Blame game over Air India crash goes on
PiMuNu writes:
I thought this was an interesting angle on the Air India crash back in June - questioning whether the crash of the Boeing 787 might be a technical fault, rather than pilot error as had been presumed previously by media reporting:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c33pzypkkdzo
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Nearly five months after a plane crash in India which killed 260 people, the investigation has become mired in controversy - with the country's Supreme Court the latest to weigh in. An interim report was released in July, but critics argue it unfairly focused on the actions of the pilots, diverting attention away from a possible fault with the aircraft. On Friday, a judge in India's Supreme Court insisted that nobody could blame the aircraft's captain. His comments came a week after the airline's boss insisted there was no problem with the aircraft.
Because the accident happened in India, the investigation is being led by the country's Air Accident investigation Bureau (AAIB). However, because the aircraft and its engines were designed and built in America, US officials are also taking part.
Indian aviation safety consultant Capt. Mohan Ranganathan strongly implied that pilot suicide could have caused the accident, in an interview with the country's NDTV channel. Capt. Amit Singh, founder of the Safety Matters Foundation, has produced a report which claims the available evidence "strongly supports the theory of an electrical disturbance as the primary cause of the engine shutdown" that led to the disaster.
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This article:
https://safetymatters.co.in/flight-ai171-analysing-electrical-system-anomalies/
has more details on the electrical faults
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A primary theory under examination attributes this shutdown to an electrical disturbance... The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) captured ... transitions of the fuel cutoff switches, reflecting the commanded state as interpreted by the aircraft's digital systems, rather than direct physical manipulation by the crew...
The aft Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorder (EAFR) was located in the tail section of the aircraft, specifically at STA 1847, on the rooftop of Building A. This unit sustained significant "impact and thermal damages to the housing," with investigators noting that "wires were protruding from the housing and the connectors were burnt"... The absence of soot on the aft EAFR casing despite sooted surroundings , indicates that a clean-burning likely caused the thermal damage, high-heat source such as an electrical fault or localized metallic combustion, rather than a widespread fuel-fed fire.
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