Posts about: "Fuel Cutoff" [Posts: 302 Pages: 16]

Generally don't think it's a good idea to reply to own posts, but in this case wanted to keep things in context. A few interesting items of note:

1. ADSB readouts - according to FlightRadar24, the last ADSB transmission was at 71ft AGL. Is that significant given the RAT is seen already deployed at 150ft AGL per the estimate above? At 71ft AGL, the wheels are about 40-50ft off the ground, assuming aircraft attitude is unchanged between there and this image. Is that 1 or 2 seconds after rotation? Does this imply electrical issues?
1a. The timings for ADSB transmissions outlined by MrShed are not in sync with the estimates above - people have talked about a time shift in this thread. I do believe ADSB timestamps are by the receiving station.
2. The preliminary report timings from the EAFR for E2 fuel cutoff switch RUN -> CUTOFF to the RAT supplying hydraulic power disagree with the lower end of the 4-7s estimate above, and are only consistent if this picture was taken 6-7 seconds after rotation, in my opinion, because of the time (4-5s) it would take to cut off the fuel to E2, spool down to where the VFSGs stop providing AC power, and RAT deployment.
3. The Preliminary Report mentions that the RAT deployed "immediately after" lift-off. Again, I have to wonder, why didn't they provide the RAT deployment timestamp, even relative to rotation? If this is in fact the case, does this imply electrical issues, in line with the last ADSB altitude reading?

FR24 article https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/f...rom-ahmedabad/

Hi appruser ! I have quoted Pip_Pip 's post above because the position provides a better means to link ADS-B data to the sequence of events, since it's coming directly from the aircraft. The time stamp comes from the volunteer-run receiver, which might experience clock drift. Based on the public CCTV video, we also have a rough triangulation for the rotation, which occurs next to the high-speed turnoff for the third taxiway.

Note that the good folks at FR24 did not apply temperature correction to the barometric altitude (they corrected for air pressure and runway elevation); pilots on pprune have done the corrections themselves and arrived at slightly different values, so take those altitude numbers with a grain of salt. Note also that the 787 sends altitude in 25 ft. increments, and I don't know how these are rounded (up, down, nearest).

We do not know how long the RAT has been deployed in this photo, we only know it can't have been deployed later. I have learned on this thread that the CUTOFF switch will also cause the VFSGs to disconnect, i.e. the B787 systems will electrically isolate the engine from the power buses before it has spooled down. With a dual failure, this would leave the main buses unpowered in short order, so if all of this is correct, the RAT would have clonked into place very soon after the second engine was cut off. This would not depend on the turbine speed.

I personally do not know what items are logged on the flight recorder, but I imagine RAT deployment was not among them. If so, the conditions for its deployment would be logged, but it requires an analytical step to conclude it did, and a preliminary report typically has no analysis at all. Hydraulic pressure to the flight controls is likely logged, so the RAT delivering hydraulic power would be a matter of record.

Where is the RadAlt antenna on a 787? Is it in the nose, or further back between the main gears?

does the ORDER in which the switches were operated give us any clues which seat operated them? I would suspect that most pilots always go left switch then right switch, or the right then left each and every time when switching off. We are creatures of habit.

I haven't seen it mentioned it yet that if the stabiliser cut out switches had been left in the wrong position from the previous maintenance, when would EICAS or some other system alert the pilots to this? Would the alert be in close proximity to when the fuel switches were moved?

As others have said I think what this episode has revealed is it's too easy to turn off the engines in flight, and that the fuel cut-off switches should only operate when the relevant throttle is at idle? or should have a 10 second pause when no WOW signal

and a definite yes to cockpit video, protected so only accident investigators can access it. I can guarantee the third MCAS event wouldn't have happened if the 2 Lion Air MCAS events had been caught on video. It still shocks me after the first Lion Air near miss where the jump seater saved the day that the plane was released to service "nothing found". And as/when found cockpit video would solve the mystery of MH370.

Generally modern Boeing philosophy is left to right for either pilot.

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?

It is both fascinating and unsettling to observe how the media in India consistently refuse to acknowledge that suicide may be the most likely scenario. Key voices—such as former pilots and the airline pilots' union—continue to dismiss the possibility that a pilot could have deliberately moved the fuel control switches to the cutoff position. They rely on factually incorrect arguments and emotional reasoning. For instance, some suggest a potential defect in the Boeing 787’s fuel cutoff switches. However, the FAA's Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) they reference was specifically issued for the Boeing 737, not the 787.

