Off In 1 Second? Expert's 'Mathematical Debunking' Of Air India Crash Theory

Slamming some western media outlets for speculating that one of the pilots of the doomed Ahmedabad-London Air India Dreamliner moved the switches from run to cutoff - starving the engines of fuel and causing the crash - deliberately, an aviation expert has said the math does not add up.

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) investigating the June 12 crash, in which at least 260 people were killed, including 241 on board the flight, released its preliminary report on the crash last week, and one of the key points that emerged was that the fuel switches moved within a gap of a second.

Some media reports have implied this was deliberate, and aviation expert Captain Eshan Khalid strongly disagreed.

The AAIB report said the aircraft achieved its maximum airspeed of 180 knots at about 08:08:42 UTC, and then the fuel cutoff switches for engines 1 and 2 transitioned from the run to the cutoff position one after another with a time gap of 1 second. The engine 1 fuel switch was moved from cutoff to run at 08:08:52 UTC, and engine 2 at 08:08:56.

ALSO READ | "These Are Not 2 People On Tinder Date": Expert Defends Dreamliner Pilots

The report notes one pilot asked the other why he had cut off (the fuel to the engine), and he responded that he did not.

Speaking to NDTV on Saturday, Mr Khalid said, "I would like to throw in a new mathematical calculation that debunks the stories that have been floating around. At the timestamp of 42 seconds, the fuel switches transitioned within one second from run to cut-off... That means within one second, someone - fastest fingers in the cockpit - put both the switches out in just 500 milliseconds. So, in one second, both of them are out."

"Then the narrative is that the other pilot happened to see this and asked, 'why did you switch off or cut off the engine?' If this is the truth, then I think the proposer of this story has to now tell why that person waited for 10 seconds to reverse this switch," he explained.

ALSO READ | "International Media Reports Irresponsible": Air India Crash Investigator

Even the western media reports, he said, had not made the case that both pilots were trying to kill themselves.

"For the sake of argument, let's assume one pilot was. The other pilot was trying to live. Then I think he should be as fast as the first one. He put one fuel switch on at the 52-second timestamp and the other at 56. So, a four-second gap in putting (switches) on in an aircraft that is dying, and both of them know they are dead if they don't. Shouldn't this have been in milliseconds?" he pointed out.

Mr Khalied then explained that he thinks an electrical signal turned off the fuel, and the switches were not moved at that point. They were probably only moved later when the pilots were trying to restart the engines to avoid the crash, which they could not prevent.

The Air India Dreamliner 787-8 crashed on the premises of a medical college 32 seconds after take-off.