Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.youtube.com/live/SE0BetkXsLg?si=LPss_su3PVTAqGCO Both of these extremely-experienced pilots say that there was near zero chance that the fuel switches were unintentionally moved. They were switched off within one second of each other, which rules out most failure scenarios. If it was an issue with the switches, we also would have seen an air worthiness directive being issued. But they didn’t, because this…
I'm not disagreeing with you I think this was manually done But here's the thing a "near zero chance" when we are talking about an actual event changes the math Maybe there's a combination of vibration and manufacturing defect or assembly fault or "hammer this until it works" that can cause the switches to flip. Very unlikely? Yes. Still close to 0% but much more likely in the scenario of an accident Of course AAIB/N…
Preliminary report into Air India crash released
531–540 of 924 posts
Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
The car equivalent is being on a highway and "mistakenly" pulling the hand brakes, except that there are 2 hand brakes and you need to first unlock both of them. That's very hard to do by panic and mistake, if not impossible by design.
On pprune there is a professional pilot that says they had multiple instances of inadverent switching off fuel switches. They do it every startup, shutdown and training captains (the captain on this flight was pilot not flying, he had >10k hours) do it all the time in the sim to trigger engine out scenario during training
Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released
#533Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using that reasoning all airplane crashes have a lot in common too. Doesn’t mean the ones where you cannot determine the reason and have to speculate don’t suck.
Could you explain more? There's too many negatives in that last sentence for my decaffeinated early morning brain. I'm titillated by the idea there's a way to justify making up things so I really want to parse it.
E.g. it’d be nice if just hearing the CVR meant you knew the exact cause. Unfortunately not the case here.
Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released
#535Almost 400 comments and no avherald link for reference? https://avherald.com/h?article=528f27ec
> On Jul 12th 2025 (UTC) India's media report that the investigation is NOT focussing on a human action causing the fuel switches to appear in the CUTOFF position, but on a system failure. Service Bulletins by Boeing issued in year 2018 recommending to upgrade the fuel switches to locked versions to prevent inadvertent flip of the switches, as well as the FAA/GE issued Service Bulletin FAA-2021-0273-0013 Attachment 2…
Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both switches, at slightly different times? Seems pretty unlikely.
A rodent chewing on wires. Vibration-induced chafing. Tin whiskers causing an intermittent short. There are many possibilities, those came to mind first.
Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released
#537Video would definitively show whether either pilot moved these switches or if some other mechanism caused the movement. The aviation industry has consistently resisted cockpit video recording despite decades of available technology. The pilot unions argue privacy concerns, but cases like this demonstrate the value it would have. Current audio captured the pilots' denials, but without visual confirmation we may never…
If so I agree it's not a good enough reason.
Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no possible way to confuse these two actions. There's a reason a wheel is attached to the gear lever.
> There is no possible way to confuse these two actions. This is obviously an overstatement. Any two regularly performed actions can be confused. Sometimes (when tired or distracted) I've walked into my bathroom intending to shave, but mistakenly brushed my teeth and left. My toothbrush and razor are not similar in function or placement.
Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released
#539Earlier quoted context omitted.
It could have been unimportant to them
No it could not. Is your conclusion coming from a decade of piloting or maintaining commercial aircraft? If not, why are you speculating with zero knowledge?
Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released
#540Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a video feed of the cockpit inside the black box? If not there should be one as even my simple home wifi camera can record hours of hd video on the small sd card. And If there is, wouldn't that help to instantly identify such things?
No neither black box stores video. One stores audio on flash memory and the other stores flight details, sensors etc. I don’t think video is a bad idea. I assume there is a reason why it wasn’t done. Data wise black boxes actually store very little data (maybe a 100mbs), I don’t know if that is due to how old they are, or the requirements of withstanding extremes.
Heck they can make a back up directly to the cloud in addition to black box considering I'm able to watch YouTube in some flights nowadays.