If I remember correctly, those switches need to be physically lifted up and rotated for the engines to switch from RUN to CUTOFF. there’s also physical guards there to prevent pilots from knocking them. here’s a diagram of the layout (source).
I’ve read theories that the pilot who manipulated the fuel switches could’ve mistook them for the stabiliser cutout switch but the switches are very different. the timing is also sus because it would’ve been at just the right time for things to have not been recoverable. 10 seconds earlier and the takeoff could’ve been aborted, 10 seconds later and the plane could’ve had enough altitude and speed to land in a safer area. also the way the pilot reacted to the other pilot suggests he saw the other pilot shut off the fuel to both engines one after the other and was in a state of shock
They lift up over a gate and you move them down to shut off, rather than turning. There’s no guard over them though. They’re not really close to any other switches you’d be manipulating at any time, especially right after takeoff, and they are a different shape than any other switch (Boeing likes to shape their switches differently so that if you grab the wrong one you’ll feel it). I cannot imagine how one could accidentally move one, let alone both switches do cutoff. But sometimes my brain does inexplicably dumb shit, so I dunno.
by guards I meant the guard brackets which help prevent accidental movement (source) but I agree I just can’t see this being done accidentally. the look and feel of the switches are just so different it’d be almost like mistaking a red light for a green one with normal colour vision or something. it’s still early days so i’m sure more will come out about the history of the pilots with time. if this does turn out to be intentional it’s pretty scary because it’s something that’s unrecoverable at that phase of flight if it happens and that needs to not happen again
Oh, ya, ok. Those guards are really more to stop you whacking the side of the switches and breaking the plastic lens and lightbulbs in the top of the switch, but because the switches move up and down and not side to side, those brackets really have no impact on the actual moving of the switches, accidental or otherwise.
Given the mechanical saftey built into those switches, Unfortunately I guess that leaves us with two reasonable possibilities:
A) One of the pilots was somehow mistaken on the function of those switches and toggled them when they should not have. Then they genuinely thought they hadn’t when asked why they had cutoff fuel.
Or
B) One of the pilots chose to cut off fuel supply to both engines, intentionally bringing down the plane. They then lied to the other pilot when asked why they’d cutoff fuel.
both pilots were experienced and had also passed breathalyser tests before the flight too (source)
the planes also arent supposed to automatically dip downwards but here we are
You can’t exactly expect a plane to keep flying when you’ve commanded the engines to stop running/taken away their fuel at such a critical time…
I think they’re referring to the software issues that bought down multiple 737 MAXs, though it shouldn’t be relevant here because 787s don’t have the modified software that caused the crashes.
Could have been cut off by one pilot as part of a troubleshooting attempt, maybe? Thinking “it’s not cut off, just a temporary state of affairs” or something like that. Just trying to think of ways this could be a miscommunication instead of blatant misconduct :(
There is no procedure that involves cutting off fuel to both engines while in-flight; one at a time, but not both. Then, there is no procedure that ever involves touching those controls during takeoff. Finally; there would be communication between the pilots discussing any such troubleshooting, they wouldn’t just take it upon themselves to start flipping switches without at the very least letting the other pilot know what they’re doing. Particularly when it comes to troubleshooting; there is a strict set of checklists they go through as a team, with one reading out questions, the other responding with data/answers from the instruments and the first confirming that response.
These were both experienced pilots with ample flight hours; they knew what they were doing at those controls. I’m not going to throw human error out the window entirely, but it’s not looking very likely unfortunately.
Either that plane was brought down intentionally, or there was a stunning error in judgment wildly disregarding procedure in that cockpit that was not communicated at all. (note: the mics record to the blackbox continuously, they’re not ptt, if one of the pilots had said something, it’d be on the tape.)
There’s no communication between the two pilots before the switches were moved to cutoff to suggest they encountered any problems prior to fuel cutoff.
Yeah, I didn’t realize how soon after takeoff this was when I proposed that idea either. There’s no way shutting off the fuel during takeoff would be a reasonable decision.
