And if they were configured wrong, who is st fault for not replacing them after an SAIB was released in 2018?
Dream liner down in India on air port (5 Viewers)
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MiTasol
Captain
SAIBs are optional. Smart operators do action them (and MDRs) but that does not change the fact that both are optional. I would expect that the Indian investigators have also questioned the crews who flew the aircraft on the preceding flights to determine if the switch detents worked as desired. From their silence on that and their reported focus on the switches there may have been reports that the switch detents were worn or inop. I have never seen or heard of a worn detent and that includes on some very old aircraft.
Its possible, but I've never heard of it either, but then that sounds like an airline maintenance problem which would not surprise me at all. Air India's maintenance program has been heavily scrutinized.
Thumpalumpacus
Lieutenant Colonel
My understanding is that Air India did not actually perform the recommended checks on the switches.
I would not be surprised.
MiTasol
Captain
Another thing we must consider here is that some pilots unions and other groups are known to reject any potential pilot error findings and provide misleading information to investigators or employ lawyers to prevent or overturn pilot error findings.
The best example I can think of right now was the Air New Zealand DC-10 crash at Mt Erebus in Antarctica. The official finding was pilot error - the captain did not know where he was and rejected the FO and FE's very strong recommendations to stay above minimum safe altitude until they knew exactly where they were in relation to the mountain.
A high powered retired judge was hired to "prove" it was the companies fault, not the Captain who rejected his crews recommendations. He wrote a best selling book on the accident making it clear the pilot was innocent. (see note below)
The two main "facts" he based his book on were that ANZ refused to provide him with any documents and that there was an unknown extra person in the cockpit who was known to the captain but not on the manifest. He came to this conclusion from the cockpit voice recordings which showed the captain making multiple comment to X but there was no person on the manifest who was officially or unofficially known as X.
Pretty damning.
A few weeks after I got my copy of the book I had to spend a couple of days in Auckland and one evening had a few refreshing drinks with several kiwi warbird pilots, ANZ flight engineers and restorers. All those pilots flew for ANZ (and all had flown with that captain) so I asked for their thoughts on the book.
They were outraged and made it plain that in their opinion it was absolutely, completely, totally and without a doubt pilot error caused 100% by the captain. The person X that the judge could not find was whoever the captain was looking at at the time. He was too up himself to learn his crews names so just looked at them, called them X and either gave an order or asked a question.
As for the documents - ANZ had passed them all to the CAA investigation team who were not releasing them to the public at that time.
Note - my father in law was a very senior magistrate. He said the four most dishonest groups of people he had to deal with were lawyers, police, politicians and preachers.
To him Lawyer was the Olde Englishe spelling of LIAR. They will tell any lie, distort any truth, obfiscate when ever possible and do anything and everything else to get their client off any and every charge.
One thing that really got up his nose was the number of cases where there was very clear CCTV vision of the crime, often including clear DNA evidence, proving that the client was guilty. In almost every case they pleaded not guilty because that way the lawyer got a very large paycheck - often from the taxpayer.- instead of an hours pay. This massively increases the states court costs as some of those cases went for weeks - one in particular for almost a month. Again, the taxpayer pays while the leach sucks.
Police on the other hand will often do anything then can, including breaking multiple laws, to stitch up the person they have arrested.
Politicians, bankers and preachers are best covered in today's quotes and jokes page
The best example I can think of right now was the Air New Zealand DC-10 crash at Mt Erebus in Antarctica. The official finding was pilot error - the captain did not know where he was and rejected the FO and FE's very strong recommendations to stay above minimum safe altitude until they knew exactly where they were in relation to the mountain.
A high powered retired judge was hired to "prove" it was the companies fault, not the Captain who rejected his crews recommendations. He wrote a best selling book on the accident making it clear the pilot was innocent. (see note below)
The two main "facts" he based his book on were that ANZ refused to provide him with any documents and that there was an unknown extra person in the cockpit who was known to the captain but not on the manifest. He came to this conclusion from the cockpit voice recordings which showed the captain making multiple comment to X but there was no person on the manifest who was officially or unofficially known as X.
