Air India crash report updates: Preliminary findings say fuel switch was cut off before plane went down – UK Times

A preliminary report into the Air India crash that killed 260 people last month showed that three seconds after taking off, the plane’s engines’ fuel cutoff switches almost simultaneously flipped from run to cutoff, starving the engines of fuel.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner immediately began to lose thrust and sink down, according to the report released by Indian aviation accident investigators.

One pilot can be 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.

It did not identify which remarks were made by the flight’s captain and which by the first officer, nor which pilot transmitted “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday” just before the crash.

The preliminary report also does not say how the switch could have flipped to the cutoff position on the 12 June London-bound flight from the Indian city of Ahmedabad.