New Delhi: The cockpit recording of the last conversation between the two pilots of the Air India plane that crashed in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, shows that the Captain had turned off the fuel of the plane's engine. This information has been given by the American media Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal report said that the first officer flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner asked the more experienced Captain why he put the switch in the cutoff position immediately after taking off from the runway. According to the report, after this the first officer expressed panic, while the captain remained calm.
Captain Sumit Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder also lost their lives in this plane crash, who had a total of 15,638 hours and 3,403 hours of flying experience respectively. The Wall Street Journal cited a preliminary report from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AIIB), which said that the fuel cutoff switches of both engines reached the cutoff position one after the other moments after takeoff. According to the report, the time between takeoff and the crash was just 32 seconds.
The Wall Street Journal, citing experts on the case, American pilots and safety experts overseeing the investigation, said that the details given in the preliminary report indicate that the captain himself had turned off the switches. It added, “The report does not say whether the switches were turned off accidentally, or intentionally.”
Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu had said last week that the report was based only on preliminary findings and no final conclusions should be drawn until the final report is released.