Air India crash pilot 'eerily calm as he switched off fuel pumps' shows black box

The captain of the tragic Air India flight stayed calm before cutting off fuel to both engines seconds after takeoff, say US officials. Captain Sumeet Sabharwal flipped the aircraft's fuel control switches to "cut-off" moments after liftoff from Ahmedabad on July 12.

US officials who are analysing the preliminary crash investigation told the Wall Street Journal that a black box recording revealed a tense conversation in the cockpit. First Officer Clive Kunder is said to have asked: "Why did you cut off?", to which the captain replied: "I didn't". Mr Sabharwal is said to have stayed eerily calm as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner lost height before slamming into a hospital accommodation block 30 seconds after takeoff. 260 people were killed in the crash, including all but one onboard and several on the ground. Only one person, British national Vishwashkumar Ramesh, survived.

Now, there are new details from a US probe, launched because the accident involved a Boeing aircraft and the plane was certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. The new details are zeroing in on Captain Sabharwal.

Sources familiar with the American investigation said it was the captain who reached for the fuel control switches after the plane had left the runway. The co-pilot - who was flying the aircraft and had his hands on the controls - then panicked, but Mr Sabharwal remained calm.

US officials familiar with the evidence told the WSJ that the switches were moved to the "cutoff" position just one second apart, before being flipped back on 10 seconds later. By this point, both engines were out and the crash was all but inevitable.

The fact that Mr Sabharwal's hands were free, US pilots and safety experts have argued, points towards who had the opportunity to touch the guarded fuel switches. The aircraft's switches, located between the pilots, require deliberate action to move and accidental flicking is almost impossible.

The preliminary report from India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), published last week, acknowledged that the switches were flipped but did not say who made the move or whether it was deliberate.

Ben Berman, a former senior NTSB official, told the WSJ: "There was nothing to prompt the crew to perform emergency procedures, become stressed, or do anything except rotate the nose up and retract the landing gear, like they had done so many times before."

Meanwhile, Captain Steve Scheibner, a seasoned pilot and aviation expert, believes that the deadly crash was the result of human action within the cockpit. Insisting that the aircraft itself was not to blame, he suggested that there was a "human hand" behind the accident.

He told Piers Morgan Uncensored: "I really firmly believe that there had to be a human hand on both of those for them to go to cut off."