AIR INDIA CRASH PROBE FOCUSES ON ACTIONS OF PLANE’S CAPTAIN, WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTS:

A cockpit recording of dialogue between the two pilots of the Air India flight that crashed last month indicates the captain cut the flow of fuel to the plane’s engines, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper cited people familiar with U.S. officials’ early assessment of evidence uncovered in the investigation into the June 12 crash in Ahmedabad, India, that killed 260 people.

The first officer, who was flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, asked the more experienced captain why he moved the fuel switches to the “cutoff” position seconds after lifting off the runway, the report said.

The two pilots involved were Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder, who had total flying experience of 15,638 hours and 3,403 hours, respectively.

India’s AAIB, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Boeing and Air India did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on the Wall Street Journal report.

A preliminary report into the crash released by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) on Saturday said the fuel switches had switched from run to cutoff a second apart just after takeoff, but it did not say how they were flipped.

One pilot was then heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report said.

The Wall Street Journal notes, “The Indian authorities’ preliminary report finding that the fuel control switches were flipped in succession, one second apart, suggested a deliberate act, according to Ben Berman, a former senior NTSB official who helped oversee the U.S.-led investigation into the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 in 1999.”