I just want to call out that, whatever the facts of this case, pilot heroism is way more common than pilot murder. This is off the top of my head, so don't quote me on the precise details, I'm probably misremembering some things. But a few of my favorite examples:
- British Airways 5390: An incorrect repair causes the windshield of a plane to be blown out mid flight. A pilot is nearly sucked out. The head flight attendant holds onto his legs to keep him in the plane. The copilot and flight attendant think he is dead, but they keep the situation under control and land the plane.
- United 232: An engine explodes in the tail of an MD-10. Due to rotten luck and weaknesses in the design, it takes out all three of the redundant hydraulic systems, rendering the control surfaces inoperable.
There's a pilot onboard as a passenger who, it just so happens, has read about similar incidents in other aircraft and trained for this scenario on his own initiative. He joins the other pilots in the cockpit and they figure out how to use the engines to establish rudimentary control.
They crash just short of the runway. 112 people die, but 184 people survive.
- Pinnacle 3701: Two pilots mess around with an empty plane. They take it up to it's operational ceiling. While they're goofing off, they don't realize they're losing momentum. They try to correct too late and cannot land safely.
In their last moments they decide to sacrifice any chance they have to survive by not deploying their landing gear. They choose to glide for the maximum distance to avoid hitting houses, rather than maximizing how much impact is absorbed. They do hit a house but no one else is killed.
Anyone who does on-call should look into aviation disasters. Crew resource management, the aviate-navigate-communicate loop, it's all very applicable. ('WalterBright is an excellent source of commentary on applying lessons from the airline industry to software.)
But I did burn out on Mentour Pilot after a while, I just had my fill of tragedy.
decimalenough · 8h ago
> The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC 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.
So the fuel supply was cut off intentionally. The switches in question are also built so they cannot be triggered accidentally, they need to be unlocked first by pulling them out.
> 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.
And both pilots deny doing it.
It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
well hold your horses there... from the FAA in their 2019 report linked above:
> The Boeing Company (Boeing) received reports from operators of Model 737 airplanes that the fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged. The fuel control switches (or engine start switches) are installed on the control stand in the flight deck and used by the pilot to supply or cutoff fuel to the engines. The fuel control switch has a locking feature to prevent inadvertent operation that could result in unintended switch movement between the fuel supply and fuel cutoff positions. In order to move the switch from one position to the other under the condition where the locking feature is engaged, it is necessary for the pilot to lift the switch up while transitioning the switch position. If the locking feature is disengaged, the switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting the switch during transition, and the switch would be exposed to the potential of inadvertent operation. Inadvertent operation of the switch could result in an unintended consequence, such as an in-flight engine shutdown. Boeing informed the FAA that the fuel control switch design, including the locking feature, is similar on various Boeing airplane models. The table below identifies the affected airplane models and related part numbers (P/Ns) of the fuel control switch, which is manufactured by Honeywell.
> If the locking feature is disengaged, the switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting the switch during transition, and the switch would be exposed to the potential of inadvertent operation. Inadvertent operation of the switch could result in an unintended consequence, such as an in-flight engine shutdown
Both of these extremely-experienced pilots say that there was near zero chance that the fuel switches were unintentionally moved. They were switched off within one second of each other, which rules out most failure scenarios.
If it was an issue with the switches, we also would have seen an air worthiness directive being issued. But they didn’t, because this was a mass murder.
chrisandchris · 52m ago
> If it was an issue with the switches, we also would have seen an air worthiness directive being issued.
I do not trust these air worthiness directives 100.0%. The 737 Max also required two catastrophic failures before it was grounded.
What is "01 second" as quoted above? If it's 1 second, you could possibly conclude that it was intentional. If it's 0.1 second you might think it was an accident and the lock was disengaged.
mjevans · 59m ago
Many systems log samples at an intervale of one sample per second. I could easily envision a transition event where a bump or brush of something sufficiently toggles one switch and then a fraction of a second later the other.
bayesianbot · 53m ago
Between (0, 2)s.
Apparently the times are rounded down, so it could be :42.001 and :43.999, or :42.999 and :43.001
JumpCrisscross · 1h ago
One second. (Runway four is frequently zero four because radios.)
russdill · 5h ago
These switches are operated at startup and shutdown. So pretty much daily. By pilots and likely maintenance crews. Such a defect with not to unnoticed for long
cosmicgadget · 7h ago
Is it easy to inadvertantly move both switches in such a scenario?
sandspar · 2h ago
The switches are spring-loaded, notched in place, and have a rubber knob on the top. A pilot must squeeze the knob, remove the switch from its ON notch, press the switch, click it into the OFF notch, then release the knob.
Doing it accidentally is impossible.
lysace · 5h ago
No.
mdavid626 · 7h ago
Well, can you move it back, when accidentally activated?
stetrain · 3h ago
They were moved back to the run position 10 seconds after being switched off, and the engines were in the very early stages of restarting by the time of the crash. It was too late.
the__alchemist · 6h ago
Yes, and it restarts the engines, but it takes on the order of seconds; too long at that altitude. One of the pilots did that, but it was too late.
TylerE · 3h ago
More like 30 seconds. Just throttling an already running engine up from idle (which is quite a bit above zero throttle in most respects) takes seconds.
joshAg · 6h ago
at least one of the pilots did. according to the preliminary report, the switches were only in the cutoff position for 10 seconds before being switched back to the run position and the engines started to spin up again
alvah · 5h ago
Turbines take a while to spin up again, it's not like start/stop in a car.
barbazoo · 8h ago
Same manufacturer, Air India 171 was a 787-8 though.
shoghicp · 8h ago
The affected table includes these models as well: 787-8, -9, and -10
ggreer · 7h ago
The only affected models were 737s with the 766AT613-3D fuel control switch. The bulletin recommended that other models be inspected and any defects reported. It's unclear if any 787s were discovered to have the issue. Also the preliminary report mentions that the switches were replaced in 2019 and 2023, after the 2018 bulletin.
lazystar · 7h ago
still, it at least shows that there's been issues with the locking mechanism in the past. inadvertently bumping something that was assumed to be locked is a simpler theory; i find it hard to believe that a murder suicider would take this route, when the china nosedive option is easier, faster, and has a higher chance of success.
ggreer · 5h ago
The preliminary report says the switches were triggered a second apart, so it would have to have been faulty switches and two inadvertent bumps. That seems unlikely to me.
somat · 2h ago
Within a second apart. If I read the report right. The time resolution of the recorder?
And yes, it does sound like it was probably intentional. I would still like to see an engineering review of the switch system. Are they normally open or normally closed, In the end the switch instructs the FADEC to cut the fuel, but where does the wiring go in the meantime? what software is in the path? would the repair done before the flight be in that area?(pilot defect report for message STABS POS XCDR), and perhaps compromised the wires?
cosmicgadget · 6h ago
Cutting fuel just after takeoff leaves almost zero time for the other pilot to recover.
bombcar · 6h ago
It's interesting to try to imagine a device that would prevent that, without causing more issues.
My preliminary idea is a "fuel bladder" for take-off that inflates with enough fuel to get the plane to a recoverable altitude, maybe a few thousand feet?
cosmicgadget · 5h ago
I think engine fires are still more common than suicidal pilots and inadvertant fuel shutoff activations.
bombcar · 4h ago
The idea would be something that is ONLY operational after V₁ and until some safe height.
Or maybe a design that prevents both switches being off (flip flop?) for X minutes after wheel weight is removed?
Again, it’s probably pointless but it’s an interesting thought exercise.
Suicidal pilots are apparently more common than we’d want.
stephen_g · 3h ago
It’s a pointless exercise though - if one of the pilots wants to crash the plane, there’s almost nothing that can possibly be done. Only if someone can physically restrain them and remove them from the controls.
There’s always going to be many ways they could crash the plane, such a feature wouldn’t help. The pilots are the only people you can’t avoid fully trusting on the plane.
winter_blue · 38m ago
So basically we need software that can 100% autonomously fly a plane. Software that is extremely reliable and trustworthy, basically. Software with multiple fallback options. Multiple AI agents verifying every action this software takes. Plus, ground-based teams monitoring the agents and the autonomous flight software.
cosmicgadget · 4h ago
The flip flop thing is a neat idea since a single engine can typically maintain level flight and two burning engines is rare.
sugarpimpdorsey · 1h ago
> My preliminary idea is a "fuel bladder" for take-off that inflates
Will the bladder be marketed by Kramerica Industries?
barbazoo · 7h ago
Thanks for pointing it out.
sugarpimpdorsey · 1h ago
Totally different airplane with a totally different flight deck, designed generations apart. The fact that the manufacturer is the same is irrelevant.
You are trying to draw parallels between the ignition switch in a 1974 Ford Pinto and a 2025 Ford Mustang as if there could be a connection. No.
sbuttgereit · 1h ago
And yet the preliminary report for the incident in question includes reference to that bulletin, indicates that the switches in the accident aircraft were of a very similar design and subject to advisory inspections:
"The FAA issued Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB ) No. NM -18-33 on
December 17, 2018, regarding the potential disengagement ofthe fuel control switch locking
feature. This SAIB was issued based on reports from operators of Model 737 airplanes that
the fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged. The airworthiness
concern was not considered an unsafe condition that would warrant airworthiness directive
(AD) by the FAA. The fuel control switch design , including the locking feature, is similar on
various Boeing airplane models including part number 4TL837-3D which is fitted in B787-8
aircraft VT-ANB. As per the information from Air India, the suggested inspections were not
carried out asthe SAIB was advisory and not mandatory. The scrutiny ofmaintenance records
revealed that the throttle control module was replaced on VT-ANB in 2019 and 2023.
However, the reason for the replacement was not linked to the fuel control switch. There has
been no defect reported pertaining to the fuel control switch since 2023 on VT-ANB."
