“So say, for example, the right hand engine was on fire, you’d automatically want to cut off fuel to that engine to help suppress and not encourage the fire to grow more. And secondly, the other time you might use it would be when on the ground, when you’re cutting it because you’re taxiing. You might just be taxiing on one engine – you would cut off fuel to the other engine to just allow you to taxi through with just one engine.”
How quickly do aircraft react to fuel switch changes?
Mr Lavelle compared the fuel switch to a light fixture. He said: “If you cut off the fuel, those engines stop very, very quickly, almost like turning the light off in a room. And that would appear to be the cause of the engine failure. The engines themselves seem to be running absolutely fine, but if you take fuel away from the engines, of course they stop running.”
The reignition of the engines via the fuel switch is also a rapid process but Mr Lavelle said there was not enough time for the engines to generate additional thrust as the plane was at low altitude and had already begun descending.
“There’s only four seconds difference between the two engines being reset. So the first engine started to get some thrust within that four second gap, but the second engine didn’t have time to reignite,” he said.
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