Submission + - Air India Flight AI171 Crash (cnn.com)
renuk007 writes: On a flight from Ahmedabad to London, the Boeing 787 took off normally but, minutes later, crashed killing 260 people. Flight recorder data shows the fuel cutoff switches were turned off, then on again but too late to prevent the engines stalling. The catch is, the fuel cutoff switches aren't just flip switches — they have to be pulled out hard, moved down, then released, and vice versa on re-enabling. This takes way, way more than five seconds. Could this be another sneaky "improvement" by Boeing, that cuts off fuel if some brilliant computer decides it's the right thing to do? Because rational human beings don't do stuff like that unless it's actually a suicide attempt. Then again, if it's suicide, why didn't the other pilot notice, and why did they call mayday?
