A preliminary report into last month’s Air India plane crash has suggested the aircraft’s fuel control switches were turned off, starving the engines of fuel and causing a loss of engine thrust shortly after takeoff.
The Air India flight, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, crashed on June 12 and killed at least 260 people, including 19 on the ground, in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad.
Only one passenger survived the crash, which is one of India’s worst aviation disasters.
The report, issued by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau on Saturday, is based on the data recovered from the plane’s black boxes, combined cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders.
Investigators revealed that one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel in the flight’s final moment. The other pilot replied he did not do so.
Here is an explanation of what black boxes are and what they can do:
What are black boxes?
The cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder are tools that help investigators reconstruct the events that led up to a plane crash.
They’re orange in colour to make them easier to find in wreckage, sometimes at great ocean depths. They’re usually installed in a plane’s tail section, which is considered the most survivable part of the aircraft, according to the National Transportation Safety Board‘s website.
What does the cockpit voice recorder do?
The cockpit voice recorder collects radio transmissions and sounds such as the pilot’s voices and engine noises, according to the NTSB’s website.
Depending on what happened, investigators may pay close attention to the engine noise, stall warnings and other clicks and pops, the NTSB said. And from those sounds, investigators can often determine engine speed and the failure of some systems.
Investigators can also listen to conversations between the pilots and crew and communications with air traffic control.
Experts make a meticulous transcript of the voice recording, which…
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