I think, as Pilot DAR indicated in Preliminary Air India crash report published it may be that the mods aren't really sure how best to handle it as a discussion.... yet.

Non-pilot here.

For those interested in reading more about 'action slips', including performing one routine function in place of another, the following free-access article goes into more detail:

Wiley Online Library: Oops! I Did it Again: The Psychology of Everyday Action Slips

As other people have perspicaciously pointed out, assuming that it was the Pilot Monitoring that transitioned the Fuel Cut-Off Switches from RUN to CUTOFF, what action would they likely have been attempting to perform at that stage of the flight for an action slip to be a likely possibility?

Alternatively, given that the PM was used to operating simulators, what conditions could have prompted him to do a sequence that was familiar to him of resetting the simulator (including operating the FCS switches), doing things that are inadvisable in a real aircraft?

If these are stupid questions, I apologise for taking up a mod's time processing the comment deletion.

Theyre good questions. I\x92ve only been a sim \x93victim\x94 but many sim scenarios will require resetting things back to normal. Aborted takeoff after engine failure for example or land with an engine failed and a quick start.

I\x92m inclined to give equal wait to intentional shutting down the engines (suicide, if you will) and \x93action-slip\x94. Three seconds after WOW and calling for \x93gear up\x94 is quick but not hugely so. We don\x92t have the transcript, we don\x92t know if the voices were associated with which pilots. It\x92s entirely possible, there was \x93positive rate\x94, \x93gear up\x94 exchange followed by the movement of the switches by the PM, followed by \x93why did you cut off\x94 by the PF who is soon without a PFD.

As to timing, in high stress situations, the mind can run like a computer slowing time or just the opposite, time speeds up and seconds go by trying to comprehend the situation. I was in an ejection, I could spends 15 minutes describing what happened in 500 milliseconds.

1) Sim instructors usually reset the sim from the back and not the physical flight controls in the front.

2) No instructor has ever action slipped both FCS at VR.

What a relief and about time for PPRUNE commenters to become just a tad more serious. Technical issues bla bla bla for thousands of comments and no mention of the most important factor in modern aviation - human errors. Because that is tabu. The preliminary accidentreport is so clear that we cannot avoid discussing it. I know most here are not professional pilots here as the mods have mentioned and many of those who are - are probably children of the magenta line, but there are also serious aviators here and they know. The fact is that most accidents today are caused by mismanagement of the cockpit and by pilots who do not know how to fly an aircraft outside of the dailyday routines because they were sent from scratch direct into a modern airliner. And it is only going to be worse. We should be brave enough to discuss this - also from the beginning of discussions of an accident. Human factors, cultural factors, authority gradient, startling factors and many other. These matters are the cause for a much higher percentage of accidents than before - because technical issues have become scarse and flying has become much more safe. Keep going...

Is that the "Captain's friend heard CVR tape" report that came out before the CVR had been read out, or a different source?

The former seems very discredited.

To set the record straight, I deleted one post of yours three days ago which had a link to The Guardian of 15th June which claimed many, many inaccuracies including that the Captain made the Mayday, and another link to The Economic Times (India) of the same date which made no attribution to either pilot but was also filled with inaccurate stuff such as ‘the aircraft had nearly exhausted the full 3.5 kilometre runway”.

If you want to imply poor Moderation then it would help your case to get your facts straight before claiming such articles as being “confirmatory sources” 🤔 🙈

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)

There is a CMR on the 787 to remove and do an inspection of the thrust lever mechanisms on a periodic basis - I don't know (or at least remember) the interval, but I'd expect it to be in the 20,000-30,000 hr. range.
This is related to the FAA preoccupation with Uncontrollable High Thrust and the potential for a mechanical failure in the thrust lever mechanism to cause UHT.

As previously explained, the fuel control switches are a 'break before make' design - with a nominal gap between the two states of about 50ms.

Dani, the reason your posts regarding nearly simultaneous switch failures keep getting deleted is that this exact scenario has been repeatedly raised in the three Air India accident threads - and then thoroughly discounted and dismissed by people who - unlike you - are actual experts on the subject and/or pilots who have regularly used them. That your latest attempt to resurrect this hugely improbable scenario has remained and resulted in another 4 or 5 pages of hamster wheel discussion suggests to me that the mods have simply given up on this thread...

I can understand why in the early days after the crash the moderators removed suggestions of suicide. Now that everything points in that direction, I think that it's time to remove nonsense like that unless it's supported by new facts or evidence.

First, apologies for snipping almost all your post - it's not that I disagree with a word, but that we seem decreasingly able to read and properly digest what gets posted here, so I'd rather people read your actual post than my quote of it.

