Air India 171 Crash Cause | Fuel Sensor Problem - Captain Steeeve

That is a really critical minute where I

mean if you lose dual engine power at

this critical phase of flight, you're

screwed. There's nothing. You do not

have the altitude to glide back to your

destination. Kevin is very talented, but

I don't know it's going to be him, but

he's a very talented guy. Hey, it's

Kevin. So, I've been watching this

Captain Steve video on fuel filter

failures and contaminated fuel, and he

talks a lot about Air India 171,

potentially borrowing off of the crisis

of Air India 171, suggesting that maybe

a fuel filter contamination was the

problem in the crash that caused the Air

India 171 crash shortly after takeoff.

There have been a lot of theories

circulating around this, but I want to

talk a little bit about fuel filters and

fuel contamination and some issues that

might there might be with Captain

Steve's video. But first, I want to also

shout out here Gary B. pilot who talks

about how there we we go into sort of

some casework documentation into how

previous engine thrust failures have

been suspected by the NTSB in 787

aircraft where the thrust control

malfunction accommodation can instruct

the FADC to potentially revert thrust in

engines to go to an idle setting. I

would argue that at the moment this

software glitch is potentially the

highest likelihood though probably still

only 20 30% because there's so many

different things that could have

happened uh with the area 171 crash. Uh

it it seems to be that some form of

software fedc dual fadec issue which is

remarkable since each engine has its own

but some kind of central electronic

computing system failure that sent the

thrust for both engines to idle that led

to that tragic 171 Air India crash. Now,

regarding Air India 315, which I made a

video about a week or so ago, we have

Captain Steve just now breaking down Air

India uh 315. And what he does is he

sets up the scene as, hey, here's a case

where we had uh pilots on Air India 315

make what he calls the right decision to

divert back to Hong Kong on their way to

Delhi given a potential fuel filter

error. You can listen to that here.

Okay. Okay.

Technical reasons, sir. We would like to

stay closer to Hong Kong. Uh maybe we

will uh come back and land back into

Hong Kong once we sort out the problem.

We don't want to continue further. Okay.

air in. And so there's some speculation

now that much like that Air India 315

crash complaining about a fuel filter

issue or some form of uh engine related

uh fuel flow issue that's coming up on

their screens. Uh this is an aircraft or

that that basically didn't end up in the

disaster that Arandia 171 ended in

because they diverted. Now is that

possible on an immediate takeoff? No, of

course. But what you end up having is

Captain Steve suggests that hey, you

know, here are the checklists. If you

have one engine fuel filter message,

you'll just monitor the performance,

although you could end up getting a

flame out if you end up having a dual

engine fuel filter error, then land at

the nearest suitable airport. So, he

provides the checklist uh for what would

normally be done in uh an uh in a Boeing

787. Now, what I notice, and this is

what my impression was when I first

watched the Captain Steve video, is very

often when we get failure notifications

on either fuel pumps or fuel filter

lines, not always, but they tend to be

sensor issues. Now, the reason I

mentioned sensor issues, and here's a

comment that brings this up, is because

I don't believe that one of these fuel

issues is a high likelihood, unless

there was some bizarre combination of

sudden fuel flow shut off along with

vapor lock and some kind of cascading

electrical problem that would have

contributed to the Air India 171 crash.

mostly because I agree with this poster

here that a lot of fuel filter errors

seem to be related to crappy sensors.

Now, that doesn't mean don't land or

don't pay attention to the issue, and

I'll give you a personal experience with

this, but take a look at this comment.

