Fuel-Control Switches Under Scrutiny in Air India 171 Crash: Pilot Error or System Failure?

New revelations surrounding the tragic crash of Air India Flight 171 are raising unsettling questions about what really happened in the cockpit during the flight’s final seconds. According to U.S. officials familiar with early findings and cockpit recordings, the crash that claimed 260 lives may have been triggered by a manual action: the possible shutdown of both engines by the senior pilot via the aircraft’s fuel-control switches.

The doomed Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off on June 12 from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport en route to London. Just 40 seconds into the flight, both engines failed simultaneously. The aircraft nose-dived into a densely populated suburb, killing all onboard except one British national, and leaving 67 injured on the ground.

Now, preliminary investigations by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), in conjunction with Boeing and international aviation experts, suggest the fuel-control switches moved to the “cutoff” position—shutting off fuel supply to the engines at the worst possible moment. A black box audio clip reportedly features the first officer asking, “Why did you cut off?” and the captain denying responsibility.

The captain in question, Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, was a seasoned pilot with over 15,600 hours of flight time—more than half on the Boeing Dreamliner. He was monitoring the flight while First Officer Clive Kunder, 32, was handling the controls. Aviation insiders say Clive Kunder, being occupied with takeoff, would not have had the bandwidth to interact with the fuel-control switches, which are physically located closer to the captain’s position.

But could this have been a tragic error—or something more systemic?

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A 2018 FAA advisory warned of potential software flaws in particular Boeing aircraft that could cause the plane to misinterpret air status, leading to an automatic shutdown of engines. A similar incident occurred in Japan in 2019 with an All Nippon Airways Dreamliner, where the fuel switch moved to cutoff without any manual input.

Aviation analyst Mary Schiavo has urged caution, emphasizing that no definitive conclusions can be drawn until the full cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript is made public. “There’s no evidence pointing to sabotage or suicide. We must avoid misinterpreting paraphrased black box data,” she stated.

India’s Federation of Indian Pilots echoed this sentiment, criticizing media coverage that it claims unfairly casts doubt on the professionalism of the crew. “Assigning blame before a transparent, data-driven investigation is both premature and irresponsible,” the federation said.

As families grieve and the world watches, the cause of one of the deadliest aviation disasters in a decade remains uncertain. Air India CEO Campbell Wilson has called for restraint and patience, saying the investigation is “far from over.”

What is clear, however, is that a small switch—no bigger than a car key—now holds the answer to a national tragedy. Whether it was caused by human error or a software glitch may ultimately determine where the blame lies—and how the aviation industry must evolve to prevent a repeat.

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