Why were fuel switches in ‘cutoff’ position?

Fuel switches: What you need to know

- HT Correspondent

In the Boeing 787 cockpit, few controls are as heavily protected against accidental operation as the engine fuel switches. Multiple layers of mechanical safeguards guard against inadvertent movement of these critical levers that can instantly cut power to a $200 million aircraft.

Those very switches lie at the heart of the Air India Flight 171 investigation, after preliminary findings revealed both moved from “RUN” to “CUTOFF” within one second of each other during takeoff, starving the engines of fuel and sealing the fate of 260 people.

The switches sit underneath the throttle handles in the cockpit's centre console, positioned where pilots’ hands naturally rest during critical flight phases. Physical brackets guard each switch on both sides, making it impossible to accidentally brush against them. A spring-loaded mechanism requires pilots to pull each switch upward against resistance before it can be moved.