Air India 171 Questions ANSWERED | Captain Steeeve

Captain Steve's got his FAQ on 16

questions answered on the Air India 171

and the 2018 fuel switch locking

bulletin board. We talked about this uh

in depth yesterday. So let's take a look

at uh some of his comments uh here.

Could the fuel switches have already

been in the cut off position at takeoff

and the engines only shut down once the

aircraft lifted up and the gear

retracted? Highly unlikely. That is one

of the most fuel intense portions of

flight. Uh and it's unlikely you would

have gotten airborne with those fuel

switches off at takeoff. Not to mention

you would have had so many errors before

V1 uh your decision speed to continue

the flight or not that you would have

aborted the takeoff. Uh, mind you, I'm a

jet pilot as well. And when we abort on

takeoff, uh, which we've done many

times, obviously as as, uh, you know,

precautionary practice for cases exactly

like this, we pull the throttle, feed on

brakes, reverse thrusters if you have

them, and you're pulling off to diagnose

your issue. Very, very common. Much

better to abort if before V1 if you had

an issue like this. Highly unlikely. But

let's see what Steve says. must be been

in the cut off position at takeoff and

the engines only shut down once the

aircraft lifted off and the gear

retracted. No, that's not how they work.

They're in a detent that holds them into

place. The engines would cease running.

You wouldn't be able to push the power

up to take off. So, no, that's that's

wouldn't have happened. Sorry.

>> All right. SRE writes, "Uh, I'm just an

aviation enthusiast, not a pilot, but

I'm curious about the mechanics of the

fuel control switches. You mentioned

they have

>> No, they can't be left in the halfway

position. Um, I'm going to skip past

this. They don't function that way. Just

the way the little gate sits there. You

know, there are actually a lot of people

now, uh, Boeing pilots who are posting

videos of these fuel switches

on, uh, X. And it's it's nice for you to

be able to see because I I use these all

the time as well. Uh the fuel switches

that I have though as well as these

detent position switches, they're

slightly different in that the top of

the knob is different, but the bottom is

the same. So this is the example of the

Phenom 300 cockpit. So this would be on

the pilot and commands uh left uh so the

left seat uh left armrest essentially or

where your left arm would sort of hang

out. Uh, as you can see here, we've got

our bat one, bat two, generator one,

generator two, bleed one, bleed two.

These have the detents, which you can

actually see really well here on the

Phenom. And you can't leave a switch in

the middle position because there's so

little for the switch to rest on here.

It would end up just falling to one of

the sides. So, so that wouldn't work.

Uh, and um, uh, yeah, this this halfway

positioning thing is is really not going

to happen. And when you use these

switches, you recognize it. But here is

an example of one of the videos that's

circulating on X about how the Boeing

switches look, which use the same

detenting function.

They show you the lift function. Can't

see how they're showing how you can't

push it down without lifting it.

[Music]

So in other words, you really have to

lift to push down.

All right, so let's get to the next

Captain Steve FAQ here. So the next one

he's got, if the fuel switch controls

valves were placed in the cut off

position during the takeoff roller

shortly after, wouldn't the systems like

the airborne logic generate a warning? I

would expect yes. It seems like a

critical situation, but again, what's

the point? Like what what good does it

do you? Like you get a cast message that

says fuel switch is off. You're Oh, why

did you turn the fuel switches off? I

didn't. Okay, well, let's turn them back

on. You know, that all happened in the

span of about 8 to 10 seconds based on

the preliminary report. So, yeah, it is

likely that there was a warning. But

let's listen to Steve's take roll or

shortly after liftoff. Wouldn't the

aircraft's systems, especially the

airborne logic, generate a warning

either visually or orally? It seems like

a a critical situation that should

trigger an alert. Is there no such

warning built into the system? I that's

a that's an excellent question. I've so

I've never done this. Uh I'm gonna

assume that most people don't turn the

fuel switches off.

Same. I would also just guess that there

would be a fault that would say

something like fuel feed flow, you know,

fault or some some form of crew alerting

system message.

