‘Electrical malfunction could have led to fuel switch cut off before AI plane crash’

New Delhi: An electrical malfunction could have led to the fuel switches moving to the cut off position without the pilots knowing about it

before Air India’s Boeing 787-8 plane crashed last month, aviation expert Captain (Retd) Ehsan Khalid said on Wednesday.

On Saturday, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), in its preliminary report on the Air India’s Boeing 787-8 accident that killed 260 people on June 12, said the fuel switches to the

engines of the aircraft were cut off within a gap of 1 second immediately after takeoff and caused confusion in the cockpit before the plane crashed into a building.

While the initial report does not provide any conclusions, there are speculations in certain quarters that a possible pilot error could be a reason for the crash.

In an interview to news agency, Khalid, an Air Force veteran, also said the entire cockpit voice recording could have been made public by the AAIB and if that was released, “these speculations or insinuations or smear campaign would not have been there because a pilot, as a community, feels that they are the goalkeeper of flight safety”.

He also said the AAIB report has given rise to more speculations, which were not there before.

Citing cockpit voice recording, the 15-page preliminary report said one pilot asked why the switch was cut off, and the other pilot responded that he did not do so. The AI 171 flight, operated with the Boeing 787-8 aircraft, was flying from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick.

According to Khalid, an electrical malfunction could also have resulted in the aircraft’s fuel switches being cut off soon after takeoff.

“While it is also true that the switch may be in one position and that position may be 1 and the second position is 0 in electrical terms... (then) 0 to 1 or 1 to 0 (position) could have transitioned because of an electrical malfunction or a signal malfunction while the switch could be at the same point.

“That is why I think AAIB, in their own judgment, were very careful in not

using the word that fuel switches were moved. They could have used it. It is not that they do not know about it,” he said.

The AAIB report also mentioned that when the fuel switch is moved from cutoff to run, the start sequence starts.