An overview of public statements made by pilots in the media can be found here.
https://feitoffake.wordpress.com/202...room-in-india/

Well, perhaps it isn't yet viewed as proven, and unless or until more evidence emerges that may or still not establish that, doing something by mistake is usually more likely. Historically in most contexts there are far more mistakes (including non-fatal) than suicides

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.

I even saw a video of an Indian expert -I believe he claimed to be a B787 jockey- explaining how it would be physically IMPOSSIBLE to put both switches in the OFF position within 1 or 2 seconds. I'll try to find it again when I have more time.

Please explain.

Fact is both fuel cutoff switches moved to the cutoff position three seconds after the wheels left the runway. While the speed was 180 knots. Nothing indicates a problem with the thrust of the engines.
So explain why one of the pilots , a ghost, an iPad set *both* switches to cutoff just after liftoff while the aircraft had a normal speed and no indications of a problem.
Mind there is no issue with those switches. The FAA SAIB was for the Boeing 737
https://feitoffake.wordpress.com/202...787-explained/

There is just one explanation: one of the pilots deliberately set both switches to cutoff.

I would love to explain, but my posts get deleted.

While I fully understand that a normal working fuel cut off switch on a Boeing can not move to cut off by itself, I'm completly certain that it can when the locking mechanism is not properly installed. In such a case, the moving part of the lever could even stand on a "needle point position", meaning it's neither in the on or off position. Smallest movement of the aircraft or a hand can move the lever to on or off.
I also observed many pilots in my career holding their hand at the backstop of the thrust levers on the pedestal as PM. Comes from a certain mistrust to the other pilot (mostly captains do that). If this hand falls down by a gust or a bump on the runway, his hand falls down on the pedestal. Exact location of the cut-off switches. If the locking mechanism isn't installed, you don't even feel that you moved it.

Dani

Driving a car is totally different than flying an aircraft. Pilots are trained over and over again for certain scenario's. The hands of a pilot during the liftoff have no reason at all to be anything near the fuel control switches.
When the fuel needs to be cut because of an engine failure there is a strict procedure before the switch is set to CUTOFF. Both pilots need to confirm the location (left or right) of the engine. No pilot will without consent switch off the fuel. However this is what happened.

Potential issue with the locking feature of fuel control switches of the Boeing 787 is a * red herring*. There is no such issue. There was an issue on some Boeing 737 aircraft. The FAA requested operators of other Boeing made aircraft to check if their aircraft had switches with a similar issue. No reports of such issue are known.
See https://feitoffake.wordpress.com/202...787-explained/

So your scenario is impossible.

I doubt the engines will start if those switches were neither in the on or off position, most probably the electric contact behind will not close and happen. also both at the same time? and since the position you mention is not a detention it would require time and ability to position them exactly in the middle without them going either side

I'll offer a guess as to why...later.
Why do you assume that improper installation?
How many times have you moved those switches, and the engines started without the switch being in the RUN position? (Either in the sim or in the aircraft).
Has anyone demonstrated to you something like
"watch this, Dani: if I pull the switch up and get it to hang on the little lock/cam, the engine will still start" ... in the sim or in the aircraft.
I'd be interested to read of your experiences with that switch and that non-standard positioning of it that you describe.

Beyond that, did you bother to look at the position of the fuel control switches that were in the preliminary report?
They were found in the RUN position. See page ten of the preliminary report.
Neither of them was cocked off, as in the picture of a misaligned switch from a 737 that you referred to.
On a 737.
The bulletin was Issued seven years ago. Why do you assume that people in the business sat on their hands for seven years?
Right. The facts are that the two fuel control switches were both found in the RUN position, not cocked to the side as your example from a 737 illustrates. Your entire line is unfortunately sunk by your attempt to challenge that fact.
You have established no basis for why you believe that the switches on this 787 were incorrectly installed, given that

1. the aircraft's crew (on the previous flight) successfully turned the fuel on and off on the flight from Delhi
2. the aircraft's flight deck crew successfully turned the fuel on, to RUN, before starting engines on the flight from Ahmedabad.

Your case is unsupported by the facts at hand.
As to post deletions: as with some of mine being deleted, we both seem to get involved in the running rodent machine despite any intentions to avoid it.