>> There is. It's probably going to say on

your screen fuel cut off. uh you're

going to know that already because you

can see that the fuel switches are in

the wrong position or you're going to

see the other person reach over and

>> Yeah. But you wouldn't necessarily have

seen the other person reaching over for

those. You also wouldn't have

necessarily seen the fuel switches in

the comp position because you generally

don't look down there in the course of a

normal flight. I don't look down at my

engine switches, which are actually if

I'm looking forward, the engine switches

are not where the throttle is, but

they're sort of behind it. So you really

have to look down and over. It's it's

very awkward. It's not something that

you generally look at during the course

of a flight. Where you would see it is

your engine thrust, which is right in

front of you going.

It'd be very obvious. Grab them at an

inappropriate time. The biggest

indication that they're not in the right

position is right here. Your ears,

you're going to hear the engines

immediately spool down. And that you're

expecting that big roar to continue

after takeoff. If you hear

and then in the Dude, he made the same

sound I did.

That's funny. I mean, that's that's

right on, dude. All right. Should video

cameras be required in cockpits? I've

seen this a lot.

I mean, I basically video all of my

flights anyway. I I'll tell you

I'll tell you one of the reasons why

aircraft unions are not going to want

videos in the cockpit. And it's because

of stuff like this. So stuff where

you're flying and this is an example of

a flight where I say, you know,

and Betty is getting out of hand. This

is a little bit of we we call the co the

I call her cockpit Karen. The airlines

call her and Betty. She's the lady

that goes 500, you know, whatever. So

listen to this clip right here. And uh

this is a totally safe landing.

Everything was fine about this landing,

but I'm coming into this visually and

I'm turning into this and the aircraft

is going to project where I'm going to

be at a certain bank assuming that I'm

going to maintain a certain bank or

pitch angle. Whereas I'm turning in

flying like a human and I know I'm going

to be lifting out of this this roll

position that I'm in. But the computer

is projecting, hey, if you maintain

this, you're going to hit the ground.

So, you're going to hear the warnings.

Pull up. sync rate. I would guess that

the pilot lobbies are going to look at

sort of normal things that happen that

end up, you know, becoming now subject

to either leaks or creating panic where

they shouldn't or whatever. And it's

also awkward because you've already got

the cockpit voice recorders recording,

but then the idea potentially of of

cameras. I think the pilot lobby will

end up stopping that also because of the

fear of FAA violations. Hey, we saw you

weren't wearing your seatelt or

whatever. Now, the flip side then is but

would that be better? Would it save

lives? I don't know. Because a video

recording doesn't necessarily stop an

accident from happening, but it lets us

see more context. If we had video

footage in this case, we would have seen

who did it. Was this a murder suicide or

were the switches defective? So, this is

actually a perfect case where video

would have been fantastic because if the

switches moved themselves back through

some turbulence or a mistake, then that

2018 FAA bulletin should be a mandatory

airworthiness directive. But I do think

there's also just too much resistance

from the pilot community for things that

like I like to share because, you know,

I find these all training opportunities.

But I also recognize that, you know, the

FAA could be watching all of these

videos and then they, you know, they

send you fines for for stuff that you're

sharing as an educational opportunity.

That would be a risk factor. Take a

quick listen to just these about 15

seconds here.

>> Sync rate

pull up.

Go around. Wind shear ahead. Unstable

approach. Sync rates.

>> All of them. You're good. You're good.

>> 500.

>> Speed's trending down. We're stable.

Runway 22 is all yours.

>> Keeper Valley. Traffal 22. He Valley.

Little power maybe just so we don't

sink. There you go. Nice. Very good.

Runways made. Cover's out.

>> There it is. All right. So, that uh that

shows you a little bit uh of kind of

what it can be like inside of a cockpit.

And they could be, you know, intense

situations sometimes because it's like,

oh man, that's an exhausting landing or

whatever. And you know, maybe a lot of

pilots don't want that kind of stuff out

there. Again, I think it'd be more of a

pilot lobby issue. So, should they be

required? Maybe. Is it going to happen?

Probably not. We'll listen to a very

quick POV of what Steve says about that

>> here with the the camera in the in the

cockpit is that somebody is going to

leak it and they're going to use it. Uh,

bingo. That's literally exactly what my

thought was. Exactly. This is why the

pilot lobby is never going to go for

this. All right. Is there pressure to

blame pilots over design flaws?

