New details about last month’s Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, which killed 260 people, have emerged this week, shifting focus onto the actions of the senior pilot during the last moments before the plane crashed.According to a report published on Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal quoting sources close to United States officials’ early assessment of evidence, the black box audio recording of the last conversation between the two pilots indicates that the captain might have turned off the switches controlling the flow of fuel to the plane’s engines.
Last week, a preliminary report by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) found that both engines had shut down within the space of one second, leading to immediate loss of altitude, before the plane crashed into a densely populated suburb of Ahmedabad. However, that report, which stated the fuel-control switches had moved to the “cutoff” position, did not assign blame for the incident.
Two groups of commercial pilots have rejected suggestions that human error may have caused the disaster.
What happened to the Air India flight?
At 1:38pm (08:08 GMT) on June 12, Air India Flight 171 took off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad for London Gatwick Airport, carrying 230 passengers, 10 cabin crew and two pilots.
About 40 seconds after taking off, both engines of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner lost power during the initial climb. The plane then crashed into the BJ Medical College Hostel in a populated suburb 1.85km (1.15 miles) from the runw …