Sounds like the pilots killed the fuel, and did not mean to do so. Having watched the video, and being totally ignorant of this sort of thing, that makes sense of what I saw.
I’m not trusting any report until I have had heard from Admiral Cloudberg. If you’re not familiar, plane crash investigation is what he does. He’s completely unbiased and seems to be the expert, at least for us layman.
I watched a very comprehensive and professional video by Captain Steeeve on this subject earlier today. He didn’t outright literally say that one of the pilots deliberately downed the plane, but it was very clear that he thought that was the only explanation that really made sense here. Why do you say it sounds like they “did not mean to do so”? The switches are designed to not be movable without considerable deliberation and intent, you can’t just bump these with your knee and switch them off. And both pilots were plenty experienced enough to know that you don’t turn those switches off at that point in the flight.
Highly recommend everyone give this a listen. It covered most of the other possibilities people are bringing up in this thread:
- They have to be pulled out, moved, and pushed back in to change the state
- The plane cannot take off with them in the wrong position
- There is no procedure to ever toggle both off at the same time, and no procedure to toggle them off period at their low altitude
- Both were toggled off within 1 seconds of each other
- The engines were functioning normally when they were toggled off
Captain Steve really tried to not blame the pilots in previous videos about this crash, in fact he really believed it had to be something else, so it says a lot that this is the only conclusion he can come up with.
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." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx20p2x9093t
Until there’s independent evidence otherwise I’m going to assume either fudged maintenance reports or the switch designer at boeing is about to commit suicide by shooting themself in the back of the head hours before talking to the press.
Surely someone committing suicide and taking hundreds of people with him in the process wouldn’t lie about it.
It’s also possible that the one that did it said “why did you do that” to try and shift blame for reason(s) of insurance payout, shame, or something else and the one that said “I didn’t” is telling the truth.
Whichever one did it, that video from Captain Steeeve makes a pretty good case that one of them did.
Cloudberg is a she! You are absolutely correct that she is an excellent subject matter expert though.
No way, really?
Yes way https://bsky.app/profile/kyracloudy.bsky.social
Why the surprise? 😅
Reasonable assumption in a male dominated industry.
Mentour Pilot did a livestream today, he’s also one of the major commercial aviation YouTubers.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/11/india/air-india-crash-report-intl-latam
This article has a photo of the switches in question, and goes into more detail about how they work.
Apparently they need to be pulled to change their orientation, I’m wondering if the mechanism simply wore out?
Not likely. These things are checked before every flight.
Dude. It’s Air India.
Never take Air India.
If that does not take away from the fact that these Pilots were very well skilled.
If the company is at fault it’s due to over scheduling since preliminary report indicates no mechanical failures.
It’s not the skills I’m concerned about
Skilled yes, but apparently concealing a mental health issue. This is a huge cultural issue in aviation. Nobody wants to lose their job, so you just bury it.
Pretty sure if you want to off yourself you’d do it differently
There’s absolutely no proof that these Pilots were suicidal. I think speculation of such is disrespectful until further evidence shows such things such as in the case of MH 370 which is highly speculated with a lot of evidence to be a pilot suicide.
There are redundant systems on modern planes that can handle multiple failures. If they’re saying it’s fuel related my guess is dirty jet fuel. It would explain a stuck fuel valve. There’s lots of ground crew checks before flight, and one is checking the fuel tanks for contamination. Just a speculation.
From the article:
The plane’s fuel was tested and found to be of satisfactory quality,
These switches are evidently monitored by the aircraft’s systems, as the investigators seem to know for a fact when these switches were moved. This is not a “failure”, unless the switch moved by itself.
I’m not sure why you’re trying to “I reckon” this, when we know why the engines stopped.
So I know there has to be a reason why these switches are vitally important but doesn’t it seem weird that you can take a catastrophic action like turning the fuel supply off when you’re in mid-takeoff? If you try and put a modern car in reverse at 65 MPH, the car is like “haha no” and ignores you.
