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Truly bizarre & ultimately tragic...
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NEW DELHI — Fuel control switches for the engines of an Air India flight that crashed last month were moved from the ''run'' to the ''cutoff'' position moments before impact, starving both engines of fuel, a preliminary investigation report said early Saturday.
The report, issued by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, also indicated that both pilots were confused over the change to the switch setting, which caused a loss of engine thrust shortly after takeoff.
According to the report, the flight lasted around 30 seconds between takeoff and crash. It said that once the aircraft achieved its top recorded speed, ''the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another" within a second. The report did not say how the switches could have flipped to the cutoff position during the flight.
The movement of the fuel control switches allows and cuts fuel flow to the plane's engines.
The switches were flipped back into the run position, the report said, but the plane could not gain power quickly enough to stop its descent after the aircraft had begun to lose altitude.
Aviation expert and former airline pilot Terry Tozer said the engine cutoff switches being switched to off only seconds after takeoff was ''absolutely bizarre.''
''Unfortunately, the altitude was so low that the engines were only beginning to recover and they didn't have enough time,'' Tozer told Sky News.
The report also indicated confusion in the cockpit moments before the crash.
In the flight's final moment, one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. ''The other pilot responded that he did not do so,'' the report said.
India's civil aviation minister, Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu, said the report's findings were preliminary and one should not ''jump into any conclusions on this.''
Associated Press
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