he might have asked most of the repeated questions after he flipped the switches back.
The first officer was in a very difficult position - he was questioning the Captain during that 10 seconds and probably finally just overruled him and switched fuel back on
What I stilll find perplexing is that the captain issued the mayday call, not really the actions of a zombie suicidal pilot.
Did he? Where have they said that?
The FO could easily have transmitted the MayDay call.
Until we get the full logs, we donât know the timing. Maybe he only noticed after 6 seconds, took 2 seconds to register what happened and question the pilot and then managed to flip them back.
From that Mail Online article:
Corriereâs sources said Mr Kunder was heard asking the senior pilot: âWhy did you shut off the engines?â Another microphone recorded a âvagueâ denial: âI didnât do itâ.
The outlet reports that Mr Kunder was âunconvincedâ and asked the same question âseveral more timesâ over a further six seconds.
Yes, but did this take place after he flipped the switches back on?
Published Timeline
1:38:39 - The plane lifted off the runway in Ahmedabad
1:38:42 - The engines were defueled as the plane reached 180 knots
The left engine fuel control switch transitions from the run to cutoff position, followed by the right
1:38:44 - Dispute between pilots over alleged âcutting off of fuelâ to the engines
The other pilot responds that he did not cutoff the fuel
1:38:47 - RAT deployed, supplying hydraulic power to the aircraft and indicating loss of power from engines
1:38:52 - Fuel switch moved from âCutoffâ to âRunâ on engine 1
1:38:56 - Switch changed on engine 2
1:39:05 - Mayday transmission signals life-threatening emergency
13:39:11 - Flight data recorders stop recording
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That article is from right after the accident, before black box analysis. He was maybe assuming the Capt made the call - nothing was mentioned in the preliminary report about who made it.
Amid mounting speculations over the actual cause of the fatal Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad on June 12, the head of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) warned that the media reports regarding the aviation disaster are premature and lack proper investigative context.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendyâs comments came amid an ongoing row over The Wall Street Journalâs unverified and selective reporting regarding a pilotâs alleged role in the Air India Flight 171 crash that killed 260 people.
Criticising mediaâs unfounded assumptions and reporting on the incident, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said, âRecent media reports on the Air India 171 crash are premature and speculative. Indiaâs Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau just released its preliminary report. Investigations of this magnitude take time. We fully support the AAIBâs public appeal, which was released Thursday, and will continue to support its ongoing investigation. All investigative questions should be addressed to the AAIB.â
but they issued the preliminary report in a manner that gives rise to speculation they are now criticising
All the speculations were already there.
The preliminary import did clear out quite a few things:
- it was not fuel contamination
- the flaps were in the correct position
- the takeoff procedure (runway position, speed, rotation etc) was correctly followed up to the fuel switch incident
- there was no other identified fault (electrical, hydraulics, mechanical) leading to engines turning off, all systems worked as expected in the circumstances, etc
This was important to make sure there were no immediate actions to take in existing fleets. Preventing speculation is less of a concern I assume⌠You canât stop the trolls anyway
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Another engine failure after takeoff but crash avoided
United Airlines flight bound for Munich was forced to return to Washington Dulles Airport on Friday shortly after takeoff, following a mid-air engine failure. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, operating as Flight UA108, experienced a malfunction in its left engine just minutes after departure, prompting the pilots to declare a Mayday emergency and initiate an urgent return.
I think this case definitely gives justification for cockpit video recorders. I see little privacy reasons why a crew should object, as long as the recordings are only examined in a serious incident situation.
Employers monitor employees in many other ways, including thisâŚI donât see a problem with your suggestion.
Except that cameras recording wonât actually be able to prevent a suicidal act by a pilot. And since they wonât provide significantly more information that what is already available, they would cause a lot more stress and issues than they would actually solve.
Why would they cause more stress. Every word the pilots say is already recorded, camera footage of the controls should not cause added pressure. Bus drivers and train drivers have them.
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Luckily in this case it was a single engine failure while the aircraft was already at some altitude (5000 feet =1.5km). Since these planes are built to fly on only one engine there was time to dump fuel and do a safe return and land at the airport. While obviously not a desirable incident a single engine failure should not be something that would endanger the aircraft and itâs passengers. Of course bad things can always happen, but itâll have to be more than that to lead to a crash. There were multiple single engine failures in flight in the recent months
Iâm not a pilot so Iâm just expressing my opinion but you can find this being discussed at length over the 'net. I heard many first-hand accounts of pilots being worried that the cameras would in fact end up being used for the wrong reasons by fist-hammered management in an already stressful working environment.
And the reverse being that itâs also hard to say what kind of information from surveillance cameras in the cockpit would provide that would actually be useful.
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