Key to Fatal Air India Crash Mystery: 32 Seconds in the Flight Deck

Key to Fatal Air India Crash Mystery: Investigators have found something terrifying in the initial probe into the Air India Flight 171 crash that killed 260 people in June.

Just seconds after takeoff, both of the 12-year-old Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s fuel-control switches moved to the “cut-off” position, starving the engines of fuel and causing total power loss. You only move the switches to “cut-off” after landing.

According to the report, both engines shut down in mid-air and the plane crashed 32 seconds after takeoff. The report has ruled out any bird-hit or bird activity that could have affected the flight.

Almost immediately after the plane lifted off the ground, closed-circuit TV footage showed a backup power source called a ram air turbine had deployed, indicating loss of power from the engines.

In the final moments of the flight, one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. “The other pilot said he didn’t,” the report said.

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It did not identify which remarks were made by the flight's captain and which by the first officer, nor which pilot transmitted "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday" just before the crash.

The captain of the Air India plane was Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, who had 15,638 hours of flying experience and, according to the Indian government, was also an Air India instructor. His co-pilot was Clive Kunder, 32, who had 3,403 hours of total experience.

The fuel switches had almost simultaneously flipped to cut-off just after takeoff. The report didn’t say how the switches could have moved to cut-off during the flight.

"We care for the welfare and the well-being of pilots so let's not jump to any conclusions at this stage, let us wait for the final report," Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu told, opens new tab local news channels.

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As per the AAIB report published late Friday, the aircraft transitioned to air mode at 08:08:39.

"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 report said citing the plane's Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorders (EAFR).

As a result, the engine N1 and N2 started to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off.

"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," it said.

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