pilot debrief just broke down his thoughts on the AirIndia 171 crash and in this video I'm going to break down where I think pilot debrief made a critical error in his assumption of what happened in the Air India 171 flight in this video I'm also going to respond to some of the other comments that we've seen on the AirIndia 171 flight though I don't want to rehash a lot of what we've talked about in the past since we have multiple videos already on the Air India 171 flight instead I'd like to focus on the possibility that the pilot or one of the pilots accidentally or inadvertently shut down the remaining functioning engine or the critical engine in this case the one left operating accidentally instead of shutting down potentially a failed engine certainly possible that at some point during the takeoff perhaps after V1 they had an engine failure and we just can't see it on the video maybe you rotated too early or maybe you stayed on the ground a little bit longer for the takeoff roll and now you're distracted by all the warnings going off as you start to rotate away from the ground so you forget to raise the gear it's a hot day and you've got a fully loaded 787 on your hands and the aircraft is struggling to climb and for some reason you rush to shut down the bad engine but instead one of the pilots reaches down and accidentally moves the fuel control switch for the good engine to the off position now you have dual engine failure and you might not even realize what just happened and there's nothing you can do about it let's discuss this keep in mind my name is meet Kevin i am a pilot of a Phenom 300E it's a dual multi-engine jet aircraft i am a pilot in command single pilot rated and let's get into the analysis so first I want to just start with saying I love pilot debrief i actually credit his videos for me getting into aviation in the first place and generally he has exceptional analysis and commentary that I typically agree with wholeheartedly in fact I love the guy would love to meet him one day and I honor what he does on the channel because I think it makes the entire aviation community better but that's exactly why I want to take issue with the potential that somebody inadvertently shut down one of the engines on a jet aircraft i believe this is incredibly unlikely because jet aircrafts are just well frankly very different from multi-engine propeller aircraft let's first understand this pilot debrief makes a few comments that I think are very on point he says that we have poor visual verification that the ram air turbine was actually deployed and this is true we really only have good audio confirmation that the RAM air turbine was deployed suggesting some form of critical cascading failure of the electronic engine control systems the electronics inside the uh the the uh aircraft uh as well as potentially the cascade of some form of failsafe reversion to idle thrust or potentially some form of really rare dual engine vapor lock with multiple hours on the tarmac a lack of cabin air conditioning and a failure of electronic pumps leaving only suction to potentially prevent engines from failing on a dual vapor lock now that's a lot of information there and I'm really just catching up to what we've talked about in the past all of these things individually extremely rare do we ever hear of an aircraft crashing because of a single failure no in fact I would argue we almost never hear of any aircraft crashing because of a single failure it's always a cascade of failures planes don't fall out of the air because of vapor lock we never even talk about vapor lock on jets we never even talk about hot air temperature takeoffs because it's so routine to take off in the hot air we only bring these issues up along with some form of potential catastrophic computer failure where the electronic control systems were somehow surged with electricity leading to some form of massive fedc failure because we're looking for some form of answer how could an aircraft kill over 270 people that's a modern 7878 Dreamliner aircraft the first to actually have a catastrophic accident like this and one of the worst aviation disasters in decades now it's remarkable obviously that one person was a sole survivor but let's be clear we don't have the answers yet however there are some things that I can take credit with with what pilot debrief says and then I have to take issue with the idea that one of the pilots inadvertently shut down the wrong engine so first I believe that pilot debrief is absolutely correct so Hoover I think you're absolutely correct when you say we don't have excellent camera footage of the takeoff or the accident in fact in my opinion I think it would be very wise for air ports across the country to have relatively inexpensive pan tilt zoom PTZ cameras that simply pan over to the airport runway that is currently in use obviously if we have intersecting runways then have two PTZ cameras at the control tower i think it would be an inexpensive feature at every airport so we could see aircraft when they are in the most critical phase of flight takeoff and landing that after all is where the vast majority of aircraft accidents occur so investing in relatively inexpensive PTZ camera technology would be a fantastic recommendation though I recognize that these days the government spending more money isn't the most popular thing to encourage that