I doubt it, we’re talking years and years of muscle memory. It would be as inexplicable as turning the volume control knob instead of shifting into 5th gear.
The first officer was PF (Pilot Flying) and the Captain was PM (Pilot Monitoring). The PF would have both hands on the yoke throughout the run and take off. They would then call gear up which the PM would do.
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Yep, this is very unlikely the action of the First Officer, he was concentrating on the take-off.
Given the lack of detail in the interim report, it seems we will need to wait for the full report to understand what happened.
It will be at least a year before a full report into “the why?” is released. In the meantime the pilots will continue to be smeared for what they are alleged to have done.
I just feel there is a lot more to this than we are being led to believe, and a lot that has been held back e.g who said what.
The fuel being cut and one pilot accusing the other immediately gave me Germanwings vibes…
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity
Of course there is a lot more that that is known by the investigators but hasn’t been said yet.
An opinion I heard from other aviation experts is that the preliminary report could have been much more conservative with the details, at this point, and just stop at the technical findings. However some of details included - in particular the 1-second delay between the switches going off, and some of the pilot dialogue - were unusually revealing. And therefore the very strong hint towards the human factor.
Well, when 200+ lives are in your hands, stupidity is equivalent to malice…
Hard to see any other “adequate” explanation. But what do we know…
We know actually very little from the report. And nothing in it suggests suicide by one or both of the pilots. Yes it is possible, but so is a micro-meteorite strike on a critical component.
I was quoting Einstein btw.
Really? I had no idea, thought he’d long since died before Hanlon’s Razor first appeared in print(1980).
Occam’s Razor, on which it was based, has been around since the 14th century, so I’m sure lots of other people will have paraphrased it over the years.
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Playing devil’s advocate, if it was murder suicide we know that the worst possible time to do it would have been on climb-out, given that they’d crash into the urban sprawl outside the airport killing even more on the ground.
Now its an 9.5 hour flight, some of it over water which would have been a better opportunity, but the fact is that Air India has a strict two person in the cockpit requirement following the 2015 Germanwings disaster e.g. when one of the pilots goes to the toilet a member of cabin crew has to step in. Therefore the only time to have done this unimpeded (without struggle or raising an alarm) was on take-off, because as we saw recovering from such sabotage was near impossible.
Now two airlines that relaxed the two person policy are Swiss and Lufthansa, and earlier this year it almost ended in disaster.
From the Indian airline pilots association:
You must relate this to the incident of ANA NH985, which occurred on January 17, 2019. At the time of landing, when the pilot selected thrust reversers, both engines shut down without the pilot moving the fuel control switch. I am quite clear that this is a repetition of the TCMA (Throttle Control Malfunction Accommodation) malfunction, and this needs a thorough investigation of the TCMA," he told the publication.
Saying Boeing has not issued any directive yet to check for TCMA (Throttle Control Malfunction Accommodation) malfunctions, FIP urged the civil aviation minister to reconstitute the probe body with pilots, engineers and air safety experts.
What was ANA flight NH985 incident?
All Nippon Airways (ANA) is a Japanese airline. On January 17, 2019, ANA NH985 flight from Tokyo Haneda to Osaka Itami Airport suffered dual engine failure on touchdown at Osaka. Both engines of the Boeing 787 aircraft shut down when pilots deployed thrust reversers. The aircraft had to be towed away after landing.
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You’d think Lufthansa would have gone back to the 2 person rule after that. I watched a video that said the only reason the Lufthansa didn’t crash was because it was an Airbus, which ignored the rudder input of the pilot having a seizure (it recognised it as a stupid input). If it had been a Boeing it would have obeyed the rudder input.
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If I were an airline pilot I’d prefer flying a Boeing, as a passenger I think I prefer Airbus.
Thank God for cruise control
Except that in this case after examining the black boxes they found the throttles were in “takeoff thrust” through the flight end they were not cause of the crash, but the fuel switches being turned off.
One after the other with a time gap of 1 second.
Of course the pilots association is looking for another scapegoat. They are not impartial in this investigation and have, as it is the standard, not been taken part in the investigation.
This is the first leak I’ve seen that indicates the questioning voice was that of the first officer, and he repeated it a number of times.
A source briefed on U.S. officials’ early assessment of evidence separately told Reuters that Mr Kunder had asked the captain why he had moved the fuel switches into the ‘Cutoff’ position, starving the engine of fuel.
sources said Mr Kunder was heard asking the senior pilot: ‘Why did you shut off the engines?’ Another microphone recorded a ‘vague’ denial: ‘I didn’t do it’.
The outlet reports that Mr Kunder was ‘unconvinced’ and asked the same question ‘several more times’ over a further six seconds.
Shame. I read that the switches weren’t flipped back to the right position for 10 seconds. First rule - fly the plane! Ask the questions later!
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