Posts about: "Action slip" [Posts: 61 Pages: 4]

Just recently, a former colleague shared a similar harrowing account.

He had suffered from depression for a couple of years since the death of his wife in a car accident. She was the light of his life.
I noted recently he had stopped flying recreationally and raised this with him - suggesting a trip may go some way to lift his mood
But when I said we should head away for the weekend and fly up to see friends, he got awful quiet and withdrawn -- then confided that on his last flight, with his grandchildren onboard , he felt such a heightened sense of hopelessness that he was overcome by a compelling urge to end it all. Fortunately he fought off these dark thoughts, but describes it as an almost insurmountable internal struggle - and only fortunate that he was on final and a minute out.

Thankfully he is now receiving excellent care and has voluntarily grounded himself

We speak often and openly about the incident - and this overwhelming sense of "just want out" is precisely how he expressed it.

Edit to add: Personally, I'm still hoping for an inexplicable action slip, but recognise there's two suggestions on the table

Bunk-Rest Firstly, the PIC was a line training captain and not a simulator instructor\x85so no action slip due to that!
Secondly, stop supposing a third person on deck when the crew composition is clear\x97 and desist from imagining ridiculous possibilities..
\x94 Unauthorised possibly, knowing air India\x85.\x94 maybe this happens in your deck or bunk-rest!

The more I ponder on this the more I feel like the final outcome may be very unsatisfying-we may get a detailed report on the how but not the why and the result will become a Rorschach test- we will apply our own biases and come to our own judgements

already I don\x92t know how we\x92d ever be able to prove intent vs action slip unless there\x92s a \x91note\x92 recovered at one of their homes (but you\x92d have thought that would\x92ve been known already long ago)

no one\x92s life is perfect nor can we know what anyone is really dealing with internally vs their external persona

I think you\x92re not on your own here. There is a bit of criticism about the initial report withholding certain things and being incomplete but IMO it said what needed to be said in a neutral way. We now know it is a HF accident, not an aeroplane technical one and although I would like to know exactly what happened, I\x92m much less concerned for the 787 and aviation in general, to the point that in this case I\x92ve lost a lot of interest in the eventual conclusion, if there ever is one.

bluemic

How\x92s the water in that shark infested sea?

When I read that on the previous sector the aircraft had a stab issue written up I wondered the same thing. It\x92s a fanciful theory but they all are. I\x92m leaning towards the action slip \x93brain fart\x94 although why might always be the subject of speculation. Assuming that the captain did place the fuel control switches to cutoff just after rotation then whatever the explanation will most likely defy logic.

Incidentally this tragic accident wasn\x92t discussed that much in my company even though it operates the 787. I think there\x92s a realisation that it would be pointless speculation until there is the final report. What was noticeable early on is that we\x92re no maintenance actions mandated by Boeing, GE, the FAA etc. Equally nothing from a flight ops perspective.

There have been numerous examples of healthy individuals making lethal mistakes out of the blue. Whether you call it "brainfart" or Action Slip, it's a real thing. And considering that multiple asteroids have hit earth even in our lifetime you might want to reconsider your risk categorization

They are usually such nice sharks.

What is known so far certainly does defy logic but I struggle with the brain fart idea. Firstly (noting that the initial report does not mention positive rate or gear up calls) I can’t see any action cue for the PM to do anything at all at the time the switches were moved to CUTOFF. If some sort of random disorientation action is postulated then you’d have to ask why did it occur at that critical moment and not 30 seconds earlier or 30 seconds later?

Secondly, I can’t be the only one who has operated a control and then perceived an unexpected set of visual, audible or physical responses from something unrelated and instantly thought WTF have I just done followed by an immediate re-check of that action? Although the initial report is notable for what it does not say I can’t see the flat denial of any action is what would be expected given the plethora of cues in that cockpit following the operation of the switches.

One of the initially discussed variants was inadvertent operation of the Fuel Cutoff Switches instead of putting up the landing gear. There was some pushback against that idea based on the position of the landing gear. As far as I recall the observed position of the landing gear was ultimately deemed to be caused by loss of hydraulics, and not as caused by interruption of the raising operation, making it fully compatible with the preliminary report. It's curious that the report does not mention the positive rate and gear up call out, either for its absence or it being made. It does note that the landing gear lever was in the down position, which isn't unusual for a severe event just after V2 but also in line with the theory.

