New Air India Crash Details as US Media accesses Pilots' Last Conversation

A cockpit recording of the last conversation between the two pilots of the Air India flight that crashed last month in Gujarat's Ahmedabad indicates that the Captain cut off the fuel to the plane's engine, according to a US media report.

- PT News

The report in the Wall Street Journal says the first officer flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner asked the moreexperienced Captain why he moved the switches to the “cutoff’ position, shortly after the flight took off from the runway. The first officer then expressed panic, while the Captain remained calm, the report says. The two pilots involved were Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder, who had a total flying experience of 15,638 hours and 3,403 hours. They were among the 241 people onboard who were killed in the crash, along with 19 people on the ground. Only one passenger survived the crash. The Wall Street Journal cites a preliminary report by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AIIB), which also suggests that the fuel cutoff switches for both engines were moved to the cutoff position, one after another, within a I-second interval, at an altitude just moments after liftoff. The time between takeoff and crash was just 32 seconds, it said, The details in the preliminary report suggest it was the captain who turned off the switches, the Wall Street Journal says, citing people familiar with the matter, US pilots and safety experts tracking the prob