Air India Plane Crash: Centre Dismisses Report Blaming Pilots

Ram Mohan Naidu, the minister of civil aviation, stated on Saturday that the study on the June 12 Air India tragedy was just preliminary and asked the public and media to hold off on drawing any conclusions until the full results were made public.

According to the preliminary investigation, the fuel feed to the Air India Boeing 787's two engines was cut off three seconds after the aircraft took off from Ahmedabad. Within one second after the fuel feed was cut off, the fuel control switches on the airplane changed from the "RUN" to the "CUTOFF" position.

The Union Minister called the investigation "challenging" and stated that it would be premature to comment on the report due to "several technicalities" involved. This report is being carefully examined by the Civil Aviation Ministry. Let's avoid drawing any hasty judgments. We can't reach a firm decision until the final report is released," Naidu told reporters. He also said that he has faith in the nation's pilots.

Air India Plane Crash: What's in the latest report? 

However, the AAIB report makes no mention of whether the change in the fuel control switches—which govern the flow of fuel into an aircraft's engines—was intentional or unintentional. However, the report mentions the conversation between the pilots that was captured on the cockpit voice recorder. The report shows one pilot questioning the other about why he stopped the fuel. According to the other pilot, he did not stop the fuel.

Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, was in charge of the trip and has 15,638 hours of total flying experience. 32-year-old Clive Kunder, who had 3,403 hours of total experience, was his co-pilot. Muralidhar Mohol, the Minister of State (MoS) for Civil Aviation, stated that since the pilots' communication was so brief, no inferences could be made from it alone.

The Air India airplane, bound for London, collided with the Ahmedabad dormitory building of BJ Medical College within seconds of takeoff. The incident claimed the lives of 260 individuals, including 19 on the ground and 241 passengers and personnel on board.