Fuel switches were cut off before Air India plane crashed, preliminary report says

The crash of Air India Flight 171 seconds after takeoff on June 12 killed all but one of the 242 people on board. An additional 29 people on the ground were also killed.

Fuel switches were cut off on the Air India plane that crashed and killed 270 people last month shortly after takeoff, a preliminary investigation report released Friday said.

The report by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau comes as the airline has been under intense pressure to answer for the crash, which killed all but one passenger on the plane and 29 others on the ground.

Fuel cutoff switches were changed from “run” to “cutoff” to Engines 1 and 2 on the two-engine Boeing 787-8, a type of aircraft known as the Dreamliner, the report said.

“In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff. The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report reads.

The report is preliminary and a final report could take weeks. The report released Friday does not reach conclusions or recommend actions to operators or manufacturers, and the investigation is continuing.

Only one person survived the crash, British national Ramesh Viswashkumar. His brother, also on the plane, was killed.

In addition to the 241 people on the plane who died, 29 people on the ground were also killed when the plane crashed.