That's a weird question. Uh, I don't

think there's any pressure to blame

pilots for design flaws. If there's a

design flaw, why would you blame the

pilot? I'm not even going to look into

this. Uh, are pilots required to do

psychological evaluations? Well, you get

classes of medical certificates, like

first class, second class, third class?

I have a first class medical

certificate. And you sit down with an

aviation rated doctor basically, and

they chitchat with you a little bit

like, "Hey, any thoughts of suicide?"

It's It's kind of like you're sitting

down for an immigration interview and

it's like, "Are you a terrorist?" Nope.

All right. Sounds good. Like, let's be

real. It's There is You're not sitting

down with a therapist. So, no.

FAA fuel switch locking bulletin

explained. Okay, let's hear it.

>> Bulletin. And there's the number on

December 17th, 2018 regarding the

potential disengagement of the fuel

control switches uh locking feature. I

think what that bulletin was about was

the installation of the switch because

you could install the switch upside down

in which case it would just be

impossible to put it in the run

position. It would it since it's

spring-loaded, it would always

>> That's not what it was about. I'm

actually disappointed by that answer.

The bulletin literally said, I'm going

to pull it up really quick, but the but

the bulletin literally says

right here

the potential of disengagement of the

fuel control switch locking mechanism.

In other words, not that it was in I

mean maybe it was installed

inappropriately, but Captain Steve is

basically telling you, oh, if it was

installed inappropriately, it just

wouldn't work at all. But then you

wouldn't be able to turn the damn plane

on because you would never get fuel

flow. The problem here was whether it

was an installation issue or uh you know

some form of defect in the actual

product. The problem was that this SAB

was issued based on reports from

operators of the model 737 airplanes

that the fuel control switches were

installed with the locking feature

disengaged. Fine. The airworthiness

directive concluded that this was not an

unsafe condition. The fuel control

switch at its design would include a

locking feature on similar models

including the 787 Dreamliner which is

the subject of this this investigation

where basically uh the fuel control

switch could uh disengage right here

regarding the potential disengagement.

So the turning off uh of of the device

that would lock in place that switch.

This is very different from, oh, it's

just not working at all after install.

Obviously, then it's going to get

issued. The whole point of that blocking

mechanism is so that I don't turn off

things that I need. Uh, again, if I look

at what's to my left when I'm flying, if

I turn off my generators or I turn off

my batteries and shut down all the

electricity in my plane, these are

massive problems. These are not switches

that I touch during flight. uh you know

I mean there are obviously very rare

emergency procedures where we might to

operate some of these uh but generally

you don't touch this and and this photo

by the way is of the aircraft on the

ground because you can see the GPU in

use button is on which is only possible

when you're on the ground on a phenom

but anyway

I don't agree with Steve's explanation

on this one

>> was default back to the cutoff position

uh and so I don't think that was a

situation here on this Air India 787

because you would know it the very first

time you tried to engage the fuel.

>> Yeah, exactly. But that's why I think

your explanation is wrong. He's

basically saying, "Oh, that whole

airworthiness bulletin was just because

if it was installed wrong, it just

wouldn't work at all." Exactly. You

would know it on the first one, but I

don't think what that's what the Bolton

says. I think the Bolton says that that

block could just not be functional at

all. So you could use the switch to turn

it on and off, but it just wouldn't

prevent you from turning it off without

lifting it up. So it'd be an easier shut

off. So it could actually operate

routinely for hundreds of flights. And

it only becomes a problem when it's

accidentally bumped into such as when

Blackio suggests what if somebody, you

know, one of the co-pilots was guarding

the fuel throttle and then during

turbulence accidentally bumped those

switches

>> control switches.

>> So I don't like that explanation at all.

General Electric Microprocessor

Bulletin.

>> Right. Next is Eric M9768.

On July 11th, 2025, a reader made the

Aviation Herald aware of a service

bulletin released by General Electric

and the FAA. The bulletin was, and

here's the number, which recommended the

replacement of the MN4 microprocessor

on ECU with respect to the engine fuel

and control stating. I I don't know

about this particular uh bulletin. uh

bulletins are.

>> By the way, this all goes into the

theory that there could have been some

form of electrical disaster at your uh

electronic control units that

essentially sent a signal to the FedEx

to set them to a reversionary mode

because of a potential weight on wheel

sensor malfunction or whatever, bringing

the thrust to idle even though the

position was advanced forward. reducing

thrust to zero, explaining why there was

no uh you know flame outwitness on these

engines.