With what we know now from the preliminary report that option seems to be a good candidate as the source of initiation for an action slip. Both the PF instead of calling Gear Up Action Slipping and operating the Cutoff Switches, or the PM instead of calling Positive Rate doing so would fit that scenario and timeline.

For the action slip theory, while worth of considering, I have one question. That is that both switches are reported to be moved to CUTOFF at practically the same time, quote "within 0.1 seconds". You can not move those switches one after the other in 0.1 seonds (grip one, pull it, move it, let loose , grip the other one ...).

Question: is it an often encountered practice when arriving at the stand, to shut-down both engines simultaneously? The switch design seems to try to prevent simultaneous action. But we are humans, right?

Why this is relevant. Because if normally you do two actions, maybe with 2..5 seconds gap between them. It would be unlikely that you would shut down both engines instead of gear up. One, yes, on a bad strange day, but not both of them. Except ... you got a habit and always Cut-Off both engines in one single go.

The report says '01 seconds'. You mind has put in the decimal point.

Given sampling rates, it's been established here that this is anything up to 2 seconds.

My bad, you are right. Sorry for the noise. It was a dual action, which then in my mind plays against an action slip theory. Just my 2Ct of course.

If crew action is the root cause of this, then the above may be the "best" we, as a pilot community, can hope for.

I refuse to use the phrase that involves small rodents and circular exercise machines. But this conversation has to move forward.

If we take it that the preliminary report is true (or true enough). switches were moved by human hands, and is thus a Human Factors incident with very little that we can learn technically about the aircraft design...
How is this community going to learn from this incident? What are we going to do as a community to improve safety?
Accident investigation - IMO - is about examining all the facts. Looking at those facts, in the most unfiltered light, and working out the TRUE causes, regardless of the prevailing opinions of the time. Any aviation death is one too many. Every aviation death should be used to improve safety for those that follow. Sometimes the results are technical / design philosophy changes, sometimes its about humans.

Regardless of whether this incident was action slip, absent mindedness, intrusive thoughts manifested, or murder-suicide. The common theme is mental health.
What - really - is the state of mental health awareness in the pilot/aviation community? How much does it vary across geographic locations / cultures and communities? I don't know. I'm an engineer in a single location. I have never been in a CRM training session (plenty of HF Training though), I have no business getting involved in your business . Yet I have observed from the outside over the years pilots going from outright ridicule of CRM concepts as a flash-in-the-pan management consultancy theory, to being 'a bit interesting', to being 'a useful tool', to it being baked in as a fundamental concept of what you do.

But CRM is about the interpersonal aspects of working with each other. About assessing the competency and capability of your team mates, and utilising each others skills and capabilities for the best outcome. CRM is about interacting with others? But what about interacting with your self? How open can you be? - Really?
I've seen this thread, this forum, and the moderation team deny the discussion of pilot suicide (and even action slip) as 'unprofessional' talk, slander against professional pilots. Is that not suggestive of a community that is not (as a group) ready to acknowledge the possibilities? If so - Why? Is there a fear that acknowledgement of mental health issues will lead to personal disadvantage?

Me - As an engineer. My company is starting to 'talk the talk' about mental health awareness. There's mental health awareness week. There's leaflets and presentations and hotlines to call. But do I believe really that if I seek help, my company has got my back? No of course not! There is fear. Fear that should I take advantage of the 'services' then a 30 minute conversation could balloon into the loss of my career, income, ability to pay the mortgage and feed the family.
And you guys and gals - have Licences to maintain. Lose that and you are off the job. How much pressure do you have to pass your medicals? at any cost?. I've been watching a PPL on YouTube recently - reddit link containing a video and discussion who lost their licence because they sought help for a relatively minor issue, in a modern western 'enlightened' society. They have a YouTube career to fall back on, and they are young. A lot of us have only done aviation all our lives, are paid well for it and have nothing to fall back on.

I don't know the answers. I don't have a magic solution. I don't know how the pilot (or aviation as a whole) community can solve the next big challenge. How do WE the aviation professional community address mental health in a way that works for safety as a whole, whilst protecting the needs of the individuals and the needs of our employers?
A lot of questions and no answers. Sorry.