said I also take I mean while I give a lot of credit to Hoover I do take issue that the ram air turbine was deployed he he suggests that it's not entirely clear whether or not it was deploy deployed i think based on the audio it's pretty clear but let's assume for a moment that it didn't deploy and we'll get to the conversation on single engine out procedures that said I want to give credit to Hoover when he says that it's unlikely that the flaps being misconfigured or accidentally the rare case of a pilot putting up the flaps instead of the gear would have led this aircraft to collapse out of the air i do not believe solely that would lead this aircraft to crash and so I give Hoover complete credit for this yes would it be un ideal absolutely could you suffer some increased sink rate at the time absolutely are you in a max weight takeoff configuration with uh a hot day so low lift and potentially mis configuring the aircraft of course but I agree with Hoover when I say I don't think that was the core issue here again it was likely a cascade of failures and as Hoover always says the Swiss cheese just aligning in the most unfortunate way and timing i also think that he is correct to say that the gear being down is unlikely to be the sole reason an aircraft would crash given that aircraft regularly fly with gear down all of the time in training and this is where I'd like to say as somebody who's gone through single engine or sorry single pilot multi-engine uh training for Phenom 300 this is entirely right we spent a lot of time flying with the gear down in a pattern conducting single engine operations single engine approaches single ending land single engine landings during your check ride you need to be able to prove that you could do a single engine goround or a bulked landing at 50 ft so in other words I've got the gear down i'm coming to land i'm 50 ft from the the tarmac basically from you know touching touching the runway to land and I go full throttle on one engine operating solely which means I've got to kick that rudder in to keep this aircraft uh coordinated as I take off again gear down single engine full throttle on one engine no throttle on another engine so again this this idea that the gear being out was something that solely led to this catastrophe or that somehow this aircraft couldn't climb on one engine all of these I think are stated by folks who haven't actually gone through flying a jet and what it's like to fly a jet on one engine it's extremely rare for a jet engine to fail you have about one failure every 1 in 375,000 hours which is roughly the equivalent of a plane flying for 40 years straight and never landing imagine continuously refueling for 40 years you could fly for 40 years straight without an engine failure it's incredible how safe jet engines are and how good they are so to have a catastrophic dual engine failure I agree is incredibly rare and I think this is where Hoover from pilot debrief wonders okay is it then possible that we had a single engine failure now where I give credit to Hoover as well is I initially believed that that was unlikely given that we didn't see the aircraft yaw in the Phenom 300 while we do have a thrust reserve we do experience yaw significant yaw on takeoff which is essentially as we're taking off if we lose an engine we rapidly yaw or the nose of the plane goes left or right depending of course on which engine failed because we have asymmetric thrust so if one engine is pushing it makes logical sense that the plane is going to turn in the opposite direction entirely normal normal on propeller planes normal on jet engines uh and jet aircraft that said Hoover does pull up an excellent portion of the Boeing 787 manual suggests that the Boeing automatically compensates via rudder input pedal input so a pilot can feel the pedal input occurring and uh well through this rudder input but also roll input to try to balance the aircraft and coordinate the aircraft in the event of an engine failure so a pilot would know there was an engine failure not only through some nominal yaw but limited yaw and then of course crew alerting system messages so cast messages yellow messages flashing in front of your face uh indicating that there's some form of catastrophic issue with one engine after the takeoff that said where So so far completely agree with Hoover Hoover here this is a fantastic point the Boeing is clearly equipped with advanced technology that enables limited yaw on a single engine failure that once you're above 60 knots on the ground and also once you get airborne the system automatically inputs rudder to counter the majority of that yawing moment due to an engine failure so we might not even notice it in the video i give credit to this as well i think this is an excellent find from Hoover and I appreciate that however where I take issue with Hoover is that he suggests that it's possible pilots may have shut down the wrong engine but instead one of the pilots reaches down and accidentally moves the fuel control switch for the good engine to the off position as they were trying to secure the failed engine so let's say the number one or the left engine failed and the right engine was still functioning in this case typically in a propeller aircraft for example you would almost be in a rush against the clock to shut down and secure the failed engine but if you accidentally