Given that the preliminary report talks

about these fuel control switches moving

from run to cutoff, this seems unlikely

to be an issue anymore.

A student pilot and others have raised a

critical point about mental health in

aviation. They say the current system

discourages pilots from seeking any kind

of mental support for fear of losing

their license potentially for life. H

that's interesting. That's a really good

point because there's this idea of

potentially like not wanting to seek

help because if you're seeking help, it

means you have a problem. That's a good

point. I think that's a fair question.

As Ember Air Jets points out that on his

aircraft the engines won't shut down via

the cut off switches unless specific

logic is met like thrust levers at idle.

He finds it alarming that a modern

aircraft

>> Somebody left me a comment on this as

well. Basically what they're saying is

why are you able to turn the fuel switch

off when the thrust is advanced?

And the idea here being, shouldn't there

be like a computer that says, "Hey, you

have your thrust forward." I'm going to

assume you made a mistake because you're

telling me you want thrust, but now

you're cutting the fuel switch off. I'm

going to assume that you continue to

want thrust because the lever is not at

idle.

They talk about how embra.

That's definitely unfortunate in the

Boeing case because clearly based on the

preliminary report, these switches were

moved to cut off. Uh, and the thrust

would have been in the toga position at

this point, which is your takeoff and

goound position, which is almost fully

forward, not 100% forward. We have a

thrust reserve. Uh, that's maybe the

last like 10% of the throttle lever that

we reserve for emergencies usually. And

they also add a cycle to the engines

because they add a lot of wear and tear

to them. All right. Uh, made a call a

deliberate act. Let's listen to this

one.

>> All right. Katebat 7538 says this. If

this was a deliberate act, why would the

pilot make a mayday call?

Psychologically, that seems like a very

strange

>> Well, it could have been the other

pilot. Mind you, there are two

>> thing to do. Furthermore, how do

investigators know that the physical

switches were in the cut off position

versus the flight data recorder simply

recorded?

>> I mean, here they're basically making

this allegation or assumption that it's

possible the actual data of the aircraft

recording the actions of pilots like,

oh, switches at this time were moved to

cutoff. They're assuming that that was

written into the software wrong.

But now we're really talking about a

culmination of issues because what we

know is the fuel switches were set to

cut off at a very inappropriate time

during flight which made it impossible

to relight in time leading to the plane

to crash. If then you are also assuming

that the data recording functions are

flawed

boy then I mean that I just seems like

it'd be like a one in a trillion chance

honestly. I mean I suppose it's possible

but that seems a little wild. Uh, and

again, you've got two pilots here, so

you I don't I don't know that because

one of them called Mayday, it

necessarily means uh it wasn't

deliberate. It could very well have been

deliberate. Could an electric bus have

fa failure caused the fuel cut off? I

mean, electricity is interesting.

Usually, you've got different circuits

for all this kind of stuff. Uh, and

everything is redundant on aircraft, but

I'd be curious to hear Steve's take on

this one. Pablo writes says, "The fuel

switches don't operate the valves

directly. They uh instruct the

aircraft's computer system, the ECAM, to

do so." That is correct. All right. Is

it possible that a major electrical bus

failure could have told the computer to

shut off the fuel valves? Uh the answer

to that is anything is possible. That's

not what happened in this situation. The

airplane was operating the way it was

designed to operate. The Air India

pilots went into the simulator tried to

simulate a total electrical failure and

that would produce a dual engine

failure. It simply wouldn't. That's not

what happened here. They were placed

phys. That's fair. Okay, I agree. It's

all about the fuel switches being placed

off. Could this have been a cyber

attack? Not really. The switches don't

move in a cyber manner. Was cutting the

fuel a last resort to prevent an

explosion?

Uh,

no. because the fuel switches were found

back in the on position before the

impact. So, that's nonsense. Was the rat

deployed while the aircraft climbed?

Well, remember the checklist on the 787,

the two memory items of the 787, which

I I haven't seen Captain Steve bring up

yet, but it's pretty simple because and

it's very different, mind you, from the

737 or a lot of other Boeing aircraft,

but the 7878 Dreamliner is very clear.