Secondly, even outside the question of legal definitions and legal liability, I've become increasingly concerned with the use of some terminology which doesn't just ascribe motives, but goes far enough to personally accuse a dead professional of many years standing, on the basis of no factual evidence so much as a wish to point the finger.

It's also rather ironic to participate in a Professional Pilot forum where non-pilots are criticised for their lack of knowledge and experience, then witness (presumed and apparent) professional pilots discussing human psychology and behavioural science as if they've been studying it all their lives.

I hope the mods can work out a framework by which this can be discussed without infringing on human decency and professionalism, but I can't see much sign without it that pprune would be a suitable place to further discuss the issues involved. The ad hoc editing done so far really isn't enough, despite the tough job they're doing.

This statement has lots of merit.

Correct. And we're going to actively avoid getting near that theme in posts here. For reasons we can generally understand, the circumstances of this sad event have migrated away from being primarily aviation (the report does not suggest a defect with the airplane, and at least one pilot was obviously doing their very best). The report leads us into massive speculation territory, and outside the specialties of nearly all of us. None of us want to have PPRuNe become a source of information (correct, or otherwise) which may be used against a fellow pilot.

During a relaxing 36 hours away from the internet, away with Mrs. DAR, I reflected. I'm wondering to myself what this thread can continue to do [good] for we pilots, which it has not already done? It is now a repository of some good, and some less than good information. Are we contributing more to good outcomes for our industry by speculating, which theories may never be able to be validated?

Should we be closing this thread until something substantively new and authoritative can be added to the discussion? If keeping it open, what is served?

P.S.: After some very useful discussions, both with learned members of our group here, and some wise advisors outside this forum, I will take responsibility for now formally requesting of our members that future posts about this accident, or other [possible] intentional pilot act aviation crashes, not use the words: "suicide" nor "murder" at all - none, not at all, don't type the word.

A person may be described as "taking their own life" if that is a known intentional fact. For this event, the engines shutdown is not known to be a deliberate act. The two words now not to be used do have legal implications, and we're not going there. This is a pilot forum, not a legal forum. The accusation that a pilot intentionally shut down the two engines is not provable - it could have been a cockpit error. We may never know. It's time to stop talking this way.

I (and the other mods) are not going to go backward to sanitize what has gone before in these threads, it's just too much work, and trying to erase words is not really going to help. On the other hand, going forward, we're not going to perpetuate these words and theme.

If you have a genuine disagreement with me on this, I suppose I have to accept your PM on the topic. So far, I have replied every PM, out of courtesy. But I'd rather not explain again in a PM, what I have just explained here - 'cause that's all I've got. There's a line, we all know where it is, we're going to stay on the professional pilot peer side of it here - right?

So, as I have requested that these terms no longer be used, and I cannot imagine anything truly new to be discussed, I'm going to turn in, with the hope that posters might make the very bare minimum of meaningful posts, if any at all. No more questions about how the switches work, and speculated failure modes ('cause they've all been discussed far too much), no more medical speculation ('cause we have no facts, and this was a peer), and so on - you get the idea.... This, is moderation.

When a final report is released, we'll probably have more to discuss.

In the hours to come we mods will have given this all more thought, the thread may close - unless it does not have to.... please....

Pilot DAR,
One of your moderating team

Not a pilot but, for me, the thread has become a struggle to discourage reckless and damaging speculation (and worse than speculation, IMHO). Some of the "accusers" are absolutely certain that their accusations are righteous and appropriate and they don't seem willing \x97 or perhaps able \x97 to back off. It appears that you and the other mods just don't have the bandwidth to weed out the worst in a timely manner. And we all know that speculation here doesn't stay here. Honestly, much as I find discussions here valuable and stimulating, I think it would be best to close this one for now.

While realising this is not a democracy, I too vote along with preceding posters for closure (for now).

This is - or was - a pilot's network, it's widened to many other aspects of aviation, generally to its betterment, but things are getting out of hand now with the drift into the '[non]professional psychologist's rumour network'.

There is a place for people to discuss concerns or theories they may have, but please not here and preferably not in public when there is no answer as to cause, and while many people will be grieving.

FP.

Really appreciate all the work the Mods are putting into this. Thank you.

I posted a week or so ago, on the forums generally, suggesting that the moderation of the Air India threads had gotten excessive, and at that particular point, it might even be an opinion I stand by. But reading through the last 100+ posts, other than the above few comments, it's just garbage. I'm sorry, to those who think they're saying something meaningful, but it's just hot garbage.