So while I agree that this being the cause sounds unlikely, referencing the switch issue is something relevant enough for the report itself.
tekla · 8h ago
They don't mention the locking mechanism being disabled
darth_avocado · 6h ago
One would assume a toggle like that would come with blaring alarms and blinking lights… right? Right??
Edit: It also seems like the engine cutoff is immediate after the toggle. I wonder if a built in delay would make sense for safety.
cjbprime · 5h ago
> I wonder if a built in delay would make sense for safety.
(Presumably delaying the amount of time before a raging engine fire stops receiving fuel would also have an impact on safety?)
lazide · 6h ago
Low altitude, stall, and impact with terrain certainly will.
And with how low and slow they were during takeoff, those would have been going off almost instantly.
burnt-resistor · 1h ago
> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
You're leaping into the minds of others and drawing conclusions of their intent. One of them moved the levers. It could've been an unplanned reaction, a terrible mistake, or it could've been intentional. We may never know the intention even with a comprehensive and complete investigation. To claim otherwise is arrogance.
epolanski · 1h ago
The car equivalent is being on a highway and "mistakenly" pulling the hand brakes, except that there are 2 hand brakes and you need to first unlock both of them.
That's very hard to do by panic and mistake, if not impossible by design.
burnt-resistor · 12m ago
Bad analogy because pilots are trained and rehearse and practice memory items until they are instinctual.
> impossible by design.
Deflecting that the human is the weakest part of the system. One or other may have panicked and made a mistake, went crazy and doomed the flight, or intentionally doomed the flight for some socioeconomic reasons. These are speculative possibilities that we don't know yet, and may never know; we only know what has definitely happened from the evidence per the investigation. It's standing way out over one's feet to declare from an armchair that it was "definitely" X or Y before the investigation is complete.
epolanski · 4m ago
Cutting fuel on two different engines is indeed not something you would do by instinct.
I'm not dying on a hill, planes have crashed because pilots mistakenly press the wrong buttons or levers, which is why those uncommon operations require effort to do so.
sugarpimpdorsey · 1h ago
> One of them moved the levers. It could've been an unplanned reaction, a terrible mistake, or it could've been intentional.
Fuel levers are designed to only be moved deliberately; they cannot be mistaken for something else by a professional pilot. It's literally their job to know where these buttons are, what they do, and when to (not) push them.
It's not arrogance to assume the most likely conclusion is true, despite how uncomfortable that outcome may be.
burnt-resistor · 9m ago
> cannot be mistaken for something else
Assumption. Big ass assumption.
Pilot are trained until actions are instinctual and certain memory items are almost unconscious. But pilots are still people and people are fallible and make mistakes, and sometimes act unreasonably. Intent cannot be determined without clear evidence or statements because that's now how thoughts locked away in people's minds work.
> It's not arrogance to assume the most likely conclusion is true
You don't know this. This is beyond the capability to know and is therefore pure speculation. That is the definition of arrogance.
ExoticPearTree · 33m ago
> And both pilots deny doing it.
> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
You’re trying to prove a negative here.
I am not familiar with the 787 operations, but there are a few issues that need to be sorted out first:
- altitude when pilots start the after takeoff checklist
- if there are any other switches that are operated in tandem in the general vicinity of where the engine cutoff switches are
- if the cutoff switches had the locking mechanisms present, and if not, if they could be moved inadvertently by the pilot flying hand
Discarding other possibilities in an investigation can have adverse consequences.
Did you ever always push the right buttons every time?
ummonk · 8h ago
Yeah and the other pilot flipped the switches back on and one of the engines started spooling up but it was too late.
Murder-suicide looks like the likely conclusion, given that flipping the cutoff switches requires a very deliberate action. That said, it's not entirely impossible that due to stress or fatigue the pilot had some kind of mental lapse and post-flight muscle memory (of shutting off the engines) kicked in when the aircraft lifted off.
breadwinner · 7h ago
> post-flight muscle memory (of shutting off the engines) kicked in
Possible, and if so it is too early to conclude it was murder-suicide.
The report shows 0 flight hours during the prior 24 hours for both pilots, and 7 hours and 6 hours each for the previous 7 days. It seems they were both fresh pilots for this flight.
alphabettsy · 6h ago
that doesn’t tell us they were fresh. Only that they hadn’t flown. They could’ve slept 0 hours before or any number of things.
moralestapia · 17m ago
Sure, and aliens could also be involved.
However, the only relevant evidence that exists suggests they had enough rest. You don't build verdicts on suppositions, you build them on proven facts.
This does not guarantee you will reach the truth, but it's miles better than admitting every baseless hypothesis that comes up.
whatevaa · 6m ago
This is preliminary report. They will look deeper into this.
Don't sentence people on unfinished investigations. This is why most trials are not public, because of people like you.
> So the fuel supply was cut off intentionally. The switches in question are also built so they cannot be triggered accidentally
FAA issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin SAIB NM-18-33 in 2018 warning that on several Boeing models including the 787 the locking mechanism of the fuel switches could be inoperative.
Per FAA the checks were recommended but not mandatory.
ceejayoz · 8h ago
> The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC 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.
> As per the EAFR, the Engine 1 fuel cutoff switch transitioned from CUTOFF to RUN at about 08:08:52 UTC.
Damn. That's pretty quick to diagnose and take action.
Boeing's probably gonna have a big sigh of relief over this one.
dehrmann · 5h ago
> Boeing's probably gonna have a big sigh of relief over this one.
The 787 is 15 years old, and this particular plane was 10 years old. It always seemed unlikely to be a major, new issue. My money was actually on maintenance.
prepend · 3h ago
I once worked with a software engineer who would do things and then bald face lie about it. This reminds me of that person.
Me: “The build is breaking right after you checked in. Why did you do that?”
Him:”I did not do so.”
Me: “The commit shows it as you. And when I rolled back everything builds.”
Him:”It must have been someone else.”
That person was really annoying.
bgwalter · 8h ago
Does the Flight Data Recorder consider the physical position of the fuel switches or does it get the information from some fly-by-wire part that could be buggy?
The conversation would suggest that the switches were in CUTOFF position, but there is also a display that summarizes the engine status.
There is no conversation that mentions flipping the switch to RUN again.
EDIT: Why is there no Cockpit Video Recorder? The days of limited storage are over.
ssl232 · 7h ago
> EDIT: Why is there no Cockpit Video Recorder? The days of limited storage are over.
Pilots unions are dead against it.
bombcar · 6h ago
And now some pilots are dead.
Just allow cockpit video recorders, and if they're ever used for anything, the pilots (or their heirs) get $250k in cash.
ekianjo · 2h ago
And Pilots end up dead because of it.
gnulinux996 · 4h ago
Are you actually using a tragedy like this to launch an assault on organized labour?
JumpCrisscross · 1h ago
Why is that outrageous?
WalterBright · 3h ago
I've had discussions on HN with people who insisted that having a video camera always pointed out the control tower at the runway was some sort of impossibility. Despite every 7-11 having such a system.
This would leave accident investigators with a lot of work to do to try to figure out how a collision happened.
nikanj · 6h ago
Airlines are decades behind on tech. You can get satellite internet almost anywhere on the planet and GPS can give you ten-foot accurate positioning, but we've still _lost_ planes because we haven't mandated a system that sends the realtime position of the plane over the satellite internet. The days of limited storage are still going strong in the industry.
karlgkk · 2h ago
There are reasons they don’t. This is a deceptively difficult problem
Cost is a big one (satellite data is still quite a bit more expensive than you think, especially with many stations)
And by stations, I mean aircraft. There are a TON. Current constellations probably wouldn’t even be able to handle half the current aircraft transmitting all at once. Bandwidth, in the physical sense, becomes a limiting factor
Coverage (different constellations have different coverage, which means planes would not have transmit guarantees depending on flight path). So you’d have huge gaps anyways
There have been alternative solutions posed, some of which are advancing forward. For example, GPS aware ELTs that only transmit below certain altitudes. But even that has flaws
Anyways I think we’ll see it in the next decade or two, but don’t hold your breath
lxgr · 46m ago
Most airplanes regularly crossing oceans already do have satcom.
The cost of hardware and additional fuel consumption due to drag aren’t nothing, but the data used itself is essentially a rounding error. (Iridium for example has tiny antennas, and SBD data costs about a dollar per kilobyte, and position data is tiny.)
Of course, that’s all little help when a pilot acts adversarial; on MH370, the breakers for both satcom and transponder were likely pulled, for example.
ekianjo · 2h ago
> Cost is a big one (satellite data is still quite a bit more expensive than you think, especially with many stations)
You get free Starlink on several airlines now, so won't that be a solved problem soon?
lxgr · 45m ago
Free to passengers doesn’t mean free to the airline, and Starlink in commercial airliners is very new.
tekla · 7h ago
Yes there is.
Waterluvian · 4h ago
Not that humans are known to behave rationally when trying to commit suicide, but it’s interesting that the switches were re-engaged successfully without protest or a fight. It’s just an interesting detail to wonder about.
yardstick · 4h ago
The reasoning I’ve heard is: it didn’t matter anymore, the damage was already done and there was no way any attempts at recovering from it would have been successful.
ExoticPearTree · 13m ago
There would have been an inaction on the part of the pilot that did this, but it is not mentioned in the CVR transcript.
Hard to believe the other pilot wouldn’t have said anything.
Recovering the airplane and have some people survive the crash are two very different things.
card_zero · 20m ago
Cutting the engines within seconds of leaving the ground doesn't fit suicide very well. I'd expect something more like flying into the side of a mountain or heading really far out into the Indian ocean until you vanish from radar and cause a big mystery.
For instance, you might deliberately kill yourself by driving your car really fast into something solid, but you probably wouldn't try to do that while backing out of the garage.
coolspot · 11m ago
I think it is opposite.
Flying into a mountain & etc would require one pilot to somehow incapacitate another pilot.
Cutting fuel off, if done on takeoff, is not recoverable (engines can’t relight and spin up quickly enough).