For DaveReidUK
Your post is, at best, disingenuous. (But thank you for posting an excerpt from the bulletin ).
The error was found on a 737, and the competent authority issued that alert having recognized that similar switches might have similar problems - they used the word potentia l - not because switches on all of those other models had been found to have that problem.
From your subsequent post:
I will also ask you whether or not you believe that airline companies the world over have sat on their hands for the last seven years, as regards fuel cutoff switches.
Given that this is the year 2025, (and the maintenance actions mentioned in the preliminary report) 1spotter's point on the "red herring" is a bit stronger than you allow. Please go back and read page 6 of the prelim report, top half.

Something else to think upon: how many 737s does Air India operate?
Does that have a relevance to this accident?
For the moment I don't think that it does, however, it might. The investigators have a variety of other rocks to turn over and see what crawls out from under them.
They may find evidence of various maintenance issues that have an impact on this accident.
As of today, though, such information has not been released (but I will offer you a guess that all of that is in the process of being collected and analyzed, even now, as a part of their investigation).

Full disclosure: I don't fly Boeings, I do not work for Boeing, I have no shares in Boeing stock, and I am still slightly pissed at Boeing for the MCAS screw up on the 737-MAX.

While I agree with your point entirely, I don't find it unusual or unexpected that there is resistance among many to accept or even acknowledge the possibility of suicide, but at the same time, it's no more fixated than the alternative camp which argues that suicide is the only possibility - and often promotes it via as erroneous 'evidence' as that suggesting the cutoff switches are faulty and the SAIB 'proves' it.

There's a genuine problem with understanding what 'evidence' means, and both sides seem to be suffering it.

SLF here with engineering background.

Regardless of what happened and why regarding the switches going to off, there is now a documented failure mode of the system that needs mitigation (?):
Fuel switches off at less than XXX ft lead to unrecoverable AC.

If fuel cut off during take off leads to unrecoverable at less than XXX ft or risk of error i.e. switching one vs the other, then inhibit them. I'm putting it too simplistically, but if after V1 the AC is GO and there is a range of altitude/speed that engines loss leads to unrecoverable some mitigation is needed.

In the meantime maybe ban jump seating during such phases of flight regardless of it is relevant to this accident. If there is intention for something like that, less people with access reduces the possibility of happening.

Too much discussion I think for the 10s to bring the switches back to on.... Pilots are not super humans. By that time the situation the AC was at must have been very clear, some hands shaking is expected...

I wonder if based on the data from the flight, sim-runs have been made to see if the situation would be more survivable had the AC 'slammed' itself back to the runway.

--> Any estimation of how many seconds in 'off' would not change the end result? If it is 2-3 seconds, its better to stop discussing if 10s response by pilots was ok or not. The 'why' and 'preventive' of going to 'off' is a lot more important.

Edit: Have been reading tdracer posts for many many years now. Thank you!

The problem here with inhibiting the fuel cutoff is that what happens if you have an engine fire less than your XXX ft? You still need to turn off that engine, right? Now you could say turning off BOTH should be inhibited... what if they are both on fire and there's a nice flat space in front of you?

- GY

Pull the fire handle(s)? Or do those that want the fuel switches to be inhibited also want the fire handles to be inhibited?

I see a lot of posts about how rare it is for a pilot to deliberately crash the plane. But a rare event did take place. A plane full of people crashing right after take off is rare. So given that event has already occurred, whatever caused it howsoever unlikely it may be, is very likely the cause of this crash. Now what information do we have. Let's start with preliminary report, all can agree that everything was just fine until the switches "transitioned" to cut-off after rotation and max speed of 180knots. The way report is written is clearly a compromise. They have timestamps of all the events and including pilot conversation. They chose to release time-stamps for some events but didn't for a lot (including the pilot question about the switch and subsequent response). They released enough information to convey that there is no systematic issues/risks to the planes (which is what NTBS, Boeing would push for) but at the same time they worded the report in a way to not directly call out pilot error (deliberate or not). Now coming to that we know about the pilots:
Captain was single and unmarried; his mom died recently; he moved from Delhi to Mumbai to take care of his dad. Captain also reported to have taken a medical leave in not so distant past. So as you can imagine; he went through a lot recently and it's not out of realm of possibility that his mental state would take him to do something like what happened. He had enough experience; he knew the recovery will be very unlikely once the fuel is cut off right after rotation. He was also PM so would have his hands free to move switches.Moreover, the PF was a trainee and probably wouldn't question his captain right away It would also still preserve captain's legacy; (at least what he might think, keep in mind his nephews are also pilots) if it's not clearly a case of deliberately crashing in the mountains or rapid descent (like previous deliberate pilot crashes) and there is enough ambiguity to ascertain beyond reasonable doubt what happened