Air India crash investigation turns spotlight on captain’s role
Recent developments in the investigation into last month's Air India crash have raised new concerns about the role of the senior pilot.
According to The Wall Street Journal, a cockpit recording reveals that the captain may have deliberately interrupted the flow of fuel to the aircraft's engines, News.Az reports.
This revelation, based on early findings from U.S. officials, points to a potential critical error by the senior pilot in the June 12 crash of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in Ahmedabad, India, which claimed 260 lives.
The preliminary report by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), released Saturday, highlights an exchange between the pilots. One questioned why the fuel was cut off, while the other denied the action. As the investigation continues, attention is now turning to the captain’s decisions leading up to the disaster.
Investigators did not identify which remarks were made by Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and which by First Officer Clive Kunder, who had total flying experience of 15,638 hours and 3,403 hours, respectively.
Kunder, who was flying the plane, asked Sabharwal why he moved the fuel switches to the "cutoff" position seconds after lifting off the runway, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Journal did not say if there was any evidence that Sabharwal did move the switches, beyond the verbal exchange it cited. But it quoted U.S. pilots who have read the Indian authorities’ report as saying that Kunder, the pilot actively flying, likely would have had his hands full pulling back on the Dreamliner’s controls at that stage of the flight.
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