US transport body chief says Air India crash report suspecting pilot error ‘premature’

The head of the US National Transportation Safety Board cautioned that initial reports about last month’s Air India crash were premature and speculative.

A preliminary investigation released last week by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau found confusion in the cockpit shortly before the June 12 crash, raising questions about the position of the critical engine fuel cutoff switches.

The crash in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad killed 260 people.

“Investigations of this magnitude take time," NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said in a social media post on Friday. She called recent media reports on the crash “premature and speculative”, without providing any specifics about what exactly she was referring to.

The investigation report revealed that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s fuel switches were almost simultaneously flipped from “run” position to “cutoff” barely three seconds after takeoff. It said one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he had cut off the fuel. "The other pilot responded that he did not do so," the report said.

At the crash site, however, both fuel switches were found in the “run” position. The report noted there had been indications of the engines relighting before the low-altitude crash.

The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources, that an analysis of the investigation report showed first officer Clive Kunder had control of the Dreamliner for takeoff and at the time of the crash. It was Kunder who had asked captain Sumeet Sabharwal why he had flipped the switches, the paper added.

All but one of the 242 people onboard Air India flight AI171 to London Gatwick were killed, including 53 British nationals. Nineteen people also died on the ground as the plane crashed into a medical college building.

Pilots’ associations and Air India chief executive Campbell Wilson have urged the public not to draw conclusions while the investigation was ongoing.

The Airline Pilots’ Association of India, representing the South Asian country’s pilots at the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations in Montreal, called for "fair, fact-based inquiry”.

"The pilot's body must now be made part of the probe, at least as observers," the association’s India president Sam Thomas said.

After the preliminary report was released, India’s civil aviation authority ordered inspections of fuel switches on all Boeing 737 and 787 aircraft operating in the country.