Posts by user "remi" [Posts: 7 Total up-votes: 0 Pages: 1]

Thus the lengthy sticky thread on "shutting down wrong/both engines." Brain farts happen.

I don't think it's ridiculous to suggest that perhaps one crew intended to manipulate a different control (stab trim cutout?) and flipped the fuel cutoff instead, maybe not even realizing what has happened. Sure, unlikely, but essentially every aspect of airline accidents is unlikely.

If I understand this correctly--

I believe the *inspection* was not conducted, and whether there was a fault with the configuration of the switch on the accident aircraft is not answered in the report.

If pilots were able to move this aircraft's cutoff toggles without lifting them, it seems that might have been reported at some point during its service. But then again, maybe the difference in operation between a correctly configured switch (requires lift to toggle) and incorrectly configured one (does not require lift, but lifting it still works as expected) is not noticeable.

I'd be curious to know if India Air has (finally) inspected these switches in their fleet since the accident.

I threw my car keys into the outdoor recycling bin once. I looked for them for quite some time (hours). Later on while taking a break from searching, I was about to throw some actual recycling into the bin and noticed them in the bottom of the empty container. I decided later I must have opened the container to throw out some garbage from the car while holding the keys, realized it was the recycling bin, and as I was changing my focus to the garbage container I let go the keys that I was also holding and didn't notice them falling from my hand. At least that's how I explained it to myself, having done it cold sober and fully alert.

I found my cellphone in a fridge once but someone else had put it in there "by mistake."

Yes, and it is mute on the actual mechanical status of the switches.

If there had been maintenance done on the switches I'm assuming that would have been noted in the initial report. So as far as I can tell the question of whether the switches were configured as intended and working correctly is so far unanswered in public reporting. Presumably they were exhibiting normal behavior as far as pilots observed.

Well, basically, this would be putting a second factor in front of the pedals you have in your car.

Do you want to brake sharply on the freeway (Y/N)?__

Again, noting that all commercial aviation accidents involve one in a million, one in a billion events, I don't find it implausible on its face that a crew member flipped the fuel cutoffs while intending to do something else entirely, even given the deliberate and well studied ergonomic differences designed into cockpit controls.

It could have been an intentional, malicious act, but I think, for now, "brain fart" or "extremely inappropriate reaction to perceived anomaly" makes more sense for now.

I think the safety of single pilot operations and no pilot operations are rapidly converging and if I had to choose, a few years in the future, assuming the option of demonstrably competent zero pilot operations, my order of preference would be:
* two pilots
* zero pilots
* one pilot