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DALLAS — Yesterday, Air India (AI) completed fuel control switch inspections on its Boeing 787 Fleet. According to a communication sent to pilots, AI found no issues during the check.
Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that multiple U.S. officials had stated that it was the captain who turned off the fuel switches. According to the report, the first officer was flying the plane, while the captain was monitoring the flight.
The preliminary AAIB report indicates that one of the pilots inquired of the other why he had turned off the fuel control switches, and the latter responded that he hadn’t. The report did not specify which pilot uttered what.
According to WSJ sources, it was the first officer who, surprised, asked the captain why he had turned off the fuel control switches. While the first officer "panicked," the report adds, the captain "remained calm." The WSJ article also states that “the pilot flying (the first officer) would have had his hands full [presumably with both hands on the steering yoke], while the pilot monitoring (the captain) would have had his hands free.”
The Federation of Indian Pilots refuted the WSJ’s claim, instead drawing parallels to a previous incident in 2019 involving an ANA (NH) Boeing 787 engine failure. A similar fuel cut-off malfunction occurred with the pilots never touching the controls.
To be clear, each of the Boeing 787 fuel‑control levers requires a deliberate two‑step “pull‑out then toggle” action. Moreover, the two-set pull-out toggle design on the fuel levers are not only installed on the Dreamliners but on a myriad of aircraft from the MD-11 to the 737 MAX.That fact informs various hypotheses on what happened in the flight deck of Flight AI171—Yes, this article is pure speculation, so bear with us as we list the following scenarios.
Purely Inadvertent Action Becomes Very Unlikely
Two‑step detent: To go from RUN to CUTOFF, you must consciously pull the lever collar out and then push the lever all the way down. That isn’t a twitch or a stray brush against the quadrant.
Four separate motions: Both engines’ controls are separate levers (left and right), so shutting both off demands four deliberate pulls and pushes, or two simultaneous dual‑lever actions if one person reached across. It’s effectively impossible to do by accident in one fluid motion.
Conclusion: A classical “slip” under workload no longer fits; there’s too much mechanical resistance and too many discrete steps for mere fatigue or distraction to explain it.
Possible Mechanical or Recording Malfunction
Detent‑spring failure or maintenance anomaly: Although all 787s share the same design, a maintenance action (e.g., removal or misinstallation of the pull‑out collars or springs) could render these levers unguarded. If that happened on this specific aircraft, and only this one, the levers might have moved under vibration or a knee bump.
EAFR sensor or data glitch: The Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorder logs switch‑position inputs electronically. A short circuit, wiring fault, or software bug could falsely register a RUN→CUTOFF transition without any physical movement of the lever. In that case, the pilots would be looking at phantom lever positions.
Deliberate Human Action
Intentional pull‑out and shutdown: If the lever motions were genuine, someone in the cockpit physically and intentionally selected CUTOFF on both engine levers. That would require conscious intent, ruling out reflex, misreach, or subconscious error.
Why deny it?: Immediately after the event, neither pilot claims responsibility. Under stress, denial is a natural self‑defense, but the absence of hesitation markers (“uh… no, I wouldn’t do that”) is curious. It may suggest they genuinely did not believe they had done it, pointing again to a possible recording anomaly, or, less charitably, that one did it and immediately deflected blame.
Psychological Dynamics of the “Why did you cut off?” Exchange
Search for agency: That question is the first move in a high‑stakes blame game: “Who pushed the button?”
Recording awareness: Both are acutely aware that investigative authorities will scrutinize the CVR. The terse denial—“I didn’t.”—is as much legal self‑preservation as it is a factual claim.
Shock and disbelief: Even in a data‑glitch scenario, hearing both engines flame out is so bewildering that the instinct is to ask your partner, “What did you do?”
So, Is It Intentional?
Given the mechanical safeguards against accidental shutdown, the idea of someone “just messing up” strains credulity. The most plausible avenues now are:
- A maintenance‑induced lever anomaly that made deliberate shutdown frighteningly easy and invisible until it happened.
- A recorder or sensor error falsely signaled lever movement, so neither pilot moved them despite the EAFR indication.
- A purposeful act by one crew member, whether maliciously, for reasons we can only speculate (suicidal ideation, protest, extreme stress), or in a moment of highly unusual aberrant behavior, followed by immediate denial.
Without understanding the final results of the findings from further physical inspection of the levers and wiring, let alone corroborating cockpit evidence, we cannot definitively exclude intentional action. But the fact that both levers on both engines were moved in rapid succession strongly favors either a designed mechanical/data failure or a willful act over an innocent operational error.
Who was the captain on Flight AI171? As per a onemileatatime.com profile, “56-year-old Sumeet Sabharwal was the captain of the doomed Air India Dreamliner, and he had over 15,000 flight hours. Sabharwal joined Air India in 1994 and was described as a soft-spoken man devoted to caring for his ailing father. His father had inspired his aviation career, as he worked in India’s civil aviation ministry.”
Featured image: Simone Chellini/airways
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