WalterBright · 3h ago
> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
Remember that incident where a cop pulled out his taser and tased the suspect? Except he pulled out his pistol and fired it.
The taser looks nothing like a pistol, feels nothing like it, yet it is still possible to confuse the two in the heat of the moment.
throwawaycan · 1h ago
It’s always easy in those threads to see who’s familiar with the world of aviation and who’s not.
No it’s not comparable to a cop that confuses things in the heat of the moment. Not anywhere close to be relatable.
If it was, planes would be crashing down the sky quite often (and it would have been fixed for decades already).
__turbobrew__ · 6h ago
I wonder if the switches are still in tact after the crash? Can they verify that the switches are mechanically sound? If so, seems highly likely it was intentional.
pigbearpig · 6h ago
There are pictures of them in the report.
michaelmrose · 20m ago
Given the recent boundless incompetence by Boeing why not ask if their is any way for such to fail out of scope of the normal interface?
userbinator · 4h ago
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
Or more precisely, the signals which come from them were found to behave as such.
Without any audible record of turning the switches off, I wouldn't blame the pilots without first checking the wiring and switches themselves for faults. This reminds me of the glitches caused by tin whiskers.
Epa095 · 3h ago
But from the audio recording it seems like one pilot is noticing them bering in the CUTOFF position, and asking why (and moving it back). If the switch was actually in RUN, but some other issue caused the signal to be sendt, the pilot would see it beeing in the RUN position, not CUTTOF.
michaelmrose · 9m ago
Are they looking at the physical switch or data about the state of the engine displayed in some other fashion?
crtified · 4h ago
I agree, there's a significant distinction between "the switches were (physically) flipped" and "the circuit was opened/closed".
In this case, it may be a moot distinction, particularly if no physical evidence of fault or tampering has been discovered in investigation. But, in theory, very important - there's a lot of potential grey-area between the two statements.
The proximity of the incident to the ground may also increase the possible attack vectors for simple remote triggers.
usefulcat · 4h ago
If that was the case, it does seem a bit odd that there was a one second gap. But yeah, still worth investigating, if that’s even possible given the extensive damage.
alephnerd · 8h ago
> It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
Is it possible it could have been an accident or a mistake by one of the pilots? How intention-proofed are engine cutoffs?
ummonk · 8h ago
You have to pull the switches out (against a spring) to be able to move them over a notch and flip them. Not really something you can just mistake for another switch or bump into by accident.
I'd liken it to turning off the ignition by turning the key while driving your car. Possibly something that could happen if you're really fatigued, but requires quite a mental lapse.
magicalhippo · 3h ago
Is it possible to rest the switch on the notch? Does the switch make contact if the switch is in the RUN position but the switch is not completely down?
That is, is it possible they flipped the switches over to RUN but did not seat the switches properly, and instead leaving them on top of the notch, with later vibration causing the switches to disengage?
Just trying to think of some semi-plausible non-active causes.
joezydeco · 7h ago
Report says the switches went to cutoff one second apart from each other. Can a human do the physical operation on two switches that quickly?
Are you completely sure you can considering that they are spring loaded and they are like 7-10cm apart judging by the size of other controls?
snypher · 6h ago
I don't understand your question. I have done this myself, am I completely sure?
cosmicgadget · 5h ago
Did you mean to say you can activate the switches with one hand simultaneously? That is probably what the above commenter assumed you meant. Since lifting and twisting two switches simultaneously with one hand seems challenging.
lanna · 4h ago
Above commenter said _quickly_, not simultaneously
cosmicgadget · 1h ago
Jesus...
joey: Can you switch them quickly?
snypher: You can do them with one hand. [Ed. This is ambiguous and could be read as "one hand, simultaneously". In fact, doing it with one hand non-simultaneously would be a weird claim to make of a simple knob. See also ajb's comment below.]
zihotki: Really? They are not close together and have a spring mechanism. [Ed. Seems to believe snypher is claiming simultaneous operation.]
snypher: I am confused by the response.
Me: [Tries to facilitate clarification]
JumpCrisscross · 1h ago
> This is ambiguous and could be read as "one hand, simultaneously"
Not within the context of the thread.
ra7 · 1h ago
Context is both these switches being turned off with a 1 second gap. Doing it with one hand simultaneously would possibly explain it, otherwise it doesn’t seem relevant.
mvdtnz · 5h ago
It didn't happen simultaneously so this is irrelevant.
cosmicgadget · 5h ago
It is relevant to the interaction I replied to.
ryandrake · 1h ago
You’re the only one who said “simultaneously.”
cosmicgadget · 1h ago
See above.
arp242 · 4h ago
Is there just one set of switches? Or do both pilots have their own set?
ExoticPearTree · 8m ago
Only one set.
ajb · 6h ago
If you do them both with one hand, would they not be moved at the same instant rather than 1 second apart?
lazide · 6h ago
They require a per-switch motion, so unlikely.
heisenbit · 7h ago
The timing is really curious.
08:08:35 Vr
08:08:39 Liftoff
08:08:42 Engine 1 cut-off
08:08:42 Engine 2 cut-off
08:08:47 minimum idel speed reached
?? One pilot to other: why cut-off. Other: Did not do it
08:08:52 Engine 1 run
08:08:52 Engine 2 run
1 second to switch them both off and then 4 seconds to switch them both on. No one admitted to switch them off. They are probably going with fine comb over the audio and also the remains of the chared switches.
Looks like the engines react very quickly to cut-off so it is not clear whether the question about the cut-off is prompted by a glance to the switches or the feel of the airplane.
The big question is whether the switches were moved or something made it seem as if the switches were moved.
cosmicgadget · 6h ago
Well in the murder-suicide scenario it makes sense for the culprit to turn them off as quickly as possible. The longer time to turn them on could plausibly be a struggle or simply needing to fly the plane while reaching for each switch individually.
XorNot · 2h ago
Assuming the person trying to kill themselves and a plane load of people would respond in an expected way to inquiry is also just a mistake.
It's not a rational decision, so there's no reason to expect rational decision making or explanation on the output.
xenadu02 · 7h ago
It could be defective switch springs, fatigue-induced muscle memory error, or something else. The pilot who did it saying he did not may not have realized what he did. It's pretty common under high workload when you flip the wrong switch or move a control the wrong way to think that you did what you intended to do, not what you actually did.
That said Boeing could take a page out of the Garmin GI275. When power is removed it pops up a "60s to shutdown dialog" that you can cancel. Even if you accidentally press SHUTDOWN it only switches to a 10s countdown with a "CANCEL" button.
They could insert a delay if weight on wheels is off. First engine can shutdown when commanded but second engine goes on 60s delay with EICAS warning countdown. Or just always insert a delay unless the fire handle is pulled.
Still... that has its own set of risks and failure modes to consider.
pixl97 · 5h ago
When your engine catches on fire/blows apart on takeoff you want to cut fuel as fast as possible.
SJC_Hacker · 3h ago
If its both engines you're fucked anyway if its shortly after takeoff.
But I'm an advocate of KISS. At a certain point you have to trust the pilot is not going to something extremely stupid/suicidal. Making overly complex systems to try to protect pilots from themselves leads to even worse issues, such as the faulty software in the Boeing 737-MAX.
OneMorePerson · 5h ago
Was thinking this same thing. A minute feels like a long time to us (using a Garmin as the example said) but a decent number of airplane accidents only take a couple minutes end to end between everything being fine and the crash. Building an insulation layer between the machine and the experts who are supposed to be flying it only makes it less safe by reducing control.
p1mrx · 3h ago
Proposed algorithm: If the flight computer thinks the engine looks "normal", then blare an alarm for x seconds before cutting the fuel.
I wonder if there have been cases where a pilot had to cut fuel before the computer could detect anything abnormal? I do realize that defining "abnormal" is the hardest part of this algorithm.
OneMorePerson · 5m ago
The incident with Sully landing in the Hudson is an interesting one related to this. They had a dual birdstrike and both engines were totally obliterated and had no thrust at all, but it came up later in the hearing that the computer data showed that one engine still had thrust due to a faulty sensor, so that type of sensor input can't really be trusted in a true emergency/edge case, especially if a sensor malfunctions while an engine is on fire or something.
As a software engineer myself I think it's interesting that we feel software is the true solution when we wouldn't accept that solution ourselves. For example typically in a company you do code reviews and have a release gating process but also there's some exception process for quickly committing code or making adjustments when theres an outage or something. Could you imagine if the system said "hey we aren't detecting an outage, you sure about that? why don't you go take a walk and get a coffee, if you still think there's an outage in 15 minutes from now we will let you make that critical change".
lxgr · 35m ago
If the computer could tell perfectly whether the engine “looks normal” or not, there wouldn’t be any need for a switch. If it can’t, the switch most likely needs to work without delay in at least some situations.
In safety-critical engineering, you generally either automate things fully (i.e. to exceed human capabilities in all situations, not just most), or you keep them manual. Half-measures of automation kill people.
aerospace83 · 5h ago
Armchair safety/human factors engineering, gotta love HN.
mitthrowaway2 · 1h ago
Yeah, people shouldn't bat ideas around and read replies from other people about why those ideas wouldn't work. Somebody might learn something, and that would be bad.
zahlman · 4h ago
This is a place that puts "Hacker" in the name despite the stigma in the mainstream. Given the intended meaning of the term, I would naturally expect this to be a place where people can speculate and reason from first principles, on the information available to them, in search of some kind of insight, without being shamed for it.
You don't have to like that culture and you also don't have to participate in it. Making a throwaway account to complain about it is not eusocial behaviour, however. If you know something to be wrong with someone else's reasoning, the expected response is to highlight the flaw.
macintux · 2h ago
For me it's mainly about intent/unearned confidence.
If someone is speculating about how such a problem might be solved while not trying to conceal their lack of direct experience, I'm fine with it, but not everyone is.