I'm an AM mechanic. I work on commercial

jetliners. We get calls on fuel filter

bypass lights, and most of the time it's

an indication issue, not an actually

clogged filter. Now, keep in mind there

were no other reports of aircraft

receiving fuel filter issues or having

engine issues because of contaminated

fuel coming out of the AirIndia 171

airport or 315 airport. So, in neither

of those cases have there been reports

of other aircraft having issues of fuel

contamination because fuel contamination

is relatively a rare occurrence. Now, it

has happened before. Take a look at

Cathway Pacific. This was a this was a

remarkable case where nobody actually

died despite the aircraft landing at

twice its normal speed back in 2010,

popping I think it was seven out of uh

almost almost all of their tires. Uh but

uh nobody died despite landing at twice

its normal speed, blowing a lot of

tires, and remarkably surviving uh the

this contaminated fuel incident that

damaged both of the aircraft's engines.

This was 2010.

If we go back to the Dominican Airlines

flight 603, this is 1970.

So 40 years earlier, we get a water

contamination issue in the fuel lines.

1960,

we get uh the Munich C130 crash because

of water freezing at the bottom of the

fuel inlet tanks. And then we have a

2012 short hall uh flight where about

three of the four yeah three of the four

occupants were killed uh also

potentially due to fuel contamination

caused by rain that led to

contamination.

So in the last you know what do we have

here 65 years we've had four incidents

of fuel contamination. This is really

really low. This is very very rare to

have a fuel contamination related crash

let alone then a fatal crash. So for the

fatalities associated with fuel

contamination very very low. In fact, if

you look at some of the FAA's

documentation

or or their advisory circulars on uh

fuel failures, most of the fuel failures

issues that they will talk about will

only have to do with piston engines or

reciprocating uh you know engine

aircraft. The reason they do is because

this is where fuel contamination becomes

even more important. Uh, and what I find

remarkable is they pin the biggest cause

of fuel problems on piston aircraft

on fuel starvation. In other words,

pilots not properly monitoring how much

fuel they have in each tank, especially

since a lot of older planes or even

Pipers still today will require that you

manually change from the left tank to

the right tank every about 10 to 15

minutes depending on uh what power

setting you're flying on. I had to do

this in my training as well. It's

exhausting and it's really important to

pay attention to, but the FAA suggests

that 51% of all engine power loss

accidents are related to fuel

exhaustion. So, a lot of cases where you

have aircraft failing or or you know,

crashing because of an engine failure is

often more than half the time related to

the pilot's failure to pay attention to

how much fuel they actually have or

should have. potentially loading too

little fuel, not properly calculating an

alternate uh airport if they're entering

IMC conditions, or potentially uh need

to, you know, fly to a different airport

for whatever reason. They also talk

about the potential for a lack of

training around sumping fuel out of

piston aircraft where generally you'll

take these little sump cups and on

Cessnas, I don't know, you've got like

seven or eight different spots you have

to check. on a Cirrus, you might have

three different spots that you check,

usually one under each wing and one

center tank. What I found that was very

fascinating when I went to jet training

school and started flying a jet uh was

that it's actually not recommended to

sump the fuel on these. Now, they

actually do have fuel sumps under uh,

you know, under the aircraft, under the

fuselage, and under the wings, uh, the

low points of the tanks, but they

actually don't recommend you sump them

because they're such larger sumps. There

have been plenty of cases, is what I'm

told from, you know, every single pilot

I've ever flown with, they're like, "No,

no, no. We we don't touch those."

Apparently, the sumps get stuck. So, if

you go sump the fuel to see if there's

water contamination or debris or

whatever uh in the fuel on a jet,

there's a high likelihood of that sump

uh staying in the stuck open position

and then dumping thousands of pounds of

fuel onto the tarmac before you can stop

the flow. And now you're talking about

thousands of dollars of fuel on the

ground, but also a fire safety hazard

issue.

kind of odd because the manuals for jet

aircraft do call for sumping the fuel,

but nobody in practice seems to do it.

