Preliminary report into Air India crash released • Hacker News Board

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#541

Post by briandear » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 12:51 PM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #72

it makes sense to me that the pilot who said "I did not do it" actually did do it without realizing it, was supposed to be putting the landing gear up when he committed a muscle memory mistake. it happened around the time the landing gear should be up, and this explanation matches what was said in the cockpit, and the fact that the landing gear wasn't retracted. I think this idea was even floated initially by the you…

Landing gear controls are nothing like the fuel shutoffs. And they are in completely different locations. Landing gear controls are in front of the throttle, fuel shutoffs are aft of the throttles.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#542

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 12:52 PM UTC

russdill wrote: post #459

WalterBright wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider a case where the engine starts to violently vibrate. This can tear the structure apart. Delaying shutting off the engine can be catastrophic. It's very hard to solve one problem without creating another. At some point, you just gotta trust the pilot.

If you read through the boeing procedures, if an engine fails just after take off you delay cutting throttle or hitting the cutoff until you have positive climb and pass a certain altitude. Specifically because a mistake here would be so incredibly catastrophic. The following number of steps and verbal cross checks for then shutting down the engine are quite daunting. Not something applicable here, but still interest…

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Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#543

Post by russfink » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 12:55 PM UTC

uwagar wrote: post #538

cjbprime wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

this bathroom thing and various similar scenarios happens to me when im on weed.

Genuinely curious - could heavy marijuana use cause confusion between landing gear and fuel cutoff? Or some other drugs? (Wondering if they screen pilots for alcohol before they board an aircraft.)

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#544

Post by yard2010 » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 12:55 PM UTC

gnulinux996 wrote: post #177

ssl232 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: Why is there no Cockpit Video Recorder? The days of limited storage are over. Pilots unions are dead against it.

Are you actually using a tragedy like this to launch an assault on organized labour?

You have to admit this is a smart demagogue!

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#545

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 12:57 PM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #370

chrisandchris wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it was an issue with the switches, we also would have seen an air worthiness directive being issued. I do not trust these air worthiness directives 100.0%. The 737 Max also required two catastrophic failures before it was grounded.

The issue with the 737 MAX became evident within months of the plane's launch. By contrast, the Dreamliner has accumulated over a decade of flying history across over 1000 aircraft with precisely zero fatal accidents.

Yes, but things age. And as they age they can fail simply due to wear that wasn't determined to be a problem before they got to that point.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#546

Post by 1over137 » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 12:57 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #541

fsckboy wrote: post #72

it makes sense to me that the pilot who said "I did not do it" actually did do it without realizing it, was supposed to be putting the landing gear up when he committed a muscle memory mistake. it happened around the time the landing gear should be up, and this explanation matches what was said in the cockpit, and the fact that the landing gear wasn't retracted. I think this idea was even floated initially by the you…

Landing gear controls are nothing like the fuel shutoffs. And they are in completely different locations. Landing gear controls are in front of the throttle, fuel shutoffs are aft of the throttles.

Is that "nothing like" though? You are saying they are in different places, ok, but are they similar in other ways? Are both controls the same shape? size? colour? texture?

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#547

Post by interestica » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 12:58 PM UTC

dubcanada wrote: post #461

superasn wrote: post #430

Earlier 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.

This isn’t true. This was a 787. It does not use a separate recorder for voice and data (CVR, FDR).

(Most media outlets also got this wrong and were slow to make corrections. )

Rather, it uses a EAFR (Enhanced airborne flight recorder) which basically combines the functions. They’re also more advanced than older systems and can record for longer. The 787 has two of them - the forward one has its own power supply too.

There should be video as well, but I’m not sure what was recovered. Not necessarily part of the flight data recording, but there are other video systems.

https://www.geaerospace.com/sites/default/files/enhanced-air...

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#548

Post by yard2010 » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #229

decimalenough wrote: post #11

> The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off. So the fuel supply was cut off intentionally. The swi…

> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide. Remember that incident where a cop pulled out his taser and tased the suspect? Except he pulled out his pistol and fired it. The taser looks nothing like a pistol, feels nothing like it, yet it is still possible to confuse the two in the heat of the moment.

Also, a cop who can either read or write can't be expected to not make mistakes.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#549

Post by interestica » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 1:00 PM UTC

Mawr wrote: post #448

cjbprime wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's just your brain associating the bathroom with the act of brushing your teeth, and therefore doing it automatically upon the trigger of entering the bathroom. It bears no resemblance to the accidental activation of a completely different button. The other poster's correction: "it’s like brushing your teeth with razor" is apt. Touching the fuel cutoff switches is not part of any procedure remotely relevant to th…

It depends on how that person internalized and learned the behaviour. We store things differently.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#550

Post by inoop » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 1:02 PM UTC

1over137 wrote: post #546

briandear wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landing gear controls are nothing like the fuel shutoffs. And they are in completely different locations. Landing gear controls are in front of the throttle, fuel shutoffs are aft of the throttles.

Is that "nothing like" though? You are saying they are in different places, ok, but are they similar in other ways? Are both controls the same shape? size? colour? texture?

Respectfully, it's not up to other people to disprove your toy theory. The question you're asking here can very easily be answered with a quick Google search.

The short answer is that they are _very_ different controls, that looks and operate in a completely different way, located in a different place, and it's completely unrealistic to think a pilot could have mistaken one for the other.