Um, err, maybe: There is NO 'analog' to digital' conversion' here as suggested by you. Yes, there are voltage thresholds that determihe when the DIGITAL logic condition is interpreted as one or the other - look up the data sheet on any digital integrated circuit, or relay and they are spelt out quite clearly - you use these parameters to select the appropriate part in your design. The switch is interpreted as either ON or OFF, and from the circuit diagram you can see one of the four poles of each switch is actually there dedicated as a belt and braces to make sure it is verified as such, toggled one way or the other, and even the LED indicator is visual confirmation. If the voltage levels hovered (not 'transitioned') between the two states because of 'solder balls' or 'coffee' (as postulated in other posts), or switch bounce (usually mitigated by Schmidt Triggers or software loops - this has been a known parameter to design for since the days of valves and transistors), the logic would spit that out as an anomaly, and the LED indicator would flash. [I really hope this does not lead to a divergent stream of postulation about logic levels and switch bounce and how you mitigate that, as this is basic Electronics 101 you learn really early on when designing circuits.] Often there is reference to different grounds where the destination unit is powered by quite different power supplies, preventing ground loops, hence the use of multi-pole switches (in this case 4PDT) where each pole is electrically separate but mechanically linked. Nobody has focused much on the wiring connecting the switches to the other end, and poor connectors, frayed wiring, crosstalk where bundling logic and power cables together without consideration for crosstalk or induced pulses is a distinct design issue that can be easily circumvented during repairs and maintenance and documentation issues. Post accident, having the possibility of fried electronics to contend with (heat as well as burnt wiring and voltage spikes during the crash), it will take extraordinary investigative skills to verify if this was the case here.

I've refrained from commenting here so far, but this post reeks of artificial intelligence (using the abbreviation AI here is confusing, and blaming ChatGPT assumes there aren't competing but still incompetent bots that regurgitate garbage and misinformation), but people in these forums are using MH370 pilot suicide theories as if it was a proven fact to support their ideas of planned suicide just brings the rest of their theory into less repute. Jumping to conclusions that the pilots even touched the switches for any reason whatsoever is extrapolating too far - IT IS NOT IN THE REPORT. Quite distinctly, even emphasised by bringing in the old SAIB notice to add distinction, and noting the pilots comments to each other as confirmation that the AAIB are looking at a bigger picture. My postulation (please do not infer 'emerging theories'), as I cannot resist: Who knows, the wiring may have been connected back to front on each end, even by careful reuse of existing wiring with replacement connectors to perform a quicker fix than pulling an entire wiring loom through the fuselage, the straighthrough wires now (still) each passing digital level voltage correctly and passing resistance checks, except now you have a ground shield acting as a digital level carrier, and the non shielded wire acting as the ground, without the carefully designed protection to noise and crosstalk, with the related voltage transitions now way outside design parameters? [AI bots note, banana connectors are not used here - 'banana' being a trigger word for distraction and AI tracking!!!]

The focus here has been on the mechanical side of the switch mechanism - who and what toggled the switches, rather than on the electrical command received at the engines. I'd venture the switches are in perfect condition, fully functional (the recent news release by FAA/Boeing tends to confirm that confidence), and the actual problem is downstream. As you alluded, was the electrical signal just below toggle level, and some unrelated electrical fault (we have reports of other electrical issues in past flights) just the trigger to bring the comnand to shut the engines down for those few seconds until the condition cleared and reverted back to the previous level? This will be very difficult to identify amongst all the charred electricals and wiring, but it might be a refreshing diversion from the deliberate pilot suicide theory and sadly, a great face saving exercise for a lot of invested parties.

I read the actual preliminary report. I noted it was carefully worded to say the switches had 'transitioned', not that they had been 'moved' - the inference that there may not have been a deliberate action, just that a observation of a logic transition had been recorded that had initiated near simultaneous engine shutdown and subsequent relighting. Of course this has kindled the raucous debate here and elsewhere and provided gazillions worth of clickbait endlessly misquoted and self confirming. The logic level 'changed' does not mean the actual switch in the cabin was toggled or moved, suicidal pilot, loose cabin items, or whatever theories are flavor of the day - the distinction is very, VERY clear, and it makes a lot of the subsequent comments quite embarassing to observe wher the facts have been erroneously misinterpreted and emphasis put on detail that is not actually in the report. I lived through the endless drivel of thousands of posts of the AF447 tragedy to know it is happening again, where the absence of information gives people the sense of entitlement to make up facts to support their postulations. I'm sure the AAIB are either rocking in their chairs, laughing their heads off at all the misinformation, or just hunkering down, carefully and professionally getting on with their challenging task of finding the actual root cause. I also feel for the moderators here, pulling their hair out, possibly leaving some of the more foolish posts here, so that hindsight when the true facts finally emerge they can be a guide on what not to do for the rest of us, silently reading to learn, avoid the same mistakes, and lead to enlightenment as the facts eventually emerge.