Pretty damning.
A few weeks after I got my copy of the book I had to spend a couple of days in Auckland and one evening had a few refreshing drinks with several kiwi warbird pilots, ANZ flight engineers and restorers. All those pilots flew for ANZ (and all had flown with that captain) so I asked for their thoughts on the book.
They were outraged and made it plain that in their opinion it was absolutely, completely, totally and without a doubt pilot error caused 100% by the captain. The person X that the judge could not find was whoever the captain was looking at at the time. He was too up himself to learn his crews names so just looked at them, called them X and either gave an order or asked a question.
As for the documents - ANZ had passed them all to the CAA investigation team who were not releasing them to the public at that time.
Note - my father in law was a very senior magistrate. He said the four most dishonest groups of people he had to deal with were lawyers, police, politicians and preachers.
To him Lawyer was the Olde Englishe spelling of LIAR. They will tell any lie, distort any truth, obfiscate when ever possible and do anything and everything else to get their client off any and every charge.
One thing that really got up his nose was the number of cases where there was very clear CCTV vision of the crime, often including clear DNA evidence, proving that the client was guilty. In almost every case they pleaded not guilty because that way the lawyer got a very large paycheck - often from the taxpayer.- instead of an hours pay. This massively increases the states court costs as some of those cases went for weeks - one in particular for almost a month. Again, the taxpayer pays while the leach sucks.
Police on the other hand will often do anything then can, including breaking multiple laws, to stitch up the person they have arrested.
Politicians, bankers and preachers are best covered in today's quotes and jokes page
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special ed
1st Lieutenant
- 6,573
- May 13, 2018
The message on a tee shirt I have is:
A good lawyer knows the law.
A great lawyer knows the judge.
A good lawyer knows the law.
A great lawyer knows the judge.
MiTasol
Captain
This article Air India crash: Boeing aircraft in the spotlight – DW – 07/15/2025 is badly translated to English but there is a clear indication of an area the investigation is looking at. It would also explain why the switches were found on the ON position but there was no evidence of either engine relighting. Despite the headline this is not Boeing's fault as they do not carry out maintenance or rework on Air India aircraft.
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AerialTorpedoDude69
Airman 1st Class
- 255
- Mar 1, 2022
To clarify my previous comment on this, if conductive debris can trigger a short, it means that the fuel control's wiring is not properly insulated and there are no redundancies or safeties in place to protect against a simple fault.
A short SHOULD NOT turn off a critical system. That is egregiously bad.
That is incredibly concerning for a critical system.
syscom3
Pacific Historian
Moving one switch is an accident. Moving two is deliberate. More so since they had just taken off.
AerialTorpedoDude69
Airman 1st Class
- 255
- Mar 1, 2022
MiTasol's found an article which claimed Indian investigators were looking into the possibility that debris triggered a short circuit of the fuel control systems. I speculated that this was the case earlier and was following up on that comment. But
MiTasol
is probably right because both systems failed at the same time. In case you haven't seen it, his comment is a screenshot and might not be visible on mobile.I can't find any diagram or schematic for the 787's electrical wiring on the fuel-control switches. But as there are two switches, there may have been two separate circuits, one for each switch. If so, then it would be very unlikely that debris could have shorted out both fuel control systems unless there were a tremendous amount of debris.
A conductive liquid could short out both switches at the same time, but in the cockpit? What kind of liquid is running through there? hydraulic fluid isn't conductive IIRC.
If a mechanic left a wrench or other such tool in the void underneath the switches, could this cause any trouble?
AerialTorpedoDude69
Airman 1st Class
- 255
- Mar 1, 2022
Just playing Devil's Advocate here, but there's probably an alert system that would trigger if it detects a cutoff of fuel. If that alert triggered in flight, then the FO might have assumed it had been manually set to cutoff.