From the article…
The fuel switches were “designed to be intentionally moved,” according to CNN safety analyst David Soucie, who said cases in which all fuel switches were turned off accidentally are “extremely rare.”
“Throughout the years, those switches have been improved to make sure that they cannot be accidentally moved and that they’re not automatic. They don’t move themselves in any manner,” Soucie said on Friday.
And the photo of the throttle (middle) and fuel cutoff switches (bottom):
There’s just one-level-deeper of questions I’d have here. How were the switches designed such that they prevented accidental activation? Because it looks like they just get simply flipped down. Could it be pull-out-and-down? Or maybe there’s a lot of resistance during the switch action?
They have metal detents; you have to pull the lever out, then push it down against a reasonably heavy spring.
These had to be very deliberately moved to the cutoff position.
How were the switches designed such that they prevented accidental activation? Because it looks like they just get simply flipped down. Could it be pull-out-and-down? Or maybe there’s a lot of resistance during the switch action?
The lever-lock fuel switches are designed to prevent accidental activation - they must be pulled up to unlock before flipping, a safety feature dating back to the 1950s. This isn’t a new or weird design. It’s essentially the standard used in basically every plane because it works.
“It would be almost impossible to pull both switches with a single movement of one hand, and this makes accidental deployment unlikely,” a Canada-based air accidents investigator, who wanted to remain unnamed, told the BBC.
You can also just throttle back, which would have the same effect.
Yeah and of course, you can also just ram the thing into the ground. I’d hate to think this was a deliberate act, but it’s certainly possible.
If one pilot tries to ram it into the ground, or just throttles back, the other pilot can fight them for the controls and possibly prevent a crash. When those switches are flipped the engines almost immediately flame out. Even if the other pilot quickly flips them back and prevents the first pilot from doing anything else, it takes time for the engines to automatically relight and spool back up. Done right around liftoff, which seems to be the case from the RAT deployment, there might not be anything the other pilot can do no matter how fast they act.
Edit: According to the flight data recorder, the cutoff switches were flipped 3 seconds after takeoff, one was flipped back on 10 seconds later, the other flipped back 4 seconds after that, and the recording ended 15 seconds later.
Nineteen people died on the ground.
Technically 260 people died on the ground. Because that is where the plane crashed.
However, nineteen people on the ground died.
There is a critical difference in that word order. The former includes everyone who had reached the ground by the time they died, the latter only includes those who were on the ground to begin with, and not those who were on the plane.
Or in other words, the first phrasing highlights destination, the second highlights source. Everyone died on the ground after the plane impacted it, but only 19 were already on the ground when the impact killed them.
The placement of the word “died” is what makes all the difference.
Isn’t English fun?
Please delete your account
didn’t you hear? u/waterSticksToMyBalls@lemmy.world wants you to delete your account!
When I watched the crash video, I thought that something cut the fuel off. Because that was the most likely reason for all engines to stop.
So, if the pilot or copilot did not do it (I assume it is not just a switch that you can trigger accidentally), what other system has the capability to switch off all fuel lines? Fire suppression systems? Some general “switch off”? And how hard would it be to restart fuel supply? Is it possible to override e.g. such a fire suppression system?
Both the left and right switchs were moved to ‘cutoff’, one pilot recognized this and asked the other pilot why, the other pilot denied doing it, then the switches were returned to ‘run’ and the engines began to re-light (this is all straight from the black box recorder). It was too late to recover though, so the plane went down.
There is a mechanical detent requiring you to pull each switch out, then down. They had to be moved deliberately.
So either this was a suicide, or a coverup for just another Boeing failure.
If that’s all true: Why do these suicidal fucks take others out with them?
If it’s not true: Does Boeing have another catastrophic pattern failure?
Why? I don’t know. But some really do.
2015 there was the Germanwings flight where one suicidal pilot locked the other one out of the cockpit after he went to the loo and then intentionally crashed the plane in the Alps, killing everyone on board.