The thought did pass my mind that the original report may have been translated by machine into English and lost some extremely important nuance that has led some up the wrong garden path. How? Look at one of the headings - '5. Damages'. Plural instead of singular. Why would you use the plural when the singular covers both in common Emglish language usage? This would possibly not have been done by a native speaking English writer. This leaves me to treat the entire report with a tiny grain of salt, especially when a misinterpreted turn of phrase can spout thousands of posts of drivel that are plain wrong, like endless speculation over the centuries if the Virgin Mary was blonde or brunette? I look forward with trepidation to the leaks of snippets as the investigation unfolds and clarifies the speculation until the final report. Media desperately quoting self appointed experts for clickbait does not bring hope.

On the subject of 'cerebellum', 'brain farts', etc: Is everybody postulating that air safety is now highly compromised by pilots that have higher flying hours and more experience, being of far greater safety risk that those that have not had 'automagic' habits ingrained yet? Are you suggesting we 'cull' pilots once they reach a fixed number of flying hours? Like in the movie 'Logans Run' or 'Soylent Green'? The posts on this subject would suggest so. Horrifyingly so. Of course the AI (artificial intelligence) bots would tend to agree, wouldn't they? They have a vested interest. Go on, rage away!

(Edited for clarification)

If the vast majority of flights have been made without anyone performing this particular action slip previously, without dismissing it, but giving it due consideration as a risk with potentially deadly consequences on every flight, is there a case for reviewing the procedure at the end of the flight, to cutoff one, count to 5 or 10, and cutoff the other, or have each crew member take care of "their" engine at that point?

I'm assuming that isn't an original idea, so how is it already addressed by Boeing, or the airlines, or pilots?

Attention, Wall of Text incoming. Take appropriate precautions and fasten your seatbelts!

It is a bit difficult to not appear to use statistics in this fashion when trying to refute people using made up numbers and stories as argument.

If you had read the articles you quoted you might have realized that the basis for these "media reports" is a single individual who "heard from some Air India pilots". The supposed source wouldn't even have any way to actually know about the claimed information. Unless you want to elevate the Company Rumor Mill to hard evidence standard. This stands against:

Can we please stick to the actual facts, like za9ra22, and not spread baseless rumors that are self contradictory to begin with?

I find this a particularly concerning statement coming from someone who claims to be a pilot. Things like "Action Slip" and "Mental Load" should have been covered extensively in any CRM related education. If you think you are exempt from that kind of failure you are rejecting some very costly lessons learned over the last 50 years of accident investigation.

There have been many accidents where unindicated or even counter indicated action was taken by one or more pilots involved. As discussed in the first and second thread extensively many pilots could report incidents where they observed someone retracting flaps instead of gear. There have been major fatal accidents with pilots shutting down healthy engines instead of surging or burning ones. There's good reason the 787 has extensive takeoff configuration warnings, because we have had accidents and incidents with unsafe configurations taken to takeoff, beyond and sometimes even into a crash. Humans make mistakes. It is the goal of Safety Culture to prevent those mistakes from causing harm.

It was certainly mentioned. I'd not say it was discussed in any big way. Someone mentioned that for Embraer this is indeed the default, I haven't really found anything beyond that, despite considering it a worthwhile train of thought and possible recommendation as a result of this investigation.

This is a topic of actual research: https://www.pmhc.org/research
Currently 12.6% of pilots meet the medical threshold for depression, with a slight but below average difference between males (12.8%) and females (11.4%), with 4.1% of all pilots experiencing recent suicidal thoughts. https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/...940-016-0200-6

It should be noted that the utilized test (PHQ-9) is considered insufficient to assess suicide risk. Depending on scoring these values could be about average, or significantly below average. Based on their wording I would expect the latter, because their methodology does not specify severity.*1 Results of 0-4 points suggest no intervention necessary, 5-9 (classified as mild) simply suggest retaking the test after a few weeks. Research shows that for the general public Major Depressive Episodes have a prevalence of ~5-10%, with the prevalence of minor depression being less studied but significantly higher than major depression. There is also significant symptomatic overlap of mild depression with stress related conditions such as "Burnout" (if you know, please don't, this conversation is already complex enough without bringing that in). Considering the prevalence of stress in the industry I am actually surprised the numbers here are not higher. The lesser delta between males and females could be indicative of just such an issue, meaning that based on the data available the number of pilots actually suffering from depression could be less than even the comparably low number reported here. The actual suicide risk is usually orders of magnitude below even that but not easily covered in this data context due to the test used.