And I've never seen any jet pilot

actually sump fuel. But then again,

maybe maybe that is something that

should be done unless there isn't an

actual fuel contamination issue in

aircraft, especially modern aircraft

where maybe what we actually have is

just a sensing issue. So, I kind of

agree with this comment here that it's

possible we might just be looking at

sensing issues in terms of why the 315

pilots decided to turn back in an

abundance of caution. And this is where

I'd actually like to point out my own

fuel sensor issues that I've had on my

very own plane. So, on uh on our Phenom

300E, we have had a fuel valve uh fail

on uh our left engine uh show up. This

basically means we're now operating

without the powered uh fuel pump and

we're just operating on essentially the

sump. Uh and then of course the other

engine uh has its active DC powered fuel

pump plus the sump. Uh and so we've seen

this before where we would actually then

switch, you know, follow our checklist

and switch our uh pump from auto to on.

We'd see the failure, we turn it, you

know, to off and the failure light goes

away, but then again our pump is off.

And so we'd go through our

troubleshooting steps. Never lost any

engine thrust, never any issues with the

engine. Uh all engine vitals, so to

speak, completely normal. And so, of

course, we immediately we stopped

flying. Uh called in service. Service

ended up ordering from Ember Air a fuel

uh pump replacement for the left side.

And the crazy thing, I didn't I didn't

know why they did this. I think it's

probably the safer way to do it. They

replaced the pump out of an abundance of

caution. And then just to test, they

moved the fuel sensor, the fuel pump

sensor from the left engine to the right

engine. The next time I go flying, I get

right fuel sensor fail. So fuel valve

fail. And we're like, "All right, it's

the sensor at this point. Engines are

operating normally. We've the the right

pump never had an issue. The left pump

is brand new. The sensor is obviously

gone. Very next flight, that sensor was

replaced. I'm not sure why they even

kept it in the first place, but that was

a maintenance decision. Uh, but it's

interesting because I've personally had

that experience uh on on a 2021 jet. So,

I don't think it's highly uncommon for

these sensors to go, and it sort of

aligns with what I'm seeing in the

comment here, though, there could be a

little bit of confirmation bias involved

in that. That said, there's also a note

where somebody leaves a comment here, a

clarification, which Steve rightfully

pins and says that fuel on the 787

is fed on takeoff by the lefthand engine

uh tank and the right-hand engine tank

independently during takeoff. There was

some commentary that maybe they're both

fuel fed from the center tank on the

787. This individual uh suggests and it

was pinned by Captain Steve that uh they

they would individually be fed from each

engine, which again suggests

contaminated fuel would not necessarily

cause Air India 171 to crash immediately

after takeoff. Because if you go to the

more recent Hathaway Air uh flight, and

you study this, there are plenty of

great YouTube videos on Cathway Pacific

Flight 780, you actually find that the

engines didn't both fail together at the

same time, which is very unusual. they

actually flamed out individually and the

second engine sputtered out over time.

Uh, and so this gave the uh, you know,

flight crew an opportunity to divert an

emergency land uh, at another airport,

which is great, but it indicates that

usually if you're starting to get fuel

contamination issues, the issues would

show up at the engines at different

times and not at exactly the same time.

Which brings us back to this idea much

like uh Gary B pilot over here suggests

that hey you know maybe there's some

kind of software glitch that ultimately

reset the fadeex on error India 171 to

some form of reversionary mode to an

idle thrust setting and there was not

enough time to go through a checklist to

essentially clear this issue before

crashing. Now I will say any pilot that

I have flown with uh has uh you know has

asked me they're like Kevin you know

what are your thoughts on on the Air

India 171 crash like everybody's talking

about Air India 171 in the aviation

community because frankly it's scary I

mean we I I love flying I try to go

flying uh almost every single week and

uh I I think uh you know pilots

regularly do you know I I don't fly for

anyone but myself uh so You know, some

people fly professionally three, four

times a week. I mean, sometimes I'm

flying for myself three or four times a

week. Uh, but more so the point is it's

scary and and pilots themselves are

wondering, you know, here's some sort of

footage in the background uh of us, for

example, going to take off and uh this

is such a scary moment when you're going

to take off that it's odd to think,

gosh, what if we lost both engines in

this moment? There's much not much you

can do other than basically hope that

you've got a field in front of you. Uh

which is really scary. Uh you can take a

look at my takeoff here. Tower 28 97

Mike holding runway 26 on alpha

26 heading good. Ready? Yes, sir. Let's

do it. Okay,

ATR is in the green. Yep. Disregard.

