Air India CEO says investigation into Ahmedabad crash raises new questions

Two Air India aircraft are parked on the tarmac. (Urbanandsport / NurPhoto / Shutterstock via CNN Newsource)

NEW DELHI — A preliminary investigation into the crash of an Air India passenger jet last month that killed 260 people raises additional questions about the incident and the investigation is far from over, Air India’s CEO said in a memo on Monday.

The preliminary investigation released by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau on Saturday depicted confusion in the cockpit shortly before the crash of the Boeing Dreamliner.

In a staff memo reviewed by Reuters, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the report had “triggered a new round of speculation in the media ... Unsurprisingly, it provided both greater clarity and opened additional questions.”

He added: “The preliminary report identified no cause nor made any recommendations, so I urge everyone to avoid drawing premature conclusions as the investigation is far from over.”

The memo said the preliminary report found no mechanical or maintenance faults and that all required maintenance had been carried out.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London from the Indian city of Ahmedabad began to lose thrust and sink shortly after takeoff. All but one of the 242 people on board and 19 others on the ground were killed.

According to the AAIB report, in the flight’s final moments one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel.

“The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report said. It added that the plane’s engine two fuel cutoff switches flipped almost simultaneously, but did not say how.

The preliminary report suggested no immediate action for Boeing or GE GE.N, whose engines were fitted on the aircraft.

ALPA India, which represents Indian pilots at the Montreal-based International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations, has rejected any presumption of pilot error and called for a “fair, fact-based inquiry.”

“The pilots had passed their mandatory pre-flight breathalyzer and there were no observations pertaining to their medical status,” Campbell said in his memo.

The commanding pilot of the Air India plane was Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, who had a total flying experience of 15,638 hours and, according to the Indian government, was also an Air India instructor. His co-pilot was Clive Kunder, 32, who had 3,403 hours of total experience.

Air India has come under heightened scrutiny on multiple fronts following the crash.

On July 4, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency said it would investigate budget unit Air India Express, after a Reuters report revealed the airline failed to promptly replace engine parts on an Airbus A320 as mandated, and falsified records to indicate compliance.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra in New Delhi and Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Hritam Mukherjee; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Aidan Lewis)