Air India crash pilots may have made 'fatal error' seconds after take off, investigators claim

Pilot error is suspected to be behind last month's Air India crash which killed 260 people, crash investigators claim.

The aircraft, which had only just set off for Gatwick, suddenly crashed into a medical college after taking off from the city of Ahmedabad on June 12. Now, analysis of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s Black Box indicates a "possibility" that the pilots could have made a mistake while operating the jet.

The early assessments indicate no apparent fault with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which went down shortly after takeoff. A preliminary report into the disaster points to switches to the engines’ fuel supplies being turned off seconds after it left the runway. This, it has been claimed by sources close to the investigation, could have triggered a loss of thrust, resulting in the plane ploughing into the building.

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Captain Sumeet Sabharwal was the lead pilot on the journey, with Clive Kunder acting as his co-pilot. The findings of the probe, which is run by the the US National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing and GE Aerospace, are starting to be made public.

An investigation was immediately launched after the tragedy - and the Indian government revealed investigators were looking into sabotage as a possible cause. Murlidhar Mohol, the country's Minister of State for Civil Aviation, said two week ago: "The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has begun a full probe. It is being assessed from all angles, including any possible sabotage."

Indian investigators recovered the black boxes from the wreckage site a couple of days after the crash. These boxes - which are typically orange, not black - are considered the most important pieces of forensic evidence following a plane crash. There are typically two sturdy devices, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder.

The black boxes were flown from Ahmedabad to the national capital, New Delhi, in an Indian Air Force aircraft amid tight security early this week. The investigation could take weeks or months.

Investigators were left stunned after one passenger was named as the sole survivor of the crash. British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh miraculously made it out alive, while 241 people onboard and 29 people on the ground were declared dead.

A committee is expected to file an official preliminary report within three months. Following the crash, Indian authorities ordered deeper checks of Air India's entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner to prevent future incidents. The airline has 33 Dreamliners in its fleet.

India’s aviation regulatory body has said the aircraft made a mayday call before the crash. The cockpit voice recorder records pilots’ conversation, emergency alarms and any distress signal made before a crash. The plane’s digital flight data recorder stores information related to engine and control settings. Both devices are designed to survive a crash.