In the event of a dual engine fail or

like a thrust off, you move the fuel

control switches to cut off then run and

then you push and hold the ram air

turbine switch to help these engines

relight immediately.

So, you know, the ram air turbine being

deployed could very well have been a

manual process. Uh, but it can also be

automated. So, I don't know that that

matters. Uh, could a dual engine fire be

the cause? We saw no fire. There's

literally video of the aircraft,

>> right? Assassin Forever says, "From my

understanding, there is one uh

conceivable scenario when we have a dual

engine fire when we cut off fuel to both

engines before starting the fire

extinguisher procedure. But as you said,

uh this almost never happens during the

first moments of the plane uh being

airborne." That's correct. It doesn't.

Uh, and the fuel handles, the fire

handles were not pulled. All right. The

uh, flight data recorder, the

preliminary report said the fuel control

switches were placed from run to cut off

1 second apart from each other. So, it

wasn't the fuel handles being pulled.

All right. Ephidol uh, off 610.

>> Uh, but why didn't the second pilot do

anything? Well, the second pilot did do

something. So, let's assume the one

pilot cut the fuel to both engines. The

other pilot uh looked at that pilot and

said, "What did you do or why did you do

that?" Uh there was a denial on that

part. Uh the other pilot then within 10

seconds grabs both fuel control switches

and places them to run. That's an

incredible presence of mind to think to

do that

>> right while that is fast. That is pretty

impressive. It's like, "Wait, fuel's

off. Wait, why did you turn those

switches off and then turn them back on,

bro?" I mean, I guess it's also logical.

So, how impressive is it? I don't know.

Maybe Captain Steve is just trying to be

nice to the pilot here.

>> Still flying the airplane and trying to

get some power out of those engines. So

that's that sequence of events that

happened um in the cockpit. All right.

Well, that's it for this episode of Ask

the Captain. Thank

>> Okay. Interesting. Uh yeah, some of

those I don't know that how much that

really adds in terms of color here. Uh

what adds some color is there is a

Boeing pilot who did respond to uh my

comment on the potential for a forearm

getting close to these these switches.

He argues that arms are too high. I

don't know if this is a height thing or

a seat positioning thing. But uh shout

out to that pilot who mentioned that

their arms are usually not close to it.

uh which is great, very important

because we're trying to understand like

you know could turbulence have led to

some kind of bombing into this uh this

position to where all of a sudden

they're bumped into you know we're all

looking for a reason to understand why

did this happen and how could it be

prevented in the future. Uh so it's

scary to see this uh this this kind of

uh stuff happen and so that's why

everybody's looking for answers here.

Uh yeah. All right. So let's see here.

Uh some people in the comments write

this is the possibility of gaslighting

from the pilot asking the question or

the one denying it.

Uh let's see here.

Even the best psychologist and psych

psychiatrists in the world cannot

predict everyone's behavior. This is in

reference to people getting you know

psychotic analysis as part of their

medical screening. Uh, so,

ah, interesting. Somebody's responding

to Captain Steve here that the captain,

you know, I guess Captain Steve argues

that the cockpit voice recorder does the

same thing that a camera would do in the

cockpit. I disagree with that. Uh, and

and I think they actually bring up a

good point in the comment here. In the

comment, they say, "Why won't you

replace all your home security cameras

with an audio recording then?" I mean,

this is a good point in in fairness.

Like I get why videos in the cockpit

probably won't happen, but I also see

how they could be extremely useful

because it would it would just remove

all doubt over what happened. We could

see did somebody accidentally bump it?

Did the person guarding the switches

bump it? Did somebody's, you know, for

whatever reason arm fall it? Did

something fall on it that accidentally,

you know, remove these switches to off

or did they just wobble their way down,

which just seems crazy that they would

both wobble their way down. Or did

somebody slip their hand over and go?

Time for me to check out. Click click.

I hope we get some more color because

I'm not sure that the answers that we're

getting so far are uh as thorough as

we'd like them to be.

>> Why not advertise these things that you

told us here? I feel like nobody else

knows about this. We'll we'll try a

little advertising and see how it goes.

>> Congratulations, man. You have done so

much. People love you. People look up to

you.

>> Kevin Praath there, financial analyst

and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always great

to get your take.