If someone is accusing the designers of being idiots, with the fix "obvious" because reasons, well, yeah, that's unhelpful.
aerospace83 · 2h ago
> That said Boeing could take a page out of the Garmin GI275
This is not "reasoning from first principles". In fact, I don't think there is any reasoning in the comment.
There is an implication that an obvious solution exists, and then a brief description of said solution.
I am all for speculation and reasoning outside of one's domain, but not low quality commentary like "ugh can't you just do what garmin did".
This is not a throwaway, I'm a lurker, but was compelled to comment. IMHO HN is not the place for "throwaway" ad hominems.
sdgsdgssdg · 2h ago
(Different user here) Hacker News' "culture" is one of VC tech bros trying to identify monopolies to exploit, presumably so they can be buried with all their money when they die. There's less critical thinking here than you'd find in comments sections for major newspapers.
dale_huevo · 12m ago
If Boeing only had the foresight to hire an army of HN webshitters to design the cockpit, this disaster could have been averted.
All the controls would be on a giant touchscreen, with the fuel switches behind a hamburger button (that responded poorly and erratically to touch gestures). Even a suicidal pilot wouldn't be able to activate it.
rogerrogerr · 6h ago
Delay is probably worse - now you're further disassociating the effect of the action from the action itself, breaking the usual rule: if you change something, and don't like the effect, change it back.
groos · 3h ago
Suicide is quite a stretch without any supporting evidence from the pilots' backgrounds. I would take mental fog, cognitive overload, wrong muscle memory, even a defective fuel cutoff system over suicide.
ls-a · 5h ago
So you're telling me that those switches don't have a voice that says "fuel cutoff switches transitioned" like in the movies? That's bad design
moralestapia · 25m ago
>It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
This kind of attitude gets innocent people behind bars for life. Disgusting.
It's difficult to conclude anything until the investigation is finished and I hope the ones who are carrying it out are as levelheaded, neutral and professional as possible.
YetAnotherNick · 3h ago
Reminds me of 2017 Las Vegas shooting. The perpetrator looked and acted completely normal till the day of shooting and all his issues like anxiety or losing money was nothing far from ordinary. And what seems all of a sudden did a well planned shooting and didn't bother to leave a note or tell his story.
refulgentis · 2h ago
Free memento mori: you're both free-associating.
There's 0 reason to conclude murder-suicide, there's an infinitude of things that could have the same result, and both pilots denied it to eachother: how is that presented as proof?
I hope I don't need to explain why the fact no one knew in advance the Las Vegas shooter was going to shoot has ~0 similarities with the situation as we know it, and banal similarities with every murder.
chupchap · 8h ago
Or a mechanical failure
ceejayoz · 8h ago
Both switches, at slightly different times? Seems pretty unlikely.
userbinator · 4h ago
A rodent chewing on wires. Vibration-induced chafing. Tin whiskers causing an intermittent short. There are many possibilities, those came to mind first.
Epa095 · 3h ago
But why does the pilot then comment that they are in the CUTTOF position and move it to RUN? A mechanical failure would have to also move the physical switch in the cockpit for the audio recording to make sence.
userbinator · 3h ago
You have the exact CVR audio? The report says "one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff" which I interpreted to mean one of them noticed the engines shutting down, and asked the other if he did that.
bronson · 2h ago
Then he would have asked the other pilot why the engines are shutting down. It seems a lot more probable that he glanced at the switches before asking such an explicit question.
userbinator · 1h ago
Without listening to the CVR audio and knowing what they actually said, there's no evidence either way, and AFAIK they have not released that.
apical_dendrite · 3h ago
We know that the switches physically moved from the run to the cutoff position because one of the pilots noted that they were in the wrong position. We know that they were moved back to the run position because they found in that position. I don't understand how a short could explain that - it really seems like someone would have had to physically move the switches.
Spooky23 · 1h ago
Serious question: why is it so difficult to fathom that a deranged pilot could decide to commit suicide by plane?
dcreater · 7h ago
Do you know if the mechanical position of the switch guarantees its electronic state without any possibility for hardware malfunction? If no, then you are claiming a person made one of the most grave acts of inhumanity ever.
This sounds to me like an electronics issue - an intermittent, inadvertent state transition likely due to some PCB component malfunction
K0balt · 6h ago
The time between the two switches being activated and then them being switched back on after being noticed strongly suggests that they were actually manipulated. Malice looke very likely to me. An investigation into the pilots life may turn something up, I guess.
It’s worth noting that Premeditation or “intention” doesn’t have to factor into this.
Studies of survivors of impulse suicides (jumping off of bridges etc) indicate that many of them report having no previous suicidal ideation, no intention or plan to commit suicide, and in many cases no reported depression or difficulties that might encourage suicide.
Dark impulses exist and they don’t always get caught in time by the supervisory conscious process. Most people have experienced this in its more innocuous forms, the call of the void and whatnot, but many have also been witness to thoughtless destructive acts that defy reason and leave the perpetrator confused and in denial.
dcreater · 4h ago
> The time between the two switches being activated and then them being switched back on after being noticed strongly suggests that they were actually manipulated
How so? It is just as likely to be an intermitted electronic malfunction.
pixl97 · 4h ago
For both switches on seperate systems and wires that are independant.
I mean, it's not impossible, but it sure the hell is improbable.
postingawayonhn · 6h ago
There is also audio of the pilots discussing the issue.
cosmicgadget · 6h ago
Murder-suicide has happened on a few occasions. How many times has your malfunction occurred on an aircraft fuel system?
bgwalter · 6h ago
Not precisely the electrical malfunction, but dual engine shutdown has occurred, fortunately after landing:
And then 10s later the switches magically fixed themselves? The likely not electronically connected switches since that would compromise engine redundancy?
dcreater · 5h ago
intermittent state switching is absolutely a thing in (poorly designed/manufactured/tested/QC'd) electronics
pixl97 · 5h ago
It is, and one would expect that a single switch failure would be far more probable, so how often have we had switch failure single engine cutoff in the 787?
userbinator · 4h ago
All this rests on whether we have CVR audio of the pilot(s) manipulating the switches.
lazide · 6h ago
The other pilot likely flipped them back - but at that point, it was impossible to avoid crashing.
ekianjo · 2h ago
The rodents were remorseful and fixed the cables in the meantime. /s
fsckboy · 6h ago
it makes sense to me that the pilot who said "I did not do it" actually did do it without realizing it, was supposed to be putting the landing gear up when he committed a muscle memory mistake. it happened around the time the landing gear should be up, and this explanation matches what was said in the cockpit, and the fact that the landing gear wasn't retracted. I think this idea was even floated initially by the youtube pilot/analysts I watch but dismissed as unlikely.
zamadatix · 5h ago
One of the nice things about finally having the preliminary report is I get to stop hearing all of the same assumptions/theories/YouTuber said/"a guy I know got a leaked report"/etc in water cooler talk at work because the preliminary report solidly disproved all of them so far. If anyone even had and stuck with an idea matching this report it wouldn't have stood out in the conversations anyways.
The collection of comments on this post remind me it'll just be a brand new set of random guesses until the final report is released. Or worse - the final report reaches no further conclusions and it just has to fade out of interest naturally over time.
russdill · 5h ago
There is no possible way to confuse these two actions. There's a reason a wheel is attached to the gear lever.
cjbprime · 4h ago
> There is no possible way to confuse these two actions.
This is obviously an overstatement. Any two regularly performed actions can be confused. Sometimes (when tired or distracted) I've walked into my bathroom intending to shave, but mistakenly brushed my teeth and left. My toothbrush and razor are not similar in function or placement.
vishnugupta · 2m ago
If I were to apply OPs assertion to your actions it’s like brushing your teeth with razor. I guess that’s what they meant.
bigDinosaur · 2h ago
If someone confused their steering wheel for the brake you'd probably be surprised - there are indeed errors that are essentially impossible for a competent person to make by mistake. No idea about the plane controls, though.
burnt-resistor · 1h ago
Even humans have fixed action patterns. Much behavior is barely under conscious control.
energy123 · 3h ago
I want you to guess how many traffic accidents are caused by accidentally reversing when you intended to go forward.
Test your mental model against the real world. This is your opportunity.
chmod775 · 5h ago
Sometimes people put cleaning liquid in the fridge.
Given a long enough span of time, every possible fuck up eventually will happen.
dboreham · 4h ago
Probably time to design a plane that can't be sent into terrain in seconds by flipping a switch.
sxg · 3h ago
Now try to design a plane that also lets you rapidly shutoff fuel to both engines in case of fire.
zamadatix · 4h ago
"Sent into terrain in seconds by flipping a switch" is both too inaccurate and feels too cursory to take as impetus for serious design criticism, especially when the extensive preliminary report explicitly does not recommend any design changes with the current information.
747fulloftapes · 5h ago
The landing gear lever is rather prominently featured in the 787 in a panel central to the cockpit layout so that either pilot can easily reach it. For decades and across many manufacturers, the landing gear lever has traditionally featured a knob that deliberately resembles an airplane wheel. It's very hard to mistake it for anything else. It's actuated by simply moving it up or down.
The fuel control switches are behind the throttle stalks above the handles to release the engine fire suppression agents. These switches are markedly smaller and have guards on each side protecting them from accidental manipulation. You need to reach behind and twirl your fingers around a bit to reach them. Actuating these switches requires pulling the knob up sufficiently to clear a stop lock before then rotating down. There are two switches that were activated in sequence and in short order.
The pilot monitoring is responsible for raising the gear in response to the pilot flyings' instruction.
I would find it very difficult to believe this was a muscle memory mistake. At the very least, I would want to more evidence supporting such a proposition.
This idea strikes me as even more unlikely than someone shifting their moving vehicle into reverse while intending to activate the window wipers.
macintux · 2h ago
> This idea strikes me as even more unlikely than someone shifting their moving vehicle into reverse while intending to activate the window wipers.
