Deployment of RAT indicates engine failure: Commercial Pilot Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Air India plane crash report

New Delhi [India], July 12 (ANI): Commercial Pilot and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Saturday said that the deployment of Ram Air Turbine (RAT) and the start of Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) operations in the crashed Air India flight 171 indicates towards engine failure.
"It's a preliminary report. In the first stage report, the government is coming out with the facts of what happened inside the aircraft. The facts are that the aircraft ran up to a speed that is required for takeoff, which is called the rotation speed. It lifted from the ground. It went up to the speed of 180 knots, which is a good acceleration speed. And possibly after that, technically, 2 or 3 things have happened. One is the deployment of RAT, which has happened, and the second is that the APU, auxiliary power unit, has started operations," Rudy told ANI.
He added that the fuel switches were found at the run position in the report, which is recommended to do when the aircraft starts losing control.
"This automatically happens in an aircraft when there is a twin-engine failure. So this, as indicated in the report, has happened, and both the initial stages of APU have started, and the RAT has deployed, so it indicates the engine failure has taken... When you start losing the aircraft, the pilot monitoring the situation immediately puts the fuel switch control off and instantly puts it back on. After the crash, both switches were found on," Rudy said.
The AAIB's Preliminary Report, released on Friday, said that both the engines of the aircraft were moved from "run" to "cutoff" in quick succession, which resulted in the fuel supply being cut off. The report says that in the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why he did the cutoff, which the other pilot denied ever doing so.
"The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC, and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off," the preliminary report said.
"In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why he cut off. The other pilot responded that he did not do so," the report added.
As per the Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorder (EAFR) accessed by the AAIB, engine 1's fuel cut switch transitioned from 'cutoff' to 'run' at about 8:08:52 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), and at 8:08:56 UTC, Engine 2's fuel switch also went from 'cutoff' to run'.
According to the report, just 13 seconds later, at 8:09:05 UTC, one of the pilots transmitted the Mayday call, which the Air Traffic Control Officer (ATCO) enquired about, but did not receive a reply. Shortly after, the aircraft was observed crashing outside the airport boundary, and the emergency response was activated.
The Airline Pilots' Association of India on Saturday also called for a "fair, fact-based inquiry" into the incident and rejected the "tone and direction of the investigation", which suggested a bias towards pilot error.
"The report was leaked to the media without any responsible official signature or attribution. There is a lack of transparency in investigations as investigations continue to be shrouded in secrecy, undermining credibility and public trust. Qualified, experienced personnel, especially line pilots, are still not being included in the investigation team," the association said in a statement.
Notably, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol urged people not to draw conclusions based on the preliminary report. While speaking to mediapersons, the MoS said, "The AAIB has brought out a preliminary report. This is not the final report. Until the final report comes out, we should not arrive at any conclusion. AAIB is an autonomous authority, and the ministry does not interfere in their work." (ANI)