Pilot in Air India crash was months from his retirement

Details of pair in the cockpit are revealed as report into flight that led to at least 260 deaths stops short of attributing blame

- SHWETA SHARMA

An analysis of the cockpit voice recorder from the Air India flight that crashed in Ahmedabad last month reportedly revealed that the younger co-pilot asked the captain why he had turned off the fuel switches.

It follows an initial investigation into the Boeing 787 Dreamliner crash, which killed at least 260 people, which found that the aircraft's fuel switches had almost simultaneously flipped from the "run" position to "cutoff" three seconds after take-off.

First officer Clive Kunder was at the controls during take-off and at the time of the crash, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. It was Kunder who asked captain Sumeet Sabharwal why he had flipped the switches, starving the engines of fuel, according to the report.

The preliminary report, published by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, found one pilot was heard on the voice recorder asking the other why he had cut off the fuel. "The other pilot responded that he did not do so," the report added.

However, it stopped short of attributing blame.

Shortly after taking off for London at 1.37pm local time on 12 June, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner started to lose thrust and sink, the report said. All but one of the 242 people onboard flight AI171 to Gatwick were killed, including 53 Britons. At least 19 people also died on the ground as the plane crashed into a medical college building.

An association of Indian pilots had rejected the investigation report's insinuation that pilot error could be behind the crash.