NEW DELHI: It will be too premature to draw conclusions on the role of pilots from the preliminary investigation report into the fatal crash of Air India plane last month and the final report will mention about the most probable cause for the accident, former AAIB chief Aurobindo Handa said on Sunday.A day after the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) released its preliminary report into the crash that killed 260 people, he said, “We should allow AAIB to complete the investigation in a fair, unbiased and transparent manner.”Handa has investigated more than 100 aircraft accidents, including the Air India Express plane crash in Kozhikode in 2020.”AAIB has done a good job. Going forward, they will now focus to find out as to why and how these fuel switches moved and whether there could have been any mechanical and/or electrical failures/malfunction,” he told PTI.The report, released on Saturday, said the fuel switches of the crashed Boeing 787-8 plane’s engines were cut off within a gap of one second, and later switched on.From the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why he did cut off the switch and the other pilot saying he did not do so.The report did not mention which pilot asked the question and which pilot responded.The co-pilot was Pilot Flying (PF), and the Pilot In Command (PIC) was Pilot Monitoring (PM) for the flight.”It will be too premature to draw any conclusions, including the role of one of the pilots from the AAIB’s preliminary investigation report on Air India flight 171… we should allow AAIB to complete the investigation in a fair, unbiased and transparent manner,” Handa said.The Pilot In Command (PIC) was 56-year-old Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and the First Officer was 32-year-old Clive Kundar. Sabharwal’s flying experience with 787 was more than 8,596 hours, including 8,260 hours as PIC, while Kundar’s flying experience with this type of aircraft was 1,128 hours.
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