I suspect you've never driven an older vehicle with the shifter on the steering column.
codefeenix · 6h ago
even though that raising the gear is a up motion and fuelcut off is a down motion?
rogerrogerr · 6h ago
And fuel cutoff is _two_ down motions? That's the death knell for this theory, imo.
adrianmonk · 3h ago
I don't think the theory is that the muscle memory sequences resemble each other.
Instead, it's that because muscle memory allows you to do things without thinking about it, you can get mixed up about which action you meant to perform and go through the whole process without realizing it.
mcpeepants · 2h ago
Is actuating the fuel cutoff switches something that is done routinely in these aircraft, to the extent it could reasonably become muscle memory?
ETA: downthread it is mentioned that these switches are used on the ground to cut the engines
abracadaniel · 35m ago
Seems akin to something like a parking brake. Something you only use at a stop, or rarely during an emergency.
fsckboy · 5h ago
i have several passwords i type all the time. sometimes i get them confused and type the wrong one to the wrong prompt. i type them by muscle memory, but i also think about them while typing and i think thoughts like "time to reach up and to the left on the keyboard for this password". I couldn't tell you the letter i'm trying to type, i just know to do that.
not all my passwords are up and to the left, some are down and to the right, but when i type the wrong one into the wrong place, i type it accurately, i'm just not supposed to be typing it.
"time to do that thing i've practiced, reach to the left". shuts two engines off by muscle memory.
WalterBright · 2h ago
My editor is MicroEmacs, which I've been using since the 1980s. I no longer remember what the commands are, but my fingers do.
I remember once writing a cheat sheet for the commands by looking at what my fingers were doing.
zarzavat · 5h ago
Would anyone be surprised if an accomplished concert pianist played C Bb Bb instead of C E in a piece they had played thousands of times correctly?
The only difference here is that the consequences are death instead of mere head shaking.
Murder needs more proof than just performing the wrong action. Until then we should apply Hanlon's Razor.
dyauspitr · 4h ago
Sometimes I drive all the way home without being aware of what I did in between.
fsckboy · 5h ago
that makes it less likely, not impossible, we're trying to match against the data we have. I think distracted muscle memory is more likely than suicide and sounding innocent while lying about it
dyauspitr · 4h ago
If you shut off the engines a couple of dozen meters above ground shouldn’t every alarm be blaring or there should be some sort of additional lever you have to pull way out of the way to enable shutting off the engine that close to the ground.
WalterBright · 2h ago
Consider a case where the engine starts to violently vibrate. This can tear the structure apart. Delaying shutting off the engine can be catastrophic.
It's very hard to solve one problem without creating another. At some point, you just gotta trust the pilot.
dyauspitr · 12m ago
Would it matter in this case since you would crash either ways. I’m talking about protection in a very specific situation where you make it harder to shut off both engines when you’re very close to the ground.
bob1029 · 8h ago
> The EGT was observed to be rising for both engines indicating relight. Engine 1’s core deceleration stopped, reversed and started to progress to recovery. Engine 2 was able to relight but could not arrest core speed deceleration and re-introduced fuel repeatedly to increase core speed acceleration and recovery.
I know it's probably not worth the hazmat tradeoff for such a rare event, but the F-16 has an EPU powered by hydrazine that can spool up in about a second.
cpgxiii · 1h ago
The F-16 EPU is to keep the flight controls powered so the plane doesn't immediately become uncontrollable following engine failure. The EPU doesn't provide thrust of any kind.
The 787 and nearly every other commercial aircraft with powered flight controls [1] (fly-by-wire or traditional) has emergency power available via RAT and/or APU, and any fly-by-wire aircraft has batteries to keep the flight control computers running through engine failure to power supply being restored by the RAT and/or APU. Due to its unusually high use of electrical systems, the 787 has particularly large lithium batteries for these cases. There is no need for an additional EPU because the emergency systems already work fine (and did their jobs as expected in this case). You just can't recover from loss of nearly all engine thrust at that phase of takeoff. [2]
1. The notable exceptions to having a RAT for emergency flight controls are the 737 and 747 variants prior to the 747-8. In the 747 case, the four engines would provide sufficient hydraulic power while windmilling in flight and thus no additional RAT would be necessary. The 737 has complete mechanical reversion for critical flight controls, and so can be flown without power of any kind. There is sufficient battery power to keep backup instruments running for beyond the maximum glide time from altitude - at which point the aircraft will have "landed" one way or another.
2. There is only one exception of a certified passenger aircraft with a system for separate emergency thrust. Mexicana briefly operated a special version of the early 727 which would be fitted with rocket assist boosters for use on particularly hot days to ensure that single-engine-out climb performance met certification criteria. Mexicana operated out of particularly "hot and high" airports like Mexico City, which significantly degrade aircraft performance. On the worst summer days, the performance degradation would have been severe enough that the maximum allowable passenger/baggage/fuel load would have been uneconomical without the margin provided by the emergency rockets. I'm not aware of them ever being used on a "real" flight emergency outside of the testing process, and I think any similar design today would face a much higher bar to reach certification.
ceejayoz · 7h ago
I suspect any civil aviation engineer who goes "let's add hydrazine!" to fix problems has a fairly short career, lol.
lazide · 6h ago
Yeah, now you have at least two problems.
SJC_Hacker · 3h ago
The only solution I can think of is emergency parachutes. Like lots of them. would also be useful for other types of in air engine/control failures.
At least it worked for me on Kerbal Space Program. At least sometimes.
burnt-resistor · 1h ago
Wouldn't be able to save a fully-loaded 787 in low & slow conditions because the area of canopies needed to deploy would be several acres. And they'd add several tonnes.
The Cirrus system is deployed by rockets, allowing it to function at a very low altitude. They say that you should deploy it no matter what altitude you are at, and it will add at least some friction. The system has a very impressive track record.
However, at this altitude, with an airplane this heavy, you might have to put the rockets on the plane to decelerate enough to save lives.
burnt-resistor · 1h ago
This is for a tiny aircraft, not a jumbo jet. SF50 and the Honda Jet can autoland too.
burnt-resistor · 1h ago
The RAT was already out and doing its job. Adding hydrazine or a nuclear reactor isn't going to help matters when there's no thrust.
bigtones · 5h ago
Each of the fuel switches on the 787 is equipped with a locking mechanism that is supposed to prevent accidental movement, experts said. To turn the fuel supply on, the switch must be pulled outward and then moved to a “RUN” position, where it is released and settles back into a locked position. To turn the fuel supply off, the switch must be pulled outward again, moved to the “CUTOFF” position and then released again.
there's literally two other similar switches right next to those?
resist_futility · 3h ago
The switches on the lower panel that are switched, are the fuel cutoffs
comrade1234 · 5h ago
Why can the pilot shut off the fuel during takeoff?
baseballdork · 5h ago
Fire, probably. But also, how complicated would you make the system if you needed to prevent certain switches from working during certain times of flight? At some point... we're all just in the hands of the people in the cockpit.
dboreham · 4h ago
I can't put my car into reverse gear while driving down the freeway.
sgentle · 3h ago
Sure, but you can open the door, pull the handbrake, or turn the wheel so hard you lose control of the vehicle. These are all similarly preventable, but maybe not worth the risk of being unable to open the door, brake or steer if the safety mechanism fails closed, or if your situation is outside the foresight of its designer.
Also, you don't need multiple certifications and 1500 hours of experience to drive a car.
emmelaich · 11m ago
On a Tesla (and presumably other cars) opening the door engages Park.
There's no handbrake to pull, and turning the wheel so hard to lose control is next to impossible. Maybe on an oily wet or loose surface.
testing22321 · 1h ago
A friend did exactly that in a manual transmission, doing 100km/h.
She was mad and said she has to jam it hard ( going for 5th and missed), but it went into reverse. And the gearbox literally hit the road when she let out the clutch.
stetrain · 4h ago
There’s no good reason to do that.
There may be a good reason to cut fuel to one engine shortly after takeoff.
You could have a system that prevents both switches being thrown, and only in the specific window after takeoff, but you’ve also now added two additional things that can fail.
arp242 · 3h ago
You also can't reverse a plane while flying it...
This is a rather odd comparison. You can slam the brakes, yank the steering week, and do all sorts of things to intentionally make the car crash.
berti · 3h ago
You can turn the ignition off. The reversers will not unlock on an airliner that's airborne either.
WalterBright · 2h ago
Remember the "surging" incidents where the driver insisted he was stepping on the brake but was actually stepping on the gas?
rhcom2 · 5h ago
Completely uneducated guess but if one engine bursts into flames you might want to kill the fuel.
jeffbee · 5h ago
Suggest a system that would prevent this, but only this, without causing other risks.
emmelaich · 9m ago
At least an audible alert.
bob1029 · 5h ago
Disable the fuel system cutoff controls during the takeoff climb phase of flight. Once the aircraft loses contact with the runway, these controls shouldn't function without tripping certain thresholds (speed & altitude), or following a two-man procedure that is physically impossible to execute solo. In any other flight regime, the controls function as originally designed.
The danger of a burning engine is irrelevant if you are heading into terrain.
yongjik · 4h ago
Now you created a fuel system cutoff control inhibition system which may malfunction in its own ways, e.g., refuse to cut off fuels from a burning engine because it thinks the plane is too low due to faulty altimeter reading.
dboreham · 4h ago
Sounds good, but I'm not sure I trust Boeing outsourced software developers to implement that absolutely correctly.
lysace · 4h ago
What you are really asking is: would we, the passengers, be safer
without human pilots?
Eventually, yes. Soon? Maybe.
celticninja · 1h ago
Dog and a pilot. The pilot is there to make sure everything is ok and the dog is there to bite the pilot if he tries touching anything
bigbuppo · 1h ago
As long as you also eliminate the possibility of maintenance problems and defects in automation, and have perfect microscale weather forecasts, and still have overrides for the human safety pilot that can still... wait a minute.
