Ahmedabad crash pilot-induced! Possibly suicide! Expert says

New Delhi: An aviation expert opined that the pilots of the crashed Air India Flight 171 in Ahmedabad must have deliberately switched off the fuel, suggesting that the crash could be human-induced. Speaking with NDTV, one of India’s leading aviation experts, Captain Mohan Ranganathan, said that the sequence of fuel cutoff switches and cockpit audio suggest that the crash might have happened from deliberate actions from pilots, potentially even suicide, NDTV reported.

Ranganathan said that the pilots were fully aware that switching of fuel could cause a crash.

Ranganathan told NDTV that switching off fuel should be done manually and that it would not happen automatically or due to a power failure. This is because the fuel selectors are not sliding type but are designed to stay in a slot, and pilots have to pull them out to move them up or down.

“It's definitely a case of deliberate manual selection to move it to 'off',” Ranganathan opined.

The aviation expert shared his opinion 24 hours after India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) published its preliminary findings into the June 12 crash. The horrendous crash incident involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner killed 241 people onboard and 19 others on the ground.

The Air India Flight 171, en route to London Gatwick, took off from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhai Patel International Airport at 1:39 in the afternoon on June 12. There were 228 passengers and 14 crew onboard, and 30 seconds after take off, the aircraft lost thrust in both engines and dropped altitude before falling onto a medical hostel.

Only one person survived the crash, and he was seated in seat 11A. The passenger is an Indian-origin British citizen.