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The engines on Air India flight 171 briefly cut out seconds after take-off, a preliminary report into the jet’s fatal June 12 crash has found.
India’s Air Accident Investigation Bureau said in a report that the aircraft reached the necessary speed to lift off, but that seconds later fuel switches for both of the engines “transitioned” from “run” to “cut-off” position.
In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other “why did he cut off?,” to which he responded “that he did not do so”, the report said.
Although the fuel switches transitioned back to the “run” position seconds later, the engines had lost thrust.
The AAIB said that at this stage of its investigation there are “no recommended actions” to Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer, or GE Aerospace, whose engines power the plane.
Air India flight 171 crashed on June 12 seconds after take-off from Ahmedabad, bound for London Gatwick airport, in India’s worst aviation disaster in almost three decades and the industry’s deadliest in 11 years.
The accident killed 241 people on board and another 29 on the ground, where the Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 crashed into a medical college near the airport.
The AAIB led the investigation into the crash, along with its UK counterpart the Air Accident Investigation Branch and the US National Transportation Safety Board. This is the first fatal accident involving a Dreamliner.
This is a developing story