1970-01-01 · 4h ago
It's safe to state these fuel cutoff switches aren't to be touched in-flight unless the word 'fire' is said beforehand. Even then, you only perform fuel cutoff for the flaming engine. If the copilot was busy with takeoff, there is exactly one other person in the entire world that could have flipped both switches. We may never know which one flipped them back.
WalterBright · 2h ago
Fire isn't the only instantly severe problem with engines. Another is violent shaking if, say, part of the rotating assembly came off.
burnt-resistor · 1h ago
Yep. Fan blade off, shroud separation, HP disc separation, compressor stall, FOD ingestion/bird strike, EGT rise, oil system issues. Very unlikely events but still possible events that need a prepared response to and capabilities to manage the aircraft. The presumption is that the crew is trained, diligent, disciplined, and concerned with survival. Without that, aircraft would need to be unmanned and flown by AI lacking in ability to handle any unforeseen events creatively.
reached v1, then when airborn fuel cut off. Seems like there was a FAA report like in 2018 that recommended few airplane models (incl this one) to check the fuel valves correctly, seems like air india didn't do it. Turns out it was made by Honeywell
sandspar · 1h ago
All evidence suggests that the plane was fully functional. The switches were moved by one of the pilots.
jeswin · 2h ago
The switch had to be operated deliberately, but still a UX fail on a modern aircraft if cutting off fuel to the engines does not result in an audible alert/alarm which both pilots can hear - especially at that altitude.
rwmj · 8h ago
The India AAIB website (https://aaib.gov.in/) is not responding ... For anyone who read the report, was there information about the age & experience of the pilots?
mtmail · 7h ago
56 years old, 15638 hours (8596 on this type) and 32 years old, 3403 hours (1128 on this type). Page 11 of the PDF report.
rawgabbit · 9h ago
Quote:
As we just reported, the report says that according to data from the flight recorder both the fuel control switches, which are normally used to switch the engines on or off when on the ground, were moved from the run to the cutoff position shortly after takeoff. This caused both engines to lose thrust.
The preliminary report suggests this is pilot error.
lazharichir · 8h ago
From my (limited) understanding you cannot really switch these off inadvertently as they require a couple of actions in order to be switched off. So it would mean one of the pilots switched these off (and they were a few seconds later switched on again but it was too late).
But there was audio, too, and one pilot asked the other "why did you switch these off" and the second one said "I didn't".
Was there are third one in the jump seat?
rawgabbit · 8h ago
The report only said the copilot was flying and the pilot was monitoring.
fracus · 7h ago
Sounds likely that one of them was sabotaging the flight.
zihotki · 7h ago
It does not suggest that. It only says they were turned off and no other conclusion given.
It loads for me, so I think the link will be useful for some people at least.
burnt-resistor · 1h ago
It's getting hugged by the world and they didn't use a CDN apparently.
mallets · 9h ago
Well, shit. Suicidal?
And this can't possibly be all the audio if the other pilot noticed the switch position, I would expect a lot more cussing and struggle.
So they didn't notice the switch position? The switch was in the right position but not really? Is this a rarely used switch that one might not look at (or know where to look) during regular use?
10 seconds between OFF and ON.
lazide · 5h ago
Dual engine failure on takeoff gives them about as much time to react as if the front passenger grabbed the steering wheel while on a windy mountain road and yanked them off a cliff.
It only takes a few seconds to completely screw everyone, but a bit longer for the consequences to occur.
chupchap · 8h ago
From what I've read, it comes on the display as a warning
A simple wrong flip of a switch killed 260 people and leaving 1 lone survivor who walked away from the plane crash nearly unscathed.
Dudes is extremely lucky or the character from Unbreakable.
stetrain · 4h ago
A flip of two switches, in sequence, with a locking mechanism on each switch.
apt-apt-apt-apt · 4h ago
Even if the plane had no power, why couldn't they have glided it down safely?
stetrain · 4h ago
It did glide briefly, the glide path took it directly into a school building.
Right after takeoff at low altitude is basically the worst place for this to happen. Speed and altitude are low so gliding is going to be a short distance and happen quickly.
If there had been a perfect empty long flat grass field in that location it may have been salvageable, but also right after takeoff the plane usually has a heavy fuel load which makes for a much riskier landing.
Edit: This article has a map showing the glide path:
Speed can be traded for altitude, and altitude can be traded for speed. If you have neither, you're dead.
Engine failure shortly after takeoff is a major cause of fatal accidents.
russfink · 4h ago
I’ll take this as an honest question. The simple answer: too much mass, no clear landing path, not enough speed or altitude to turn to find one and glide to it. In short, not enough time. Once the engines cut, that thing probably dropped like a brick.
burnt-resistor · 1h ago
Impossible. Low and slow conditions with insufficient energy to 180 return or crash land safely straight ahead in any form. The power loss happened at the most critical phase of flight. Plus, they were on the heavy side.
appreciatorBus · 4h ago
They only ever got a few hundred feet off the ground.
Yes of course the plane glided once the engines stopped, producing thrust, just like all planes do. But just like all planes, and all gliders, gliding means trading altitude for velocity - giving up precious height every second in order to maintain flight. At that stage in the flight, they just didn’t have enough to give. If the same thing had happened at 30,000 feet, it would be a non-event. They would glide down a few thousand feet as the engines spool back up and once they return to full power, everything will be back to normal. Or if for some reason, the engines were permanently cooked, you’d have maybe 20 to 30 minutes of glide time so you’ve got a lot of time to look around and find a flat spot. But you just don’t have enough time for all that to happen When you’re a few hundred feet off the ground.
detaro · 4h ago
how do you "safely" glide into a city?
cosmicgadget · 6h ago
The report says the co-pilot was flying so it's most likely the pilot cut the fuel?
sillysaurusx · 6h ago
Correct. Which means it’s the older of the two.
janice1999 · 6h ago
The report does not identify which pilot said what. Attempting to extrapolate their identities is speculation.
cosmicgadget · 6h ago
The report specifically says the FO was flying. The conversation is immaterial since the person who cut the fuel could have made either statement.
- British Airways 5390: An incorrect repair causes the windshield of a plane to be blown out mid flight. A pilot is nearly sucked out. The head flight attendant holds onto his legs to keep him in the plane. The copilot and flight attendant think he is dead, but they keep the situation under control and land the plane.
Everyone survives - including the pilot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGwHWNFdOvg
- United 232: An engine explodes in the tail of an MD-10. Due to rotten luck and weaknesses in the design, it takes out all three of the redundant hydraulic systems, rendering the control surfaces inoperable.
There's a pilot onboard as a passenger who, it just so happens, has read about similar incidents in other aircraft and trained for this scenario on his own initiative. He joins the other pilots in the cockpit and they figure out how to use the engines to establish rudimentary control.
They crash just short of the runway. 112 people die, but 184 people survive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT7CgWvD-x4
- Pinnacle 3701: Two pilots mess around with an empty plane. They take it up to it's operational ceiling. While they're goofing off, they don't realize they're losing momentum. They try to correct too late and cannot land safely.
In their last moments they decide to sacrifice any chance they have to survive by not deploying their landing gear. They choose to glide for the maximum distance to avoid hitting houses, rather than maximizing how much impact is absorbed. They do hit a house but no one else is killed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCMmCekKO_c
But I did burn out on Mentour Pilot after a while, I just had my fill of tragedy.
So the fuel supply was cut off intentionally. The switches in question are also built so they cannot be triggered accidentally, they need to be unlocked first by pulling them out.
> 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.
And both pilots deny doing it.
It's difficult to conclude anything other than murder-suicide.
well hold your horses there... from the FAA in their 2019 report linked above:
> The Boeing Company (Boeing) received reports from operators of Model 737 airplanes that the fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged. The fuel control switches (or engine start switches) are installed on the control stand in the flight deck and used by the pilot to supply or cutoff fuel to the engines. The fuel control switch has a locking feature to prevent inadvertent operation that could result in unintended switch movement between the fuel supply and fuel cutoff positions. In order to move the switch from one position to the other under the condition where the locking feature is engaged, it is necessary for the pilot to lift the switch up while transitioning the switch position. If the locking feature is disengaged, the switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting the switch during transition, and the switch would be exposed to the potential of inadvertent operation. Inadvertent operation of the switch could result in an unintended consequence, such as an in-flight engine shutdown. Boeing informed the FAA that the fuel control switch design, including the locking feature, is similar on various Boeing airplane models. The table below identifies the affected airplane models and related part numbers (P/Ns) of the fuel control switch, which is manufactured by Honeywell.
> If the locking feature is disengaged, the switch can be moved between the two positions without lifting the switch during transition, and the switch would be exposed to the potential of inadvertent operation. Inadvertent operation of the switch could result in an unintended consequence, such as an in-flight engine shutdown
Both of these extremely-experienced pilots say that there was near zero chance that the fuel switches were unintentionally moved. They were switched off within one second of each other, which rules out most failure scenarios.
If it was an issue with the switches, we also would have seen an air worthiness directive being issued. But they didn’t, because this was a mass murder.
I do not trust these air worthiness directives 100.0%. The 737 Max also required two catastrophic failures before it was grounded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines_Flight_...
No comments yet
Doing it accidentally is impossible.
And yes, it does sound like it was probably intentional. I would still like to see an engineering review of the switch system. Are they normally open or normally closed, In the end the switch instructs the FADEC to cut the fuel, but where does the wiring go in the meantime? what software is in the path? would the repair done before the flight be in that area?(pilot defect report for message STABS POS XCDR), and perhaps compromised the wires?
My preliminary idea is a "fuel bladder" for take-off that inflates with enough fuel to get the plane to a recoverable altitude, maybe a few thousand feet?
Or maybe a design that prevents both switches being off (flip flop?) for X minutes after wheel weight is removed?
Again, it’s probably pointless but it’s an interesting thought exercise.
