US official says Air India crash report suspecting pilot error ‘premature'
moved switches that control the flow of fuel to the engines.
'Investigations of this magnitude take time,' NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said on Friday in a social media post. She called recent media reports 'premature and speculative', without providing any specifics on what exactly she was referring to.
Investigators, led by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau with the assistance of the NTSB, have been piecing together evidence to determine what caused
Air India flight 171 to crash on June 12, killing 260 people.
The AAIB and Air India CEO Campbell Wilson have also urged the public not to draw conclusions while the investigation is ongoing.
It can take a year – sometimes longer – for authorities to release a final report laying out the probable cause of an accident and recommendations for avoiding future tragedies.
A preliminary report released by the AAIB found two fuel control switches on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner were moved to a 'cut-off' position immediately after the aircraft lifted off, starving the engines of fuel. While the move was reversed about 10 seconds later, it was too late to avert the crash.
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