Air India Probe: Indians And Americans Had Problem With Each Other?

New Delhi: Did Indian and American aviation experts have disagreements on certain issues relating to the decoding of Black Boxes of the ill- fated AI 171 plane that crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12? A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report claimed that the officials of the two countries had serious disagreements first over the venue of decoding the Black Boxes as the Americans refused to travel out of Delhi and then on other issues as well. The report said “tension, suspicion and poor communication between United States of America and Indian experts have marked the continuing inquiry into the crash of Boeing 787 Dreamliner.”

The WSJ report that carried only the version of American aviation experts involved in investigating the crash, said friction surfaced the moment two American Black-Box specialists landed in New Delhi in late June. The report claimed Indian authorities wanted to use a facility at Korwa in Uttar Pradesh, referring to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, to keep things out of media glare but the Americans refused to go there.

“They (Indians) wanted the U.S. technical experts to take a late-night flight on a military plane and then drive to a remote area,” WSJ claimed, adding that plan worried Jennifer Homendy, a top U.S. transportation official. She and other American officials were concerned about the safety of U.S. personnel and equipment being taken to a remote location amid State Department security warnings about terrorism and military conflicts in the region, WSJ wrote. And then followed a flurry of phone calls to Washington where President Donald Trump’s officials were roped in. Homendy, reportedly, gave an ultimatum that decoding will either be in Delhi or Washington else the Americans would back off following which investigation stayed in Delhi.

“The previously unreported episode marked a high point of tension between Indian government officials, who are leading the probe into the June 12 crash, and the American experts assisting them. The investigation has been marked by points of tension, suspicion and poor communication between senior officials of the two nations,” the WSJ said.

It seems Homendy also had complains about delays in downloading data from the Air India flight and insisted Indian officials extract information from the Air India Black Boxes at their facility in Delhi or at the NTSB’s lab in Washington.

Report claimed that inside a government building at the airport, G.V.G. Yugandhar, chief of India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), wanted the Americans to know Indian authorities were capable of handling the complex probe. The report quoted Yugandhar saying, “We’re not a Third World country. We can do anything you all can do. We have the same capabilities,” the WSJ report said quoting sources.

Citing the version of American investigators, the report claimed that at the crash site, Indian authorities initially wouldn’t let Americans take their own photos of the wreckage. “They also moved some of the wreckage before U.S. investigators could examine it. The Indian investigators also were proceeding with certain aspects of the probe in sequence, rather than concurrently. The Americans thought the Indians weren’t prioritizing downloading and analyzing the Black-Box information,” the report said.

In the US, FAA and airline officials grew frustrated with the slow pace of information emerging from the investigation, the report suggested. “An analysis of the plane’s flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders was needed for investigators to determine why the engines appeared to lose thrust quickly after takeoff…When Indian investigators showed their U.S. counterparts the accident plane’s throttle assembly, the fuel-cutoff switches were in the run position, indicating the jet’s engines were getting fuel at the time of impact. Switches can move on impact, so investigators would need to check their position as reflected in the flight data,” WSJ report said adding when Homendy attempted to reach out to Yugandhar for updates they went unanswered.

WSJ claimed the downloaded data from Black Boxes showed someone in the cockpit moved the switches that cut off the engine’s fuel supply. “The data also showed that Sabharwal, the captain, didn’t pull back on the yoke in the final moments of the accident... The first officer, Clive Kunder, who was the pilot directly responsible for flying, did pull up at the end,” it said.

“Indian authorities said in the report that one pilot asked the other why he moved the engine-cutoff switches, while the other pilot denied doing so. The report didn’t identify which pilot said what, or determine whether moving the switches was accidental or intentional. The switches were moved one second after the other, and were switched back to “run” about 10 seconds later,” the report said. It added that the U.S. government and industry officials believe the captain likely moved the switches to cut off fuel supply.

“Indian authorities released little public information and limited access to the materials. False information, some apparently generated with artificial intelligence, filled the void online,” the report said.