Suicidal pilots are apparently more common than we’d want.
There’s always going to be many ways they could crash the plane, such a feature wouldn’t help. The pilots are the only people you can’t avoid fully trusting on the plane.
Will the bladder be marketed by Kramerica Industries?
You are trying to draw parallels between the ignition switch in a 1974 Ford Pinto and a 2025 Ford Mustang as if there could be a connection. No.
"The FAA issued Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB ) No. NM -18-33 on December 17, 2018, regarding the potential disengagement ofthe fuel control switch locking feature. This SAIB was issued based on reports from operators of Model 737 airplanes that the fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged. The airworthiness concern was not considered an unsafe condition that would warrant airworthiness directive (AD) by the FAA. The fuel control switch design , including the locking feature, is similar on various Boeing airplane models including part number 4TL837-3D which is fitted in B787-8 aircraft VT-ANB. As per the information from Air India, the suggested inspections were not carried out asthe SAIB was advisory and not mandatory. The scrutiny ofmaintenance records revealed that the throttle control module was replaced on VT-ANB in 2019 and 2023. However, the reason for the replacement was not linked to the fuel control switch. There has been no defect reported pertaining to the fuel control switch since 2023 on VT-ANB."
So while I agree that this being the cause sounds unlikely, referencing the switch issue is something relevant enough for the report itself.
Edit: It also seems like the engine cutoff is immediate after the toggle. I wonder if a built in delay would make sense for safety.
(Presumably delaying the amount of time before a raging engine fire stops receiving fuel would also have an impact on safety?)
And with how low and slow they were during takeoff, those would have been going off almost instantly.
You're leaping into the minds of others and drawing conclusions of their intent. One of them moved the levers. It could've been an unplanned reaction, a terrible mistake, or it could've been intentional. We may never know the intention even with a comprehensive and complete investigation. To claim otherwise is arrogance.
That's very hard to do by panic and mistake, if not impossible by design.
> impossible by design.
Deflecting that the human is the weakest part of the system. One or other may have panicked and made a mistake, went crazy and doomed the flight, or intentionally doomed the flight for some socioeconomic reasons. These are speculative possibilities that we don't know yet, and may never know; we only know what has definitely happened from the evidence per the investigation. It's standing way out over one's feet to declare from an armchair that it was "definitely" X or Y before the investigation is complete.
I'm not dying on a hill, planes have crashed because pilots mistakenly press the wrong buttons or levers, which is why those uncommon operations require effort to do so.
Fuel levers are designed to only be moved deliberately; they cannot be mistaken for something else by a professional pilot. It's literally their job to know where these buttons are, what they do, and when to (not) push them.
It's not arrogance to assume the most likely conclusion is true, despite how uncomfortable that outcome may be.
Assumption. Big ass assumption.
Pilot are trained until actions are instinctual and certain memory items are almost unconscious. But pilots are still people and people are fallible and make mistakes, and sometimes act unreasonably. Intent cannot be determined without clear evidence or statements because that's now how thoughts locked away in people's minds work.
> It's not arrogance to assume the most likely conclusion is true
You don't know this. This is beyond the capability to know and is therefore pure speculation. That is the definition of arrogance.
You’re trying to prove a negative here.
I am not familiar with the 787 operations, but there are a few issues that need to be sorted out first: - altitude when pilots start the after takeoff checklist - if there are any other switches that are operated in tandem in the general vicinity of where the engine cutoff switches are - if the cutoff switches had the locking mechanisms present, and if not, if they could be moved inadvertently by the pilot flying hand
Discarding other possibilities in an investigation can have adverse consequences.
Did you ever always push the right buttons every time?
Murder-suicide looks like the likely conclusion, given that flipping the cutoff switches requires a very deliberate action. That said, it's not entirely impossible that due to stress or fatigue the pilot had some kind of mental lapse and post-flight muscle memory (of shutting off the engines) kicked in when the aircraft lifted off.
Possible, and if so it is too early to conclude it was murder-suicide.
See also: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dgca-slaps-80-lakh-fi...
However, the only relevant evidence that exists suggests they had enough rest. You don't build verdicts on suppositions, you build them on proven facts.
This does not guarantee you will reach the truth, but it's miles better than admitting every baseless hypothesis that comes up.
Don't sentence people on unfinished investigations. This is why most trials are not public, because of people like you.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44539508
FAA issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin SAIB NM-18-33 in 2018 warning that on several Boeing models including the 787 the locking mechanism of the fuel switches could be inoperative.
https://www.aviacionline.com/recommended-versus-mandatory-th...
Per FAA the checks were recommended but not mandatory.
> As per the EAFR, the Engine 1 fuel cutoff switch transitioned from CUTOFF to RUN at about 08:08:52 UTC.
Damn. That's pretty quick to diagnose and take action.
Boeing's probably gonna have a big sigh of relief over this one.
The 787 is 15 years old, and this particular plane was 10 years old. It always seemed unlikely to be a major, new issue. My money was actually on maintenance.
Me: “The build is breaking right after you checked in. Why did you do that?” Him:”I did not do so.” Me: “The commit shows it as you. And when I rolled back everything builds.” Him:”It must have been someone else.”
That person was really annoying.
The conversation would suggest that the switches were in CUTOFF position, but there is also a display that summarizes the engine status.
There is no conversation that mentions flipping the switch to RUN again.
EDIT: Why is there no Cockpit Video Recorder? The days of limited storage are over.
Pilots unions are dead against it.
Just allow cockpit video recorders, and if they're ever used for anything, the pilots (or their heirs) get $250k in cash.
This would leave accident investigators with a lot of work to do to try to figure out how a collision happened.
Cost is a big one (satellite data is still quite a bit more expensive than you think, especially with many stations)
And by stations, I mean aircraft. There are a TON. Current constellations probably wouldn’t even be able to handle half the current aircraft transmitting all at once. Bandwidth, in the physical sense, becomes a limiting factor
Coverage (different constellations have different coverage, which means planes would not have transmit guarantees depending on flight path). So you’d have huge gaps anyways
There have been alternative solutions posed, some of which are advancing forward. For example, GPS aware ELTs that only transmit below certain altitudes. But even that has flaws
Anyways I think we’ll see it in the next decade or two, but don’t hold your breath
The cost of hardware and additional fuel consumption due to drag aren’t nothing, but the data used itself is essentially a rounding error. (Iridium for example has tiny antennas, and SBD data costs about a dollar per kilobyte, and position data is tiny.)
Of course, that’s all little help when a pilot acts adversarial; on MH370, the breakers for both satcom and transponder were likely pulled, for example.
You get free Starlink on several airlines now, so won't that be a solved problem soon?
Hard to believe the other pilot wouldn’t have said anything.
Recovering the airplane and have some people survive the crash are two very different things.
For instance, you might deliberately kill yourself by driving your car really fast into something solid, but you probably wouldn't try to do that while backing out of the garage.
Remember that incident where a cop pulled out his taser and tased the suspect? Except he pulled out his pistol and fired it.
The taser looks nothing like a pistol, feels nothing like it, yet it is still possible to confuse the two in the heat of the moment.
No it’s not comparable to a cop that confuses things in the heat of the moment. Not anywhere close to be relatable.
If it was, planes would be crashing down the sky quite often (and it would have been fixed for decades already).
Or more precisely, the signals which come from them were found to behave as such.
Without any audible record of turning the switches off, I wouldn't blame the pilots without first checking the wiring and switches themselves for faults. This reminds me of the glitches caused by tin whiskers.
In this case, it may be a moot distinction, particularly if no physical evidence of fault or tampering has been discovered in investigation. But, in theory, very important - there's a lot of potential grey-area between the two statements.
The proximity of the incident to the ground may also increase the possible attack vectors for simple remote triggers.
Is it possible it could have been an accident or a mistake by one of the pilots? How intention-proofed are engine cutoffs?
I'd liken it to turning off the ignition by turning the key while driving your car. Possibly something that could happen if you're really fatigued, but requires quite a mental lapse.
That is, is it possible they flipped the switches over to RUN but did not seat the switches properly, and instead leaving them on top of the notch, with later vibration causing the switches to disengage?
Just trying to think of some semi-plausible non-active causes.
You can do them both with one hand.
joey: Can you switch them quickly?
snypher: You can do them with one hand. [Ed. This is ambiguous and could be read as "one hand, simultaneously". In fact, doing it with one hand non-simultaneously would be a weird claim to make of a simple knob. See also ajb's comment below.]
zihotki: Really? They are not close together and have a spring mechanism. [Ed. Seems to believe snypher is claiming simultaneous operation.]
snypher: I am confused by the response.
Me: [Tries to facilitate clarification]
Not within the context of the thread.
08:08:35 Vr
08:08:39 Liftoff
08:08:42 Engine 1 cut-off
08:08:42 Engine 2 cut-off
08:08:47 minimum idel speed reached
?? One pilot to other: why cut-off. Other: Did not do it
08:08:52 Engine 1 run
08:08:52 Engine 2 run
1 second to switch them both off and then 4 seconds to switch them both on. No one admitted to switch them off. They are probably going with fine comb over the audio and also the remains of the chared switches.
Looks like the engines react very quickly to cut-off so it is not clear whether the question about the cut-off is prompted by a glance to the switches or the feel of the airplane.
The big question is whether the switches were moved or something made it seem as if the switches were moved.
It's not a rational decision, so there's no reason to expect rational decision making or explanation on the output.
That said Boeing could take a page out of the Garmin GI275. When power is removed it pops up a "60s to shutdown dialog" that you can cancel. Even if you accidentally press SHUTDOWN it only switches to a 10s countdown with a "CANCEL" button.
They could insert a delay if weight on wheels is off. First engine can shutdown when commanded but second engine goes on 60s delay with EICAS warning countdown. Or just always insert a delay unless the fire handle is pulled.
Still... that has its own set of risks and failure modes to consider.