But given all the other indicators involved, this seems a less likely answer.
Air India probe finds no issues with fuel control switches on Boeing 787s, NDTV says
Boeing and Air India did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Reuters could not immediately verify the NDTV report. India on Monday ordered its airlines to examine fuel switches on several Boeing aircraft models, while South Korea ordered a similar measure on Tuesday, as...
This guy appears to me to be a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Here is a lengthy interview where he discusses the report:
Air India Crash Report is a 'Get Out of Jail Card' For Boeing: Aviation Expert
Air India crash preliminary report: Aviation expert Sanjay Lazar discusses the many questions that remain unanswered: from missing CVR transcript to concerns over a premature blame on the pilots.
He laments the lack of a CVR transcript and discusses at length the ten seconds between shutdown and restart, but there's no indication of when the switches were discovered in cutoff (if that's what happened), or when the pilots conversation about it occurred. He also suggests you could hear the switches being moved to cutoff on the CVR. He calls out some language of the report, especially the last finding, which he suggests is inserted to protect somebody (which he implies is Boeing):
I doubt you could hear the switches being moved over the roar of the engines, but I think he is correct about releasing the transcript of the CVR. However, the obvious persons being protected is the pilots, not Boeing, especially if it reads as the rest of the report suggests.
MiTasol
Captain
He certainly in that interview comes across as a person of the sort I commented on in post 166.
At this stage I personally am inclined towards the strong suspicion that one crew member deliberately turned off the fuel. As several have commented, I can see a switch unit fault killing one engine but not two simultaneously. That does not make it impossible. If both switches are powered by the same wire losing that wire would kill both engines but only if the fuel shut-off is electrically held open. If the fuel shut-off is powered to move from open to closed, which is far more likely, then that possibility disappears.
In aviation the general rule is for a system to fail to the safest operation and the safest operation in this case is fuel on.
At this stage I personally am inclined towards the strong suspicion that one crew member deliberately turned off the fuel. As several have commented, I can see a switch unit fault killing one engine but not two simultaneously. That does not make it impossible. If both switches are powered by the same wire losing that wire would kill both engines but only if the fuel shut-off is electrically held open. If the fuel shut-off is powered to move from open to closed, which is far more likely, then that possibility disappears.
In aviation the general rule is for a system to fail to the safest operation and the safest operation in this case is fuel on.
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I am wondering [ asking ] is there some sort of connection between the fuel switches and the thrust levers [ throttles ] . The levers are in the rearward position i.e. no power and the data showed them fully forward for takeoff [ confusing ] . In the impact -- I would have thought the levers would have been thrown forward [ inertia ] especially if the pilot(s) had their hands pushing them forward - did something lock them back .
Thumpalumpacus
Lieutenant Colonel
There's no interlock between the pump switches and the throttle levers. The throttle levers will not get thrown forward in the impact because they have friction inbuilt into the sliders so that the pilots don't need to be constantly horsing them around. Of course, if something bodily slams into them, yes, they go forward, but otherwise the levers themselves won't advance or retard. They simply don't have that much weight, and as a result inertia, to move without outside impetus.
The throttles were forward for the takeoff and remained so throughout the brief flight, so far as I've read.
The fuel pump switches do not safety the throttle levers into the idle position. They cut mains power to the fuel pumps themselves, rendering the throttles irrelevant.
Concur. If the report is correct, I can't see any plausible scenario other than the Captain as pilot monitoring turned the switches off while the FO made the takeoff.
MiTasol
Captain
Your last para is half right - these switches open and close shut off valves in the Fuel Control Unit (FCU) on the engine itself and have nothing to do with the fuel pumps which are inside the fuel tanks in the wings and elsewhere.
These are the absolute last valve in each engines fuel system and block the fuel outlet of the FCU so that the engine dies of fuel starvation, rendering the throttle irrelevant.
