A month after the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad that killed at least 270 people, a preliminary report into the worst aviation accident in India in decades showed the engines’ fuel switches shifted from cutoff to run within seconds of each other.
“Why did you cut off?” one of the pilots was heard asking the other in the cockpit voice recording. The other pilot responded that he did not do so.
The CUTOFF transition, which starved the engines of fuel, could be the key piece in a complicated puzzle of what happened on the Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 on June 12.
Moments later, switches of both engines were transitioned from CUTOFF to RUN, indicating the pilots tried to salvage the situation, as per data from Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorders. The 787 Dreamliner and other commercial planes have more than enough power to complete a takeoff on a single engine, and pilots are well-prepared for that event.
The 15-page report was published early Saturday by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB).
“When fuel control switches are moved from CUTOFF to RUN while the aircraft is in flight, each engine’s full authority dual engine control (FADEC) automatically manages a relight and thrust recovery sequence of ignition and fuel introduction,” said the report.
The EAFR recording, however, stopped seconds later. Soon after, one of the pilots transmitted a MAYDAY alert. The Air Traffic Control enquired about the call sign. It did not get any response, but it then saw the aircraft crashing outside the airport boundary.
The aircraft, fully loaded with fuel, quickly lost altitude and slammed into a hostel for medical students, where it exploded, killing all but one of the 242 individuals on board and around 30 people on the ground.
The report mentioned that the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) was deployed immediately after lift-off, as was seen on the CCTV footage from the airport. “No significant bird activity is observed in the vicinity of the flight path. The aircraft started to lose altitude before crossing the airport perimeter wall,” said the report.