711–720 of 924 posts
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They are a forum moderator and therefore it is part of their job, it is nice that you apologised.
I... don't believe that's the case? Though happy to be proven wrong. Unless perhaps you mean a moderator of a different forum, though that wouldn't really be relevant to their reading a thread of HN comments on a subject that annoys them.
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Nope. First of all, the FO was the “pilot flying” and thusly controls the throttle. The fuel shutoffs are on the left side, well clear of the range of motion throttle operation for the right seat. If the Captain were controlling throttles, it for some reason he could contort his wrist to accidentally open the red cutoff switch guards, the switches themselves move in the opposite direction of the pivot of the switch g…
The fuel cutoff switches are directly behind the throttles, in a central position. Maybe you’re thinking of the stab cutout switches?
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Context is both these switches being turned off with a 1 second gap. Doing it with one hand simultaneously would possibly explain it, otherwise it doesn’t seem relevant.
> Context is both these switches being turned off with a 1 second gap. Doing it with one hand simultaneously would possibly explain it It would. So would switching both quickly in succession. One second is a long time—I can adjust power, prop, fuel pump and flaps in about that time.
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> if not in the middle of a densely populated city, especially if above a plain or water What is on the ground below does not matter at that point - how far above that ground you are is what is important. More altitude is more time. This flight was less than 200 meters up in the air. Sully's flight that you probably remember, that made a successful emergency landing on the river, was about 860 meters high, giving the…
Okay, maybe there is little hope of making an ideal landing. But the likelihood of it being a fatal accident is significantly reduced without the building in the equation, no?
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Double engine failure was confirmed, not disproven. RAT deployment was confirmed, not disproved. Pilot error, confirmed, not disproven. Preliminary and final aviation reports are mostly guesses.
I don't think it's fair to say that pilot error is confirmed yet. It seems like a reasonable hypothesis, but what if the electronics glitched out and acted as though the cutoff switches had been flipped (the first time), even if they hadn't? All of the currently-disclosed facts still line up with that scenario IMO.
If we decided to pin all aviation incidents on pilot errors, we wouldn't even have invented checklists (what do you mean you forgot, try harder the next time).
"Natural" pilot errors lead to lessons that can be incorporated into design/best practices. That does not seem to be the case given current understanding: no flaw in any switch design seems apparent, and it does not sound like something you could do by accident.
So "pilot error" is not the "cracking the case"-grade conclusion it is being made out to be, it is an act of investigative resignation. In the days following the crash, allegations of mixing up flaps and landing gear were floated, and they all turned out to be wrong. This is not even accounting for the fact that the pilots are not around to plead their case, and basic human dignity requires us to defend their case until evidence clearly points a certain way
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> 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…
My concern would be that the investigation in this case is more likely to be biased towards a system failure. Disgracing a major flag carrier is something very few regulars have the independence and courage to get away with.
Air India was government owned company till 2020s when it was sold back to the TATA group from whom it was originally nationalized from in the 1960s.
Stakeholders like regulators, employees individually could have different PoV or interests in the change .
Regulatory leadership could just as easily want to prove why this de nationalization was bad if so inclined as they could be for not wanting embarrass the flag carrier.
So it would be hard to categorically say that regulator has vested interest in protecting the flag carrier
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Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. The fact that the pilots denied that they had shut the switch (one asking the other why they had done so and the other denying it), and that they restarted the engines should be taken into account. Ok, murder suicide is definitely on the table but I would want to see some other reasons for believing that this is so.
Sorry to nitpick, but for a good Bayesian, absence if evidence is evidence of absence. If you want the aphorism to be technically correct, you should say "absence of proof is not proof of absence". A note on the terminology: "evidence" is a piece of data that suggests a conclusion, while not being conclusive by itself. Whereas "proof" is a piece of data that is conclusive by itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_proof
tl;dr: not a piece of data.
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Sorry to nitpick, but for a good Bayesian, absence if evidence is evidence of absence. If you want the aphorism to be technically correct, you should say "absence of proof is not proof of absence". A note on the terminology: "evidence" is a piece of data that suggests a conclusion, while not being conclusive by itself. Whereas "proof" is a piece of data that is conclusive by itself.
For a long time my wife refused to accept that Tree Kangaroos existed and insisted that I'd made them up. When the internet came along she looked them up and treated me strangely for a while. What things that you have never seen do you not believe in?
Look at this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_isopod#/media/File:Bathy...
Clearly some kind of plastic model. I mean its eyes are gleaming menacingly. Or look at this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_isopod#/media/File:Giant...
Seriously, wikipedia? Seriously? That's clearly a hoax.
Giant isopods are. not. real.
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still, it at least shows that there's been issues with the locking mechanism in the past. inadvertently bumping something that was assumed to be locked is a simpler theory; i find it hard to believe that a murder suicider would take this route, when the china nosedive option is easier, faster, and has a higher chance of success.
Cutting fuel just after takeoff leaves almost zero time for the other pilot to recover.
Why would anyone risk potentially surviving a sabotage like that ?
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Yet Occam's razor still applies
That's not what Occam's razor means. It means that after you have exhausted all options to rule out competing hypotheses, you choose the simplest one that remains, for the time being. Consider some explanations that are consistent with the evidence presented so far. And remember that the purpose of the investigation is to come up with actionable conclusions. 1. One of the pilots randomly flipped and crashed the plane…
The physical switch was not touched at all , and the software has a bug under some rare conditions which cut off the supply to both engines.