For the legal types - stop quoting what is, and isn't, the burden of proof. This is a forum on the Internet. The topic being discussed is an international investigation into a plane crash. For both of those things, there is no possible relevance to the burden of proof in legal cases in <whatever your country is>.

For the psychologists (both actual ones and those pilots who are moonlighting as one) - stop quoting psychological theory. Many of us know it, others don't, but we all have such an incredible lack of information about the pilots concerned that it's pointless mentioning it, except in passing. No one has time for pages of guesswork or instructions to the investigators on what they should be looking at.

For the tech guys who are still talking about the possibility of malfunctioning switches, please, stop. The pilot saying "why did you do x" is not consistent with a switch failure, you don't say that just because of an unexpected run-down, you say something more generic, like "holy smokeballs, dual engine failure". The specificity of the comment implies clearly observed action, specific to the switches, which aligns with the data record.

For everyone - just because something isn't absolutely mathematically impossible does not mean you can or should bring it out and eat up pages doing so. Investigations do not have to cover every single possible "what if", because in an unlimited universe no investigation would ever conclude. What they have to do is come up with the most likely scientifically derived assessed outcome for an already fairly unlikely event. I can accept people saying "We don't know for sure that the switches were operated deliberately" even though that's probably more likely than not. I can't accept the kind of argument which isn't dissimilar to: "Maybe there was a flaw with the switch detent, and a book fell off the console, and the previous crew had spilled water on it, making it slippery, and before that when the console was installed it was 1.5 degrees more inclined than it should be, and that caused the rollback. I accept that we're already in "unlikely event" scenario, but once the impossible has been eliminated, refusing to accept that there's probably 2-3 likely scenarios left, and instead inserting incredibly unlikely theoretical stuff... well that's just bad faith.

Finally, it's personal taste, but I remain a bit disappointed with the deliberate blindness being applied to inconvenient truths by some on here. The two currently most likely rational explanations are simple - deliberate pilot action, accidental pilot action. Either way, it's pilot action . As frustrating as some of the wild theories are, the obfuscation being pushed out by the "circle the wagons" brigade is just as bad. Any pilot knows that their life - and those of their passengers - relies on clear sightedness and not avoiding uncomfortable data points. So let's trust our instruments. There should be no absurd rush to judgement but also, please, let's not hide behind the "they were professionals, treat them with respect" stuff, endlessly. Someone selected fuel on both engines to cut-off, mere moments after they left the ground. It won't be an engine restart procedure (too low, too early), it won't be some bizarre technical problem that hasn't happened in millions of flight hours on other 787s worldwide. The CVR says "why did you do X" and the data recorder says "X happened". The two line up. What we don't know for absolute certain is why, so the only sensible things now being examined are:

1) Deliberate pilot action (can only assume harmful intent at Vr + 3 sec)
2) Accidental pilot action (due to severe cognitive disconnect, or "wallet in freezer" stuff)

I'm one of many being frustrated by the lack of CVR recording being released, because that will almost certainly identify whether it was 1 or 2. But it would be abnormal for that to happen, and I respect that until they're sure, if the CVR points to something, they will want it confirmed before releasing it, because whether it's 1 or 2, it's bad news for the families of that particular pilot.

Oh, and to whoever said "Ask yourself if we are ready to hear it?".... come on. Hundreds of people died. Ignoring a piece of evidence related to that because it might be uncomfortable hearing it is unacceptable, and a bit childish. It might be uncomfortable, but professionals follow the evidence, wherever it may lead, however uncomfortable it might be.

Sorry this sounds so angry. The cause is that having stuck my neck out and said "Why are you guys moderating so much" to the mods, a free run of the thread has revealed such nonsense being posted that I'm embarrassed about having said anything. Lock away, I say!

Yes, I cannot see that further speculation is going to be anything but negative to the reputation of this forum.
This, and other threads relating to this accident, I have avoided like the plague, and despite DAR's very wise post, the likelihood is another page or two in, that sage advice would have been forgotten by many contributors, and would take a tremendous amount of effort by the mods to keep in check.

Fly safe TR.

Having waded through another series of (essentially) Hamsterwheel rinse and repeat offerings, it is time to give this thread another rest.

Both for the sanity of the Moderation Team and for the professional pilots who shake their heads in amazement at the non professionals offerings before the Mods can do their job, we will revisit this after the weekend, and consider whether to keep it closed.

Avagoodweegend to one and all,

This article has been referred to the moderation team by one of our members:

https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/...163850.article

Its headline is:

and this aligns with where we are now - not much new to discuss. When new information for discussion becomes available, we'll open the thread back up...

Pilot DAR