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Re: Air India 787 recent crash. Report, Barrons article
It only says that engine fuel switches suddenly and simultaneously "transitioned" to CUTOFF, & then were "transitioned" to RUN. As these switches require deliberate actions to move due to a locking mechanism, it's a mystery how the CUTOFF happened in the first place. There is some audio that both pilots were surprised by the sudden CUTOFF.
After they were moved back to RUN, engine auto-restart cycles were initiated. One engine regained power but the other engine couldn't get restarted. By then, the flight crashed.
On another forum, a pilot with over 30 years experience flying Boeing aircraft stated that it is impossible to knock the fuel switches into the cutoff position inadvertently.
Yes, I've reviewed numerous reports from varied sources on this, and the consensus is that it's not possible to place the fuel switches into the cutoff position inadvertently.
The recovered cockpit audio indicates that one of the two pilots asked the other if he had operated those two switches, and that the other pilot denied having done so. At this point It's certainly seeming as if one of those two pilots deliberately crashed that airplane.
I’ve seen Boeing aircraft boxes from cockpit with similar switches and they are difficult to move - you have to pull out switch with force in order to move up or down. These Honeywell switches are military grade and cost about $1,500. I’ve seen boxes with bent switches and the only way that happens is if you drop the box on tarmac as you are carrying it out of plane.
There is clearly more information than has been released by India AAIB (US NTSB, UK AAIB, Boeing and GE are also participating).
1. There is almost 26 minutes of cockpit audio (even video?) from the time the flight left the gate and it crashed. Only a short paraphrasing/translation of their talk has been released (without identifying the people talking, Copilot/flying/PF or Captain/assisting/observing/PIC/PM),
"In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff. The other pilot responded that he did not do so."
Even if they weren't talking in English, people can make sense of their conversation whether in Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi or Marathi. Their names are available from media reports - both were based in Mumbai; Captain (Sumeet Sabharwal) was close to retiring, copilot (Clive Kunder) had lot of flying experience but none yet as PIC of this type of aircraft.
2. No information about the state of instruments or engine or fuel before the fuel CUTOFF. Was there an emergency situation building up that could trigger auto-CUTOFF? If this isn't possible, then pilots should be blamed regardless of what they were heard saying.
From what I have read, an emergency fuel CUTOFF could happen via software if there was a fuel leak or some other emergency situation that may not have been apparent to the pilots. To just state that fuel switches "transitioned" almost simultaneously (within 1 second) to CUTOFF 3 seconds after the liftoff, and then sequentially "transitioned" to "RUN" 10 & 14 seconds later, is mystifying. Mayday call was a few seconds later.
3. The ATC in India is also overloaded. But its amazing that there was no immediate pickup or response from ATC to Mayday 3x, and by the time ATC tried to get back to AI 171, everyone (including the ATC) could see that the flight had already crashed.
The mystery of Malaysia Airlines MH 370 has never been solved despite intensive international effort. Yes, an intentional water landing / crash landing has been highly speculated and may be the leading theory. Myself, I’m beginning to wonder if the plane was intercepted by aliens and transported to another galaxy?
There is however a known 2017 instance in which a Germanwings plane with 150 passengers aboard was intentionally crashed by a pilot known to be suicidal.
I agree with OJ that very likely the fuel cut-off switches were intentionally activated by a crew member. (Reuters says they were flipped one-second apart.) But such culpability has not been proven. Details released by the India authorities are unusually vague. Perhaps more will be released in the future. Do we know for certain there was not a third person in the cockpit (crew member or observer?)
Here’s a brief excerpt from Reuters:
”In the flight's final moments, one pilot was 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. ”
One possible scenario would be that the First Officer (co-pilot) was flying the takeoff (two-member crews normally alternate) and that he activated the fuel shut-offs seconds after the plane lifted off. The captain, who would in this case be handling communications and observing instruments, caught the shut-offs almost immediately, asked the co-pilot why he’d activated them and then reactivated the switches himself - unfortunately too late. Alarms would have gone off when the engines shut down if not at the point the switches were flipped. Just a guess here - and guesses are usually wrong in these cases.
Take-offs are my most favorite part of flying. Doesn’t get any better. But they’re also the most crucial time from an aviation safety standpoint. No time to recover if something goes wrong. Maximum dynamic load on the aircraft, engines operating at or near full capacity - and then all the incoming and outgoing air traffic.
I have no specific knowledge of the fuel cutoff circuitry involved, but I do have significant experience with electronics generally, and I have never heard of a switch with an operating lever that is operated mechanically (i.e. by hand) and that also may be operated remotely (i.e. physically move the switch lever remotely).
Consider a common type of switch: a typical circuit breaker. This type of switch may be operated by physically moving the operating lever, and that operating lever may also be moved automatically when detecting an electrical fault on the circuit. However there is no way that the circuit breaker/switch lever can be reactivated to the "ON" position by anything other than a physical intervention by a person.
There is, I believe, a type of circuit breaker which can be designed to reset itself, either automatically or by remote control. That type of circuit breaker is designed for use on electric power grid operations, and has been held responsible for numerous forest fires when improperly deployed.
On the aircraft involved we do not know if there are warning indicators indicating the FUEL CUTOFF condition, but it's highly likely that there would be. If so, perhaps the pilot who asked about the apparent fuel cutoff was not looking at the actual cutoff switches themselves, but rather at some sort of visual indicator or warning light.
If as YBB mentions above there is some sort of auto-CUTOFF other than the two physical switches, it's likely again that there would be some sort of visual indicator or warning light.
