The First Officer of Air India AI171 asked why fuel switches were not on ‘RUN’ according to the Wall Street Journal.
A preliminary report released Saturday by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) revealed that cockpit voice recordings captured one pilot asking the other why the fuel supply had been cut off, to which the second pilot responded that he had not done so.
The report did not specify whether the exchange was between Captain Sumeet Sabharwal or First Officer Clive Kunder, who had logged 15,638 and 3,403 flight hours, respectively.
However, according to the Wall Street Journal, a cockpit recording from the Air India Dreamliner that crashed last month suggests that Captain Sabharwal may have moved the fuel control switches to the “cutoff” position just seconds after takeoff. First Officer Kunder, who was at the controls, is reported to have asked the captain why the switches were moved, expressing apparent surprise.
The Journal noted there was no direct evidence confirming Sabharwal’s action beyond the recorded dialogue. But U.S. pilots who reviewed the report told the outlet that it would have been unlikely for Kunder, who was actively flying the Boeing 787, to manipulate the fuel switches himself during such a critical phase of flight.
The AAIB report said the fuel switches were later moved back to the “run” position, prompting the aircraft to automatically attempt an engine restart. However, the aircraft was already too low and too slow to recover, leading to the fatal crash.