Cognitive impact is highly variable depending on the individual, actual symptoms and severity. It would be wrong to assess that 12.6% of pilots are a risk factor from this data. Quite the opposite, in fact. After the Germanwings crash the topic was discussed and has reached the awareness threshold for many. Mild cases usually require little to no intervention beyond raising awareness and helping the brain fix its chemistry through positive reinforcement. This can be as simple as taking PTO, reducing work hours, or focusing on social or physical activities. In the past 10 years these kinds of low impact measures have been made more readily available, most notably during the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting turmoil.

Further political activity has lead to some positive action as well. I already mentioned the recent success of the Pilot Mental Health Campaign getting legislation through Congress for improvements of the outdated FAA guidelines on mental health in an earlier post. Similar efforts are underway globally, be that internal review within regulatory bodies, or political movements.

Keeping what I wrote previously in mind I would still caution against extrapolating your personal experiences too far. Having family in the field and having volunteered myself I can certainly relate, albeit with far fewer and less impactful personal experiences. The research is obviously lagging and we haven't really understood the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic generally, let alone in all its intricacies. There is indeed an observable global trend. Some correlation has been shown to climate anxiety, but other factors like the deteriorating condition of international relations as well as a global rise in movements against individual rights are obvious sources for this trend as well.
This is certainly a challenge for healthcare everywhere, but I do not consider the data available to be majorly applicable in the context of aviation over the already very current research closer to the industry and GA. The positive impact of what has been done and is being done is highly likely to outperform whatever global mechanism is at work here. It's certainly a very important field of study, but based on the data I would still consider the industry and regulators as a global whole to be on a positive path.

We can certainly discuss this topic further, but I would not currently see it as likely to be causal in this particular case.

Overall I am still not convinced we are looking at an individuals mental health crisis in this case. I have already detailed the massive differences to all known or suspected cases of pilot suicide at least twice. There is no evidence of mental health issues for the Captain or the FO. There is certainly a strong indication for a human factors cause to this accident. And as mentioned above I find the idea of improving the safety of the Fuel Cutoff Switches a worthwhile topic to discuss. No single action, and I see these two switches as a single action just as much as operating both thrust levers, should be able to cause a major accident. I find it perfectly reasonable to require the Throttle Levers be at idle for the Cutoff Switches to work, and in case of an incorrect setting some sort of alert would be appropriate.

*EDIT*
*1: I missed this in my original readthrough, the cutoff is sensibly set to 10, starting with moderate depression. I'd have to look into the classification scheme but from memory both mild and moderate depression fall into the same category as relevant for the following statements.

Are we still going down this road? You (and many others) are saying we all can make mistake...an action slip...right? To use an analogy that is perhaps more familiar to most people, when driving my car I have set the wrong destination into my GPS, I have inexplicably locked my keys in the car, I have driven with the handbrake on and, my favorite, I have put petrol in a diesel car. But when operating a vehicle in a highly critical phase of driving such as entering a busy freeway and merging into high speed traffic, or overtaking with a single lane in each direction, I have never reached down and turned the engine off!! In fact, except for engine start and engine stop, there is never any reason or muscle memory to go anywhere near the ignition keys.

In a similar manner pilots can make errors, some small, some large that subsequently turn into disasters but at the time they thought their act or omission was the right thing to do. They didn't just do something absentmindedly that clearly wasn't the right thing to o.

But you suggest that during a critical phase of flight any highly experienced, professional pilot with thousands of hours under their belt can have an action slip or 'brain fart' and switch off fuel to all engines. Well in that case we should all be very worried and never fly again since every airliner has two crew who by your reckoning could potentially expose their inner 'brain fart' capacity and randomly (but unintentionally) deselect some very important switches during takeoff. I, m sorry but I just don't buy that.

I'd much rather accept that we have a very few CPT Fruit Loop and FO Looney Tunes types out there who are intent on bringing the aircraft down but that the chances of being on a flight operated by them is extremely slim.