As YBB said, "to just state that fuel switches "transitioned" almost simultaneously (within 1 second) to CUTOFF 3 seconds after the liftoff, and then sequentially "transitioned" to "RUN" 10 & 14 seconds later, is mystifying."
We certainly need more clarity as to exactly what type of switches we are talking about here, and whether or not the fuel could have been switched off and then on again by some circuitry other than the two pilot-operated switches.
Comments
https://aaib.gov.in/What's New Assets/Preliminary Report VT-ANB.pdf
https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/3e6e572bb0cd57e7/8d66090a-full.pdf
It only says that engine fuel switches suddenly and simultaneously "transitioned" to CUTOFF, & then were "transitioned" to RUN. As these switches require deliberate actions to move due to a locking mechanism, it's a mystery how the CUTOFF happened in the first place. There is some audio that both pilots were surprised by the sudden CUTOFF.
After they were moved back to RUN, engine auto-restart cycles were initiated. One engine regained power but the other engine couldn't get restarted. By then, the flight crashed.
stated that it is impossible to knock the fuel switches into the cutoff position inadvertently.
The recovered cockpit audio indicates that one of the two pilots asked the other if he had operated those two switches, and that the other pilot denied having done so. At this point It's certainly seeming as if one of those two pilots deliberately crashed that airplane.
OMHG. Another Malaysia Air-like instance????
The main chart is down on the page, and I suggest that you click on the "Flight Type" column to group the commercial aircraft types together.
1. There is almost 26 minutes of cockpit audio (even video?) from the time the flight left the gate and it crashed. Only a short paraphrasing/translation of their talk has been released (without identifying the people talking, Copilot/flying/PF or Captain/assisting/observing/PIC/PM),
"In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff. The other pilot responded that he did not do so."
Even if they weren't talking in English, people can make sense of their conversation whether in Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi or Marathi. Their names are available from media reports - both were based in Mumbai; Captain (Sumeet Sabharwal) was close to retiring, copilot (Clive Kunder) had lot of flying experience but none yet as PIC of this type of aircraft.
2. No information about the state of instruments or engine or fuel before the fuel CUTOFF. Was there an emergency situation building up that could trigger auto-CUTOFF? If this isn't possible, then pilots should be blamed regardless of what they were heard saying.
From what I have read, an emergency fuel CUTOFF could happen via software if there was a fuel leak or some other emergency situation that may not have been apparent to the pilots. To just state that fuel switches "transitioned" almost simultaneously (within 1 second) to CUTOFF 3 seconds after the liftoff, and then sequentially "transitioned" to "RUN" 10 & 14 seconds later, is mystifying. Mayday call was a few seconds later.
3. The ATC in India is also overloaded. But its amazing that there was no immediate pickup or response from ATC to Mayday 3x, and by the time ATC tried to get back to AI 171, everyone (including the ATC) could see that the flight had already crashed.
Anyway, there are lot of questions.
The mystery of Malaysia Airlines MH 370 has never been solved despite intensive international effort. Yes, an intentional water landing / crash landing has been highly speculated and may be the leading theory. Myself, I’m beginning to wonder if the plane was intercepted by aliens and transported to another galaxy?
There is however a known 2017 instance in which a Germanwings plane with 150 passengers aboard was intentionally crashed by a pilot known to be suicidal.
I agree with OJ that very likely the fuel cut-off switches were intentionally activated by a crew member. (Reuters says they were flipped one-second apart.) But such culpability has not been proven. Details released by the India authorities are unusually vague. Perhaps more will be released in the future. Do we know for certain there was not a third person in the cockpit (crew member or observer?)
Here’s a brief excerpt from Reuters:
”In the flight's final moments, one pilot was 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. ”
One possible scenario would be that the First Officer (co-pilot) was flying the takeoff (two-member crews normally alternate) and that he activated the fuel shut-offs seconds after the plane lifted off. The captain, who would in this case be handling communications and observing instruments, caught the shut-offs almost immediately, asked the co-pilot why he’d activated them and then reactivated the switches himself - unfortunately too late. Alarms would have gone off when the engines shut down if not at the point the switches were flipped. Just a guess here - and guesses are usually wrong in these cases.
Take-offs are my most favorite part of flying. Doesn’t get any better. But they’re also the most crucial time from an aviation safety standpoint. No time to recover if something goes wrong. Maximum dynamic load on the aircraft, engines operating at or near full capacity - and then all the incoming and outgoing air traffic.
Consider a common type of switch: a typical circuit breaker. This type of switch may be operated by physically moving the operating lever, and that operating lever may also be moved automatically when detecting an electrical fault on the circuit. However there is no way that the circuit breaker/switch lever can be reactivated to the "ON" position by anything other than a physical intervention by a person.
There is, I believe, a type of circuit breaker which can be designed to reset itself, either automatically or by remote control. That type of circuit breaker is designed for use on electric power grid operations, and has been held responsible for numerous forest fires when improperly deployed.
On the aircraft involved we do not know if there are warning indicators indicating the FUEL CUTOFF condition, but it's highly likely that there would be. If so, perhaps the pilot who asked about the apparent fuel cutoff was not looking at the actual cutoff switches themselves, but rather at some sort of visual indicator or warning light.
If as YBB mentions above there is some sort of auto-CUTOFF other than the two physical switches, it's likely again that there would be some sort of visual indicator or warning light.
As YBB said, "to just state that fuel switches "transitioned" almost simultaneously (within 1 second) to CUTOFF 3 seconds after the liftoff, and then sequentially "transitioned" to "RUN" 10 & 14 seconds later, is mystifying."
We certainly need more clarity as to exactly what type of switches we are talking about here, and whether or not the fuel could have been switched off and then on again by some circuitry other than the two pilot-operated switches.