What would cause a pilot to inadvertently switch off fuel to both engines? It clearly says fuel control over there. And then telling the other pilot, no, I didn't do that. Seems like a pretty simple case of planned suicide or being influenced by threats from an external malicious entity.
People do weird stuff for strange reasons:
Joseph Emerson, 44, told "Good Morning America" in his first television interview that he tried shut to down an Alaska Airlines plane's engines by activating a fire suppression system on Oct. 22, 2023.
www.nbcnews.com
Could be mechanical failure
Could be human error
Could be malicious
Sadly, we will probably never know the full story. All we have is the black box data:
According to the report, the flight lasted around 30 seconds between takeoff and crash. It said that once the aircraft achieved its top recorded speed, “the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another” within a second. The report did not say how the switches could have flipped to the cutoff position during the flight
The switches were flipped back into the run position, the report said, but the plane could not gain power quickly enough to stop its descent after the aircraft had begun to lose altitude.
Along with the cockpit recording:
The report also indicated confusion in the cockpit moments before the crash.
In the flight’s final moment, one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report said.
From the picture in
@yottabit post, there are two separate switches that both require special access to operate:
There was a 4-second delay between switch operations. In physical practice, that would be a two-part manually-operated movement:
1. Lift & switch #1
2. Lift & switch #2 a few seconds later
From Captain Ranganathan:
"It has to be manually done," Captain Ranganathan told NDTV when asked if there is any way fuel can be shut off to the engines of the Dreamliner. "It cannot be done automatically or due to a power failure because the fuel selectors are not the sliding type. They are designed to stay in a slot, and you have to pull them out to move them up or down. So, the possibility of inadvertently moving them to the "off" position doesn't arise. It's definitely a case of deliberate manual selection to move it to 'off'."
According to the AAIB report, both fuel control switches governing engines 1 and 2 were turned from "RUN" to "CUTOFF" within one second of each other. The switches, located on the central pedestal of the cockpit, are protected by a guard rail and require deliberate effort to toggle. They are not touch-sensitive and cannot be triggered by turbulence, power failure, or software glitch.
There was no time to recover:
“Unfortunately, the altitude was so low that the engines were only beginning to recover and they didn’t have enough time,” Tozer told Sky News.
Two observations:
1. Pilots are trained
extensively on different emergency scenarios . Re: Miracle on the Hudson
2. Airliners have
crazy amounts of redundancy these days. As the saying goes, every rule is written in blood.
Here's a good interview with a former Boeing 737 instructor:
A leading aviation safety expert has suggested that the fatal crash of Air India Flight 171 may have been the result of deliberate human action, raising, for the first time, the possibility of a pilot-induced crash.
www.ndtv.com
"I've heard that the captain had some medical history. Nothing else explains why, at the takeoff point, just as rotation starts, both switches are moved one after the other to the 'off' position. It has to be deliberately done. According to the cockpit voice recorder, one pilot asks, 'Why did you do it?' and the other pilot responds, 'I did not do it.' This is where the report shows some discrepancies, almost like a cover-up," Captain Ranganathan told NDTV.
"It's mandatory for all pilots to use headphones during takeoff and landing. The cockpit voice recorder will clearly indicate whether the audio comes from CAM 1 (captain) or CAM 2 (co-pilot) based on the cockpit area microphone. So, using vague terms like 'one pilot said this and one pilot said that' is very poor reporting," he added.
As per cockpit procedures, the pilot flying (PF) -- in this case, First Officer Clive Kunder -- would have had both hands on the control column during takeoff. The pilot monitoring (PM), Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, would have had free hands. That point, Captain Ranganathan said, is crucial.
"The report also clearly states that the captain was the pilot monitoring, and the co-pilot was the pilot flying." he added. "The pilot flying has both hands on the control column during rotation, as it's not automatic. They are focused on rotating the aircraft and setting the autopilot, so both hands are occupied. The pilot monitoring, however, is the only one with free hands. Using vague terms to suggest otherwise seems misleading. The action was deliberate, which is why I said it has to be manually done."
The data:
1. The plane crashed due to the two fuel switches being manually tripped
2. The captain apparently had a known medical history and had been on extended medical leave prior to the crash.
3. There are no psychiatric profiles required
4. Crews are being pushed to the limit & losing their families
What we don't know is:
1. Was it malicious?
2. Was there an odd medication reaction or a panic attack involved? Sometimes people do weird stuff when under stress or under the influence of medications, which may explain why the other pilot said he didn't do anything.
3. Was sabotage involved?
Then there's this:
"I've heard that several pilots at Air India reported that the captain had a medical condition and was on medical leave for some time. If top management was unaware of this, I'd be surprised because many line pilots knew about it," Captain Ranganathan said.
Well yeah...pilots only ever get 6 month's worth of job security because your next physical could
end your career, so
what are the incentives? To hide your medical condition, to see doctors on the side, etc. Throw in being overworked. family stress, etc. The system could be better! Tragedy all around tho
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www.the-independent.com
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