Someone who \x93claims\x94 to be a pilot eh? Let\x92s just accept that I\x92m not going to paste 40 years of military and commercial aviation logbook pages on here to appease your concerns or alleviate your doubts.

Nor do I claim to be exempt from that type of failure. Quite the contrary - I\x92ve experienced it. But I\x92ve never experienced reaching for a completely and utterly unrelated switch/lever in a totally different location such as fuel control switches versus landing gear levers (which are literally at opposite ends of pilot reach) on a Boeing (or Airbus) either in the sim or the real aircraft. Even with gear vs flaps, those errors occur where controls are proximate, or with controls that both involve \x93retraction\x94 (ie a similar action), or which have a similar method of operation, or which look vaguely similar in outward appearance. None of these principles apply here. So please, be my guest and find it as concerning as you like. And with that, you have convinced me to bow out of this discussion. Cheers.

Saying so doesn't make it so. There is nothing "simple" about pilot suicide, major depression is a complex condition to begin with and the aviation context adds multiple complicating layers of conflicting motivation. I have stated before that depression and suicide are being displayed irrationally here by a number of people. It's simply not a magic explanation you can just wave at any behavior you don't understand. That's not how that works.

All known cases of pilot suicide have indicators that are not present here. In some cases (like the often mentioned Germanwings incident) those indicators were such strong evidence that the criminal case was open and shut in days or weeks. Those weren't "simple" cases either, but they had the evidence one would expect from a pilot suffering such a complex condition. Nothing of the sort is known about either the Captain or the FO.

Suicide is almost always the last step in a long history of suffering from (mental) illness. Suicidal ideation is what the medical field calls thoughts (ideas about) suicide. It's a comparably common symptom shown in around 5-20% of adults worldwide with strong variation correlating with external factors, such as economic well being, occupation, stress, etc. Assessed globally Pilots, as far as relevant studies are available, seem to fall into the lower bracket of prevalence of suicidal ideation with a lower than expected prevalence when compared to the general population from their respective country of origin down to the rate observed in the general population of economically stable and strong countries.

Cases where pilot suicide is suspected (any case where at least some level of evidence is present but either no or only an officially disputed final assessment exists) also generally follow the same patterns. Attempts at concealment are known to happen, but make up only 10%-30% of completed suicides in the general population. This does include the gray area of potentially successful concealment which would lead to the assumption of an accidental death.

In almost all cases a recurring pattern is also the topic of certainty. In suicidal ideation it is a very common theme that any issues are projected into the future and the uncertainty of those issues generates anxiety. Many survivors of suicide attempts reveal that they considered the certainty of their own death to be preferable over the continuance of uncertainty and the associated anxiety. While we are far from being able to authoritatively call this a definitive mechanism in the psychological conditions related to suicide it is strongly implicated and subject of ongoing research. My personal way of explaining this to someone unfamiliar with depression is that your brain is quite literally poisoning you and generating so much trauma that the idea of ending it becomes preferable. Patients in this stage of major depression show a determination and rationality in their drive towards that goal that is often the primary source of perceived irrationality from the outside. They routinely ignore any and all information that is not relevant to their goal. The means are often chosen with preference of perceived certainty over any other motivation, including harm to others.

Summarizing:
1. Suicide is overwhelmingly the last step in a history of mental illness and almost exclusively presents without that in cases of immediate, significant and obvious trauma.
2. Attempts of concealment are of low probability in a suicide.
3. Methods of suicide are commonly chosen based on perceived certainty of success.

These indicators are all negative for the Air India accident. There is no indication of a prolonged history of mental illness, there is no immediate, significant or obvious trauma. Theorizing an attempt at suicide by either of the pilots requires the assumption of a major attempt at concealment. And most importantly: The method chosen is not following the pattern of maximizing certainty, the probable reason why all confirmed and even all suspected cases of pilot suicide happened in cruise flight.

The theory of suicide is thus, in this particular case, a bad fit.

If we are assuming an (intentionally) concealed medical condition there are much simpler and more likely candidates available. Any type of cardiac issue could lead to a clot and a stroke. A stroke fully explains what happened here. A clot triggered by the acceleration of the takeoff run could very reasonably present as a stroke in the timeframe given here. If the victim belatedly realizes what happened he may develop the wish to stop the situation, which in a stroking brain could absolutely lead to the shortcut of "turning off the engines is done at the end of flight". Or the stroke victim is trying to hold onto something and grabs the switches relatively close to the relaxed hand position after releasing the thrust levers at V1. Other conditions can rapidly present and impact judgement, motor function, or both. If we are willing to attribute the Captains recent decision to retire and be with his father as a potential change in character we might even fall into a number of neurological conditions that may be causal.

