Posts about: "Gear Lever" [Posts: 50 Pages: 3]

They have a reasonably substantial pull-out gate.

Over-guarding stuff can have its own issues. People become used to operating the guard as part of normal operations, and it becomes muscle memory.

Apparently Embraer aircraft inhibit the shutoff switch if the thrust lever is above idle - if you have a stuck thrust lever, you need to use the fire shutoff.

Another option would be to have a blocking solenoid (with override button) similar to the landing gear lever while airborne or at high speed.

That seems to me to be a very feasible possibility. Noticing, then accidentally hittting the wrong thing in a quick reaction, especially during a possibly bumpy take-off, then only realsing as power starts to die away... A very simple human error possibility - and the switch location makes it horribly easy, especially ofthe switch locking is dubious. Ergonomics and human factors in design? In a very different environment many years ago I was involved in investigating somethimg rather similar (though not deadly). Taught me a lot about operational human factors and our design assumptions...

It's possible, damn it. How dreadful if correct.

That is also a worrying place to put vital switches. Handy place to rest your arm. I have one person I fly with who tends to rest his hand right on the flap lever (light aircraft) if he is not handling the aircraft. I really don't like that. It's bit like my current car, which has the handbrake 'switch'(!) on the central console, behind the gear lever. Just right for accidental operation - and it has been done.

Just read all 16 pages - been flying! I think comment \x93why did you cutoff\x94 is not the reaction I would expect from a Training Captain who has just witnessed the co-pilot turn both fuel control switches off. They would possibly utter an exclamation, but would surely correct the error immediately - this didn\x92t happen for 10secs. The words are more likely to have come from an FO who has both hands on the control column and is concentrating on the rotation.

Every flight we do as PM we move both fuel control switches to cutoff, 1 after the other, with a gap of about 1 sec between each one. It\x92s a learnt action in response to the phrase \x93shutdown\x94.
Every sim the TC has conducted he will have moved critical switches without much thought in order to setup the sim for the exercise. I remember being slightly shocked one day on the aircraft, having been training in the sim the previous day, that I nearly operated a critical control without thought. It\x92s something I had to consciously guard against after that.

There is no rational explanation for doing it though - moving both fuel control switches down instead of moving the gear lever up is not a likely action slip. It seems either a totally subconscious act or a totally deliberate act.

I have rebuilt the site that organises these three threads by subject here: https://paulross.github.io/pprune-th...171/index.html

Changes:

• Build threads up to July 12, 2025, 11:59:00 (built at July 12, 2025, 13:03:09).
• Add thread about the published report: Preliminary Air India crash report published
• Add subjects: "Guards", "Timeline (Preliminary Report)", "EICAS", "RUN/CUTOFF", "Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin", "SAIB NM-18-33", "Gear Lever", "Startle Effect" and "Cockpit Area Audio".
• Minor improvements to the index.html page.

Project is here: https://github.com/paulross/pprune-threads
Raise issues here https://github.com/paulross/pprune-threads/issues or PM me.

THE LANDING GEAR

There are many missing jigsaw pieces here that are highly relevant to building an understanding of what these guys were going through.
One being that the gear was not raised. The report ( very oddly in my opinion ) is NOT declaring any voice data on the prompts/commands to raise it once they achieved a positive ROC after lift-off.
At lift off, it's pretty safe to assume ( yes, I know ) that everything was going according to plan....so why, oh why wasn't the gear raised.....?

This is quite extraordinary because:-

1. This sequence is muscle memory for every commercial pilot. It’s drilled into simulator sessions, route checks, and emergency training. Even during non-normal scenarios like an engine failure, the gear is typically raised before handling other procedures.
   
2. The delay is not explained in the preliminary report. The gear lever was found in the DOWN position in the wreckage. No mention is made of any mechanical failure or crew discussion about the gear. That silence is notable.
   
3. There was no declared emergency prior to 180 kt. No CVR audio so far suggests anything unusual before the sudden power loss—so there was no obvious reason to skip this SOP.
   
   
   
   

Almost as though the hand which reached out to raise the gear while the brain was thinking about something else found the fuel cutoff switches and managed to manipulate them to off without the brain ever becoming involved?

I think what more likely did away with that theory for the investigators was the absence of the remains of a third body up the front and any audio of the door opening after the switches had been pulled?

As far as the gear lever being in the down position in the wreckage, it could be that the engine shutdowns occurred before the positive rate call and/or the gear was selected up but put down again when a forced landing became inevitable. The only paraphrased communication we have is to do with the engine controls - there was probably more but the preliminary report has omitted it because it\x92s not really relevant to the main event?

I'd assume that the prelim wouldnt (surely?) call out the gear down item explicitly and not reference a command for gear up if it existed - but could be wrong. For me your former suggestion is more likely I think.

Incidentally, on the topic of lever positions in the wreckage, anyone find the thrust position at idle in the wreckage (at odds with the data) of interest? My assumption is this must have happened post impact, but it's a (small) oddity.

This seems to quite clearly answer the question: (from the prelim report)

That's the Embraer option.

The other option I can imagine is a mechanical stop with an override button, like the landing gear lever. Can't switch the fuel levers off unless you're slow and on the ground, the engine is failed or on fire, or you push override.

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.