India (BN24) – Fuel supply to both engines of the Air India flight that crashed in June was cut off seconds before the aircraft slammed into the ground, India’s top aviation investigators disclosed Saturday in a preliminary report detailing the disaster’s final moments.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) report said the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner’s fuel control switches transitioned from the “RUN” position to “CUTOFF” in the air, effectively starving both engines of power shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad.
The crash on June 12 killed at least 260 people, including 19 on the ground. It is one of India’s deadliest aviation tragedies. The plane had been carrying 230 passengers — among them 169 Indian nationals, 53 British citizens, seven Portuguese travelers, and a Canadian — as well as 12 crew members. Only one passenger survived.
According to investigators, the doomed flight lasted about 30 seconds from takeoff to impact. The report described how the aircraft reached its top recorded speed before the twin fuel cutoff switches were triggered in rapid succession.
“Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another within one second,” the report stated. It did not explain how the switches could have been moved during flight.
While the pilots managed to flip the switches back to the run position, the engines could not regain thrust fast enough to arrest the plane’s sudden loss of altitude.
Cockpit voice recordings captured confusion between the pilots as alarms sounded. In the final moments before impact, one pilot was heard transmitting “MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY,” while the other questioned why the fuel was cut. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” investigators wrote.
The report did not recommend any immediate actions to Boeing.
Air India, which operates 33 Dreamliners in its fleet, said it is fully cooperating with the investigation.
“Air India is working closely with stakeholders, including regulators. We continue to fully cooperate with the AAIB and other authorities as their investigation progresses,” the airline said in a statement.
Following the crash, authorities ordered comprehensive checks of Air India’s Boeing 787s to help prevent similar incidents.
The aircraft’s black boxes — containing the cockpit voice and flight data recorders — were recovered within days and later analyzed in India as part of the inquiry into what led to the catastrophic loss of control.
