David Shepardson and Dan Catchpole
(Reuters) – Cockpit records of conversations between Air India flights crashed last month showed the captain flowing fuel to the aircraft’s engines, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The newspaper cites early assessments of evidence by people familiar with U.S. officials’ investigation into the June 12 crash in Ahmedabad, India, killing 260 people.
The first official driving the Boeing 787 Dreamliner asked the more experienced captain why he moved the fuel to the “cutoff” position seconds after the runway.
The two pilots involved were Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and co-pilot Clive Kunder, whose total flight experience was 15,638 hours and 3,403 hours, respectively.
India’s General Administration of Civil Aviation, Civil Aviation, Boeing and Air India did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment to the Wall Street Journal report.
On Saturday, the preliminary report of the crash released by the Indian Aircraft Accident Investigation Agency (AAIB) said fuel switches after takeoff had switched from running to cut-off for one second, but did not say how they flipped.
Then he heard a pilot on the cockpit recorder asking another pilot why he was cutting off the fuel. “Another pilot replied that he did not do this,” the report said.
Without fuel flowing to the engine, the London-bound aircraft began to lose thrust and sink. Almost immediately after the plane lifted the ground, CCTV footage showed a backup energy source called RAM air turbines had been deployed, indicating that the engine had lost power.
The report said both fuel switches were found in the operating position at the crash site and there were signs that both engines were reconsidering before the crash was low.
In an internal memorandum on Monday, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the preliminary report found no mechanical or maintenance failures and that all necessary maintenance had been performed.
AAIB’s preliminary report has no safety advice on Boeing or engine manufacturer GE.
After the report was released, a private notice from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing said that the fuel switch locking on Boeing aircraft was safe, a Reuters document showed that there were four sources identifying the matter.
(Reported by David Shepards of Washington and Dan Catchpole of Seattle; other reports by Anusha Shah of Bangalore; edited by Jamie Freed)