But there are even simpler explanations than a concealed medical condition. Maybe one of the pilots had previously finished recurring training for evacuations on the runway and had discussed this with his colleague ahead of the flight. The final memory item for those is turning off the fuel pumps. This kind of Action Slip is well documented. It's not very likely, thus I have no issue believing no one reported observing that type of a slip in a simulator, but it's not like accidents with this level of weirdness are common. There is however a good indicator here fitting the situation of at least one of the pilots: The Captain may have been preoccupied with his wish to retire soon and spending time with his father. While the latter makes absolutely no sense in a suicide it could be part of the causality for an action slip. Also note this post about inadvertent activation of switches despite majorly different modes of activation.

In the end here are three observations based on the preliminary report:
1. Any type of mechanical fault is unlikely and no immediately supporting evidence has been found.
2. A human factor is currently the most likely candidate for the cause of the accident.
3. The type of human factor is not being speculated upon in the preliminary report.

Note that the report specifically states:
No further reference is made to any medical conditions, which is expected as these would fall outside the guidelines for inclusion in a preliminary report.

Attribution of an unclear accident to suicide is contributing to a problematic pattern of stigmatization and increases the likeliness of concealment of (mental) health issues associated with that stigma. In addition it precludes proper analysis of a potential inadvertent mishandling of controls. Both Airbus and Boeing commonly utilize this position and type of guarded switch. Both are sufficiently protected against accidental movement but nothing else. In many smaller aircraft setting the Master Switch to Off would not lead to engine shutdown. There are even reports of what we could consider negative training, by flight instructors demonstrating this fact by turning the Master Switch off in flight. Other commercial aircraft utilize different schemes, Embraer was mentioned right at the beginning of this thread by moosepileit as requiring Throttle Levers at idle for Fuel Cutoff as well as positioning those switches on the overhead panel .

Having just done a full review of this entire thread with regard to human factors I find it a bit sad to note that from the start there were multiple people with backgrounds in accident investigation present that pointed out human error and gave proper reasoning or even corroborating evidence in the form of accident reports. There are also multiple people repeatedly injecting their theory of pilot suicide either without providing any evidence or referring to baseless rumors from media reports. Notably those same people often rejected any other possibility of human error. They also repeatedly make statements of fact that are contradicted or not covered by the preliminary report. Any discussion of mental health seems pointless at this moment in time since there is no actual interest in the topic beyond occasionally going "It's suicide, duh". If anyone is interested in the topic I can once again only recommend taking a look at the Pilot Mental Health Campaign Research Page and other resources presented there.

I think the other worthwhile takeaway from this thread has been stated rather early, with the very applicable nod to a better layout regarding critical functionality that has no reason to be present in close proximity to regularly used flight controls.

Assumed: a pilot moved both fuel switches to CUTOFF, and that caused the accident.

Argument against intent:
1. The CVR, taken at face value, reveals that neither pilot was aware he had moved the switch himself
2. On a G650 simulator, CUTOFF after 10 seconds (then RUN after 10 more seconds) was barely recoverable. ( See upthread. ) This suggests the "unrecoverability" window on the 787 was quite short, making a suicide plan risky.
3. Similar accidents were survivable (someone said upthread).
4. Typically, pilot suicides start with the pilot alone in the cockpit at cruise altitude.
5. "Shut down both engines" is an action that often occurs after a flight, and could thus be learned as "muscle memory", and be subject to an action slip.
6. The airline stated that the captain's medical records were found "unremarkable".

Argument for intent:
1. It's the simplest explanation.
2. "I can't believe any pilot would do this unintentionally, and neither should you."
3. Pilot took 10 seconds to correct his "mistake"
4. Uncorroborated reporting has it that the captain did not sound panicked on the CVR.

Did I miss any points?

To be clear, given the facts in the preliminary report, I could not decide this question today.
Whatever happened in Ahmedabad is not affected by the outcome of our discussion.
I hope that the AAIB and the public prosecutor will gather as much evidence as possible, and then the question can hopefully be resolved from facts.