Preliminary report into Air India crash released

> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.

You're leaping into the minds of others and drawing conclusions of their intent. One of them moved the levers. We will never know the intention. To claim otherwise is arrogance.

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well hold your horses there... from the FAA in their 2019 report linked above:

> The Boeing Company (Boeing) received reports from operators of Model 737 airplanes that the fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged. The fuel control switches (or engine start switches) are installed on the control stand in the flight deck and used by the pilot to supply or cutoff fuel to the engines. The fuel control switch has a locking feature to prevent inadvertent operation that could result in unintended switch movement between the fuel supply and fuel cutoff positions. In order to move the switch from one position to the other under the condition where the locking feature is engaged, it is necessary for the pilot to lift the switch up while transitioning the switch position. If the locking feature is disengaged, the switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting the switch during transition, and the switch would be exposed to the potential of inadvertent operation. Inadvertent operation of the switch could result in an unintended consequence, such as an in-flight engine shutdown. Boeing informed the FAA that the fuel control switch design, including the locking feature, is similar on various Boeing airplane models. The table below identifies the affected airplane models and related part numbers (P/Ns) of the fuel control switch, which is manufactured by Honeywell.

> If the locking feature is disengaged, the switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting the switch during transition, and the switch would be exposed to the potential of inadvertent operation. Inadvertent operation of the switch could result in an unintended consequence, such as an in-flight engine shutdown

Yeah and the other pilot flipped the switches back on and one of the engines started spooling up but it was too late.

Murder-suicide looks like the likely conclusion, given that flipping the cutoff switches requires a very deliberate action. That said, it's not entirely impossible that due to stress or fatigue the pilot had some kind of mental lapse and post-flight muscle memory (of shutting off the engines) kicked in when the aircraft lifted off.

> The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off.

> As per the EAFR, the Engine 1 fuel cutoff switch transitioned from CUTOFF to RUN at about 08:08:52 UTC.

Damn. That's pretty quick to diagnose and take action.

Boeing's probably gonna have a big sigh of relief over this one.

Does the Flight Data Recorder consider the physical position of the fuel switches or does it get the information from some fly-by-wire part that could be buggy?

The conversation would suggest that the switches were in CUTOFF position, but there is also a display that summarizes the engine status.

There is no conversation that mentions flipping the switch to RUN again.

EDIT: Why is there no Cockpit Video Recorder? The days of limited storage are over.

Not that humans are known to behave rationally when trying to commit suicide, but it’s interesting that the switches were re-engaged successfully without protest or a fight. It’s just an interesting detail to wonder about.

> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.

Remember that incident where a cop pulled out his taser and tased the suspect? Except he pulled out his pistol and fired it.

The taser looks nothing like a pistol, feels nothing like it, yet it is still possible to confuse the two in the heat of the moment.

I once worked with a software engineer who would do things and then bald face lie about it. This reminds me of that person.

Me: “The build is breaking right after you checked in. Why did you do that?” Him:”I did not do so.” Me: “The commit shows it as you. And when I rolled back everything builds.” Him:”It must have been someone else.”

That person was really annoying.

One of the nice things about finally having the preliminary report is I get to stop hearing all of the same assumptions/theories/YouTuber said/"a guy I know got a leaked report"/etc in water cooler talk at work because the preliminary report solidly disproved all of them so far. If anyone even had and stuck with an idea matching this report it wouldn't have stood out in the conversations anyways.

The collection of comments on this post remind me it'll just be a brand new set of random guesses until the final report is released. Or worse - the final report reaches no further conclusions and it just has to fade out of interest naturally over time.

There is no possible way to confuse these two actions. There's a reason a wheel is attached to the gear lever.

The landing gear lever is rather prominently featured in the 787 in a panel central to the cockpit layout so that either pilot can easily reach it. For decades and across many manufacturers, the landing gear lever has traditionally featured a knob that deliberately resembles an airplane wheel. It's very hard to mistake it for anything else. It's actuated by simply moving it up or down.

The fuel control switches are behind the throttle stalks above the handles to release the engine fire suppression agents. These switches are markedly smaller and have guards on each side protecting them from accidental manipulation. You need to reach behind and twirl your fingers around a bit to reach them. Actuating these switches requires pulling the knob up sufficiently to clear a stop lock before then rotating down. There are two switches that were activated in sequence and in short order.

The pilot monitoring is responsible for raising the gear in response to the pilot flyings' instruction.

I would find it very difficult to believe this was a muscle memory mistake. At the very least, I would want to more evidence supporting such a proposition.

This idea strikes me as even more unlikely than someone shifting their moving vehicle into reverse while intending to activate the window wipers.

If you shut off the engines a couple of dozen meters above ground shouldn’t every alarm be blaring or there should be some sort of additional lever you have to pull way out of the way to enable shutting off the engine that close to the ground.

even though that raising the gear is a up motion and fuelcut off is a down motion?

I suspect any civil aviation engineer who goes "let's add hydrazine!" to fix problems has a fairly short career, lol.

The only solution I can think of is emergency parachutes. Like lots of them. would also be useful for other types of in air engine/control failures.

At least it worked for me on Kerbal Space Program. At least sometimes.

there's literally two other similar switches right next to those?

From my (limited) understanding you cannot really switch these off inadvertently as they require a couple of actions in order to be switched off. So it would mean one of the pilots switched these off (and they were a few seconds later switched on again but it was too late).

But there was audio, too, and one pilot asked the other "why did you switch these off" and the second one said "I didn't".

Was there are third one in the jump seat?

It does not suggest that. It only says they were turned off and no other conclusion given.

Fire, probably. But also, how complicated would you make the system if you needed to prevent certain switches from working during certain times of flight? At some point... we're all just in the hands of the people in the cockpit.

Completely uneducated guess but if one engine bursts into flames you might want to kill the fuel.

Suggest a system that would prevent this, but only this, without causing other risks.

What you are really asking is: would we, the passengers, be safer without human pilots?

Eventually, yes. Soon? Maybe.

Fire isn't the only instantly severe problem with engines. Another is violent shaking if, say, part of the rotating assembly came off.

It did glide briefly, the glide path took it directly into a school building.

Right after takeoff at low altitude is basically the worst place for this to happen. Speed and altitude are low so gliding is going to be a short distance and happen quickly.

If there had been a perfect empty long flat grass field in that location it may have been salvageable, but also right after takeoff the plane usually has a heavy fuel load which makes for a much riskier landing.

Edit: This article has a map showing the glide path:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/12/air-india-flig...

Speed can be traded for altitude, and altitude can be traded for speed. If you have neither, you're dead.

Engine failure shortly after takeoff is a major cause of fatal accidents.

I’ll take this as an honest question. The simple answer: too much mass, no clear landing path, not enough speed or altitude to turn to find one and glide to it. In short, not enough time. Once the engines cut, that thing probably dropped like a brick.

They only ever got a few hundred feet off the ground.

Yes of course the plane glided once the engines stopped, producing thrust, just like all planes do. But just like all planes, and all gliders, gliding means trading altitude for velocity - giving up precious height every second in order to maintain flight. At that stage in the flight, they just didn’t have enough to give. If the same thing had happened at 30,000 feet, it would be a non-event. They would glide down a few thousand feet as the engines spool back up and once they return to full power, everything will be back to normal. Or if for some reason, the engines were permanently cooked, you’d have maybe 20 to 30 minutes of glide time so you’ve got a lot of time to look around and find a flat spot. But you just don’t have enough time for all that to happen When you’re a few hundred feet off the ground.

how do you "safely" glide into a city?