See that yellow popup right there?

That's the FMS disagree. That's what it

looks like when a cast message or an

error code shows up. That would be the

same thing as like fuel filter fault or

fuel valve fault or whatever. In this

case, it's FMS disagree. And we actually

prepare for this in our brief before we

go to take off. We're like, if we get an

FMS disagree because this plane does it

a lot, we will disregard it. So, we're

we're generally prepared for that. And

it's usually if there's a long line,

there were like four or five planes in

front of us to taxi out here and take

off. Usually if we're like on the ground

running for more than 10 minutes, the

fuel sync is slightly off. Uh and and we

get that error message. So it's very

common after the power is set. It's the

most annoying thing in this aircraft.

Okay. Brakes off.

Your speed three ways.

70. Sure.

See that helicopter coming over? That's

what I was worried about.

Hey be rotate. The helicopter is no

factor. Copy two. Positive right.

Positive right. You're up.

I got that helicopter in sight. No

factor. I'm going to start turning left

though. Helicopter 6 05 north back the

option report on the go. Okay. Flap the

option. North 65. Check niner 7 Mike

right down approved. Runway 26. Clear

for takeoff. Caut.

[Music]

Okay. AP set on heading four. Papa

contacting your departure. Contact your

departure for Papa.

Oops.

Departure. All right. Departure Phenom 6

niner 4 Papa at 1600 climbing 3,000. 6

niner 4 Papa radar contact. CLL climb

maintain 4,000. Climb maintain 4,000. 6

niner 4 Papa. All right. Uh, landing

gear is Papa contact approach 128.

That's going to be 2865. Right.

128 65 6 niner 4 pop I think. Right. All

right. Here you go. So like your goal on

a takeoff, I mean we're at 2700 ft here,

right? Your goal on a takeoff is how

quickly can I get up. Uh and you know on

a jet, you know, we're we're moving

fast. We're going uh you know we're

already what what was that? 30 seconds

and we're already at 3,000 ft. I mean

let's let's calc.

Uh so there's our rotation. There we go.

We rotate at 148. And to get to 3,000

ft, I think we're about 50 seconds or

so.

H 2500 there. Yeah, it's about a minute.

It's about a minute. So, that is a

really critical minute where I mean, if

you lose dual engine power at this

critical phase of flight, you're

screwed. There's nothing. you do not

have the altitude to glide back to your

destination, let alone have the time to

go through uh uh you know checklist or

some sort of diagnosis uh on the issue.

So this is this is quite uh a

challenging moment uh for pilots and

that's why uh it's it's so alarming and

heartbreaking to see what happened with

the Air India 171 crash. But it also

makes us wonder like would it be fuel uh

contamination? Well, no other aircraft

seem to have the problem. Would it be uh

you know some kind of software glitch?

That would be very scary because even

our throttle is computer controlled.

Uh you know my uh uh I could steer up,

down, left, right like my ailerons, my

you know my pitch and my rudders. I

could steer steer this by hand. Uh in in

this particular aircraft in a Boeing you

would have a steer by wire system. This

one I'm actually like inputting uh the

controls myself but not on my throttle.

My throttle is a computer as well much

like the Air India 70 uh 7878 Boeing

where you're really just sending a

computer signal. So it's kind of like

imagine you get like a blue screen of

death. Uh I mean gosh quite literally

that's a little morbid but uh you get a

blue screen of death or whatever on

software. That's terrible. This was uh

this was more footage of sort of us

landing which we can talk about in a

different video but uh yeah you know

something to pay attention to and uh

hopefully we find out uh what else is

going on with the Air India 171 crash.

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 Pra there, financial analyst

and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always great

to get your take.