But I'm an advocate of KISS. At a certain point you have to trust the pilot is not going to something extremely stupid/suicidal. Making overly complex systems to try to protect pilots from themselves leads to even worse issues, such as the faulty software in the Boeing 737-MAX.
I wonder if there have been cases where a pilot had to cut fuel before the computer could detect anything abnormal? I do realize that defining "abnormal" is the hardest part of this algorithm.
As a software engineer myself I think it's interesting that we feel software is the true solution when we wouldn't accept that solution ourselves. For example typically in a company you do code reviews and have a release gating process but also there's some exception process for quickly committing code or making adjustments when theres an outage or something. Could you imagine if the system said "hey we aren't detecting an outage, you sure about that? why don't you go take a walk and get a coffee, if you still think there's an outage in 15 minutes from now we will let you make that critical change".
In safety-critical engineering, you generally either automate things fully (i.e. to exceed human capabilities in all situations, not just most), or you keep them manual. Half-measures of automation kill people.
You don't have to like that culture and you also don't have to participate in it. Making a throwaway account to complain about it is not eusocial behaviour, however. If you know something to be wrong with someone else's reasoning, the expected response is to highlight the flaw.
If someone is speculating about how such a problem might be solved while not trying to conceal their lack of direct experience, I'm fine with it, but not everyone is.
If someone is accusing the designers of being idiots, with the fix "obvious" because reasons, well, yeah, that's unhelpful.
This is not "reasoning from first principles". In fact, I don't think there is any reasoning in the comment.
There is an implication that an obvious solution exists, and then a brief description of said solution.
I am all for speculation and reasoning outside of one's domain, but not low quality commentary like "ugh can't you just do what garmin did".
This is not a throwaway, I'm a lurker, but was compelled to comment. IMHO HN is not the place for "throwaway" ad hominems.
All the controls would be on a giant touchscreen, with the fuel switches behind a hamburger button (that responded poorly and erratically to touch gestures). Even a suicidal pilot wouldn't be able to activate it.
This kind of attitude gets innocent people behind bars for life. Disgusting.
It's difficult to conclude anything until the investigation is finished and I hope the ones who are carrying it out are as levelheaded, neutral and professional as possible.
There's 0 reason to conclude murder-suicide, there's an infinitude of things that could have the same result, and both pilots denied it to eachother: how is that presented as proof?
I hope I don't need to explain why the fact no one knew in advance the Las Vegas shooter was going to shoot has ~0 similarities with the situation as we know it, and banal similarities with every murder.
This sounds to me like an electronics issue - an intermittent, inadvertent state transition likely due to some PCB component malfunction
It’s worth noting that Premeditation or “intention” doesn’t have to factor into this.
Studies of survivors of impulse suicides (jumping off of bridges etc) indicate that many of them report having no previous suicidal ideation, no intention or plan to commit suicide, and in many cases no reported depression or difficulties that might encourage suicide.
Dark impulses exist and they don’t always get caught in time by the supervisory conscious process. Most people have experienced this in its more innocuous forms, the call of the void and whatnot, but many have also been witness to thoughtless destructive acts that defy reason and leave the perpetrator confused and in denial.
How so? It is just as likely to be an intermitted electronic malfunction.
I mean, it's not impossible, but it sure the hell is improbable.
https://www.aerosociety.com/news/ana-787-engine-shutdown/
The collection of comments on this post remind me it'll just be a brand new set of random guesses until the final report is released. Or worse - the final report reaches no further conclusions and it just has to fade out of interest naturally over time.
This is obviously an overstatement. Any two regularly performed actions can be confused. Sometimes (when tired or distracted) I've walked into my bathroom intending to shave, but mistakenly brushed my teeth and left. My toothbrush and razor are not similar in function or placement.
Test your mental model against the real world. This is your opportunity.
Given a long enough span of time, every possible fuck up eventually will happen.
The fuel control switches are behind the throttle stalks above the handles to release the engine fire suppression agents. These switches are markedly smaller and have guards on each side protecting them from accidental manipulation. You need to reach behind and twirl your fingers around a bit to reach them. Actuating these switches requires pulling the knob up sufficiently to clear a stop lock before then rotating down. There are two switches that were activated in sequence and in short order.
The pilot monitoring is responsible for raising the gear in response to the pilot flyings' instruction.
I would find it very difficult to believe this was a muscle memory mistake. At the very least, I would want to more evidence supporting such a proposition.
This idea strikes me as even more unlikely than someone shifting their moving vehicle into reverse while intending to activate the window wipers.
I suspect you've never driven an older vehicle with the shifter on the steering column.
Instead, it's that because muscle memory allows you to do things without thinking about it, you can get mixed up about which action you meant to perform and go through the whole process without realizing it.
ETA: downthread it is mentioned that these switches are used on the ground to cut the engines
not all my passwords are up and to the left, some are down and to the right, but when i type the wrong one into the wrong place, i type it accurately, i'm just not supposed to be typing it.
"time to do that thing i've practiced, reach to the left". shuts two engines off by muscle memory.
I remember once writing a cheat sheet for the commands by looking at what my fingers were doing.
The only difference here is that the consequences are death instead of mere head shaking.
Murder needs more proof than just performing the wrong action. Until then we should apply Hanlon's Razor.
It's very hard to solve one problem without creating another. At some point, you just gotta trust the pilot.
I know it's probably not worth the hazmat tradeoff for such a rare event, but the F-16 has an EPU powered by hydrazine that can spool up in about a second.
The 787 and nearly every other commercial aircraft with powered flight controls [1] (fly-by-wire or traditional) has emergency power available via RAT and/or APU, and any fly-by-wire aircraft has batteries to keep the flight control computers running through engine failure to power supply being restored by the RAT and/or APU. Due to its unusually high use of electrical systems, the 787 has particularly large lithium batteries for these cases. There is no need for an additional EPU because the emergency systems already work fine (and did their jobs as expected in this case). You just can't recover from loss of nearly all engine thrust at that phase of takeoff. [2]
1. The notable exceptions to having a RAT for emergency flight controls are the 737 and 747 variants prior to the 747-8. In the 747 case, the four engines would provide sufficient hydraulic power while windmilling in flight and thus no additional RAT would be necessary. The 737 has complete mechanical reversion for critical flight controls, and so can be flown without power of any kind. There is sufficient battery power to keep backup instruments running for beyond the maximum glide time from altitude - at which point the aircraft will have "landed" one way or another.
2. There is only one exception of a certified passenger aircraft with a system for separate emergency thrust. Mexicana briefly operated a special version of the early 727 which would be fitted with rocket assist boosters for use on particularly hot days to ensure that single-engine-out climb performance met certification criteria. Mexicana operated out of particularly "hot and high" airports like Mexico City, which significantly degrade aircraft performance. On the worst summer days, the performance degradation would have been severe enough that the maximum allowable passenger/baggage/fuel load would have been uneconomical without the margin provided by the emergency rockets. I'm not aware of them ever being used on a "real" flight emergency outside of the testing process, and I think any similar design today would face a much higher bar to reach certification.
At least it worked for me on Kerbal Space Program. At least sometimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_8qCTAjsDg [30s]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT58pzY41wA [15m]
The Cirrus system is deployed by rockets, allowing it to function at a very low altitude. They say that you should deploy it no matter what altitude you are at, and it will add at least some friction. The system has a very impressive track record.
However, at this altitude, with an airplane this heavy, you might have to put the rockets on the plane to decelerate enough to save lives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/world/asia/air-india-cras...
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bd4Bler36Nk
Also, you don't need multiple certifications and 1500 hours of experience to drive a car.
There's no handbrake to pull, and turning the wheel so hard to lose control is next to impossible. Maybe on an oily wet or loose surface.
She was mad and said she has to jam it hard ( going for 5th and missed), but it went into reverse. And the gearbox literally hit the road when she let out the clutch.
There may be a good reason to cut fuel to one engine shortly after takeoff.
You could have a system that prevents both switches being thrown, and only in the specific window after takeoff, but you’ve also now added two additional things that can fail.
This is a rather odd comparison. You can slam the brakes, yank the steering week, and do all sorts of things to intentionally make the car crash.
The danger of a burning engine is irrelevant if you are heading into terrain.
Eventually, yes. Soon? Maybe.
https://celsoazevedo.com/files/2025/Preliminary_Report_VT_AN...
But there was audio, too, and one pilot asked the other "why did you switch these off" and the second one said "I didn't".
Was there are third one in the jump seat?
And this can't possibly be all the audio if the other pilot noticed the switch position, I would expect a lot more cussing and struggle.
So they didn't notice the switch position? The switch was in the right position but not really? Is this a rarely used switch that one might not look at (or know where to look) during regular use?
10 seconds between OFF and ON.
It only takes a few seconds to completely screw everyone, but a bit longer for the consequences to occur.
Dudes is extremely lucky or the character from Unbreakable.
Right after takeoff at low altitude is basically the worst place for this to happen. Speed and altitude are low so gliding is going to be a short distance and happen quickly.
If there had been a perfect empty long flat grass field in that location it may have been salvageable, but also right after takeoff the plane usually has a heavy fuel load which makes for a much riskier landing.
Edit: This article has a map showing the glide path:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/12/air-india-flig...
Engine failure shortly after takeoff is a major cause of fatal accidents.
Yes of course the plane glided once the engines stopped, producing thrust, just like all planes do. But just like all planes, and all gliders, gliding means trading altitude for velocity - giving up precious height every second in order to maintain flight. At that stage in the flight, they just didn’t have enough to give. If the same thing had happened at 30,000 feet, it would be a non-event. They would glide down a few thousand feet as the engines spool back up and once they return to full power, everything will be back to normal. Or if for some reason, the engines were permanently cooked, you’d have maybe 20 to 30 minutes of glide time so you’ve got a lot of time to look around and find a flat spot. But you just don’t have enough time for all that to happen When you’re a few hundred feet off the ground.