How did the Air India Flight 171 scheduled to fly from Ahmedabad to London June 12 crash almost instantly after take off, killing 241 of the 242 people on board? A preliminary report of the investigation has confirmed that both engines of the plane did shut down within seconds of take-off.An excerpt from the report noted this:”The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS (Indicated Airspeed) at about 08:08:42 UTC (Universal Time – 1:38 pm IST) and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec.”The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cutoff.”In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff. The other pilot responded that he did not do so.”The report doesn’t identify which pilot said what, but states, according to the BBC, that the switches were then moved back into their normal inflight position.This would have automatically started the process of reviving the engines.The report observes that one engine was “in the process of regaining thrust at the time the aircraft crashed. The other was relit but was not yet regaining thrust”.The preliminary report also did not find any “significant fault with the plane or its engines”.It noted that “at this stage of investigation, there are no recommended actions to B787-8 and/or GE GEnx-1B engine operators and manufacturers, suggesting that no significant fault has been found with the plane or its engines.”The report went on to underline that no conclusions have been drawn and that the investigations are continuing.The lone ‘miracle’ survivor of the crash was Vishwashkumar Ramesh, a British national.One hundred sixty nine Indians, 52 Britishers, seven Portuguese nationals, one Canadian and 12 crew members were among the 241 dead.
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