The pilots on board the fatal Air India crash that claimed the lives of 260 people were heard talking to each other about why a button that helped the plane fly was switched off.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner struck a medical college hostel in a residential part of Ahmedabad, India, at 1.38pm (local time) shortly after takeoff on June 12.
There were 242 passengers and crew on board the aircraft at the time – all of whom died except for 40-year-old British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who miraculously walked out of the wreckage.
Meanwhile, a further 19 people died after the commercial airline crashed into the hostel – that is located roughly a mile from the runway.
Now, the cockpit recording has revealed to investigators the chilling conversation the pilot and co-pilot had just seconds before crashing.
The tail of the airplane sticks out of a medical college hostel after the Air India commercial plane crashed shortly after take-off on June 12 (Elke Scholiers/Getty Images)
The report from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, which was published yesterday (July 11), details that the pilots were arguing over why fuel supplies to the engines were cut off.
It read: “The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS [indicated airspeed] at about 08:08:42 UTC [Coordinated Universal Time – which India Standard Time is five-and-a-half hours ahead of] 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.”
At which point, the report mentions what could be heard in the pilots’ compartment: “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.”
Forensic experts and DGCA officials searching for evidence at Air India Plane crash site, a day after the collision in Ahmedabad, India (Raju Shinde/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
The Air India jet was understood to have been carrying 54,200kg of fuel at the time which is within the ‘allowable limits’.
Referring to data recovered from the plane’s two Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorders (EAFR), the report continued: “As per the EAFR, the Engine 1 fuel cutoff switch transitioned from CUTOFF to RUN at about 08:08:52 UTC. The APU [auxiliary power unit that provides electrical power and compressed air to the aircraft systems, when the main engines are shut down] Inlet Door began opening at about 08:08:54 UTC, consistent with the APU Auto Start logic.
“Thereafter, at 08:08:56 UTC the Engine 2 fuel cutoff switch also transitions from CUTOFF to RUN. When fuel control switches are moved from CUTOFF to RUN while the aircraft is inflight, each engine’s full authority dual engine control (FADEC) automatically manages a relight and thrust recovery sequence of ignition and fuel introduction.”
As for how the commercial plane was destroyed, it adds that a ‘subsequent fire’ arose after it impacted ‘a total of five buildings’ which each ‘suffered major structural and fire damages’.
