Air India Crash: US Report Points to Possible Fuel Cutoff by Pilot

An Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad last month. It was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. There were 241 people on board. Only one person survived. Nineteen people on the ground also died.

A U.S. news report says the captain may have turned off the engines. The report is from the Wall Street Journal. It is based on a voice recording from the cockpit.

The co-pilot asked the captain why he turned the fuel switches to cutoff. This stopped fuel from reaching the engines. The co-pilot sounded scared. The captain stayed calm.

Both engines stopped. The plane crashed just 32 seconds after takeoff.

The captain was Sumeet Sabharwal. He had over 15,000 flying hours. The co-pilot was Clive Kunder. He had over 3,400 flying hours.

India’s aviation minister said this is only an early report. He said we should not jump to conclusions. The final report will take time.

A pilots’ group in India called the U.S. report wrong and unfair. They said the early report does not blame the pilots. They plan to take action against the U.S. newspaper.

Air India checked all its planes. It looked at the fuel control switches. No problems were found. A part called the Throttle Control Module was already replaced earlier.