shut the power or cut the fuel off of the wrong engine now you have one engine that has failed and one engine that just has been fuel starved leading to a complete dual engine failure and now I'd like to explain why I think this is extremely unlikely first typically upon rotation even if you had an engine failure or engine fire which we obviously don't see any indication of engine fire even if you had an engine failure upon rotation the procedure in a jet engine is very different from that of a propeller aircraft with a propeller aircraft you're typically going to go through steps such as pitch for the blue line which is your minimum control speed with one engine out or OEI one engine out uh or one engine in up we like to say so you're going to pitch for blue line and then you're going to identify the failed engine typically what we like to say is dead foot dead engine so for example if my left engine fails I'm stepping on the right rudder to bring that nose over to the right and my left foot isn't doing anything so I'll slap my right leg left left leg dead left engine dead left engine dead then we're going to move to verifying so pitch for blue line identify hit the leg and verify how do we verify we pull the throttle back on the left engine when we pull the throttle back on the left engine we're not cutting the engine off we're simply checking okay if I pull the throttle back on the left engine am I losing the rest of my thrust if I'm losing my thrust it means I'm pulling back the power on the working engine if I'm not losing any thrust and nothing changes when I move that throttle back and forth I mean realistically just back obviously I have now verified that that left engine is indeed the failed engine and now we'll look down at our engine securing procedures such as reducing the mixture feathering the propeller more likely feathering the propeller then reducing the mixture and then cutting the fuel valve off for that particular engine along with turning off the magnetos or the ignition or whatever depending on your specific aircraft now why is this really critical in a propeller aircraft well in a propeller aircraft this is very typical you sort of rush to secure or shut down the failed engine because of the massive drag that occurs when you have a propeller in the unfathered position on screen you're going to see a picture of an unfathered propeller this propeller creates a lot of drag when the wind hits it and it's by design it's supposed to be a wing that is able to bite out of the air as you fly to create lift now on screen now you're going to see an image of an unfathered propeller and you can compare that to the uh or or sorry to the feathered propeller you can compare that to the unfathered propeller now why is the feathered propeller angled essentially straight into the wind it's simply to reduce the drag of the dead propeller so imagine you're driving a car down the road you stick your hand out of the window in a car you feel substantial push against your hand pushing your hand back now imagine that's a propeller that's dead and in an aircraft as your hand gets pushed back rather than your hand necessarily getting pushed back that propeller is really just dragging that plane towards the dead engine and it's making it very complicated to control this is where we like to feather the dead engine or secure it as soon as possible in a propeller plane and it's solely to reduce the drag on that side of the aircraft now of course you're still going to have asymmetric thrust but your thighs aren't going to throb out of your leg because you aren't fighting to control that single engine out aircraft maneuverability which you really have to put a lot of pressure on it feels like you're doing lift presses in a gym uh you know with like 100 lbs of pressure because it's so hard to keep this aircraft controlled with an unfathered propeller it is strenuous so this is why on a propeller plane it is very common upon an engine failure pitch for blue lime you can kind of cheat for with this by just pitching for the horizon we're slightly above the horizon so you're slightly climbing now typically we like to pitch for a V2 but as a reaction function we like to say level the plane and start going down the checklist of securing this engine as soon as possible now why is this different in a multi-engine jet aircraft well it's different because there is no feathering of a jet engine the jet engine isn't going anywhere i can't feather the blades of a jet engine turbine it is impossible for me to reduce the drag of that engine and when we look at takeoff with engine failure configuration checklist we do not have any memory items for actually shutting down the aircraft in fact here is my manual which indicates that if we have an engine failure of one engine upon takeoff we are to continue takeoff rotating to uh rotating to flight director initial pitch however we're going to adjust that pitch to a lower pitch for manually typically for one engine and we're going to maintain a V2 speed we're going to move the landing gear up then we will identify the affected engine however we're not even going to secure it yet instead we are going to engage the autopilot select the altitude and heading on the flight control system we're going to retract the flaps on schedule we are going to uh we are going to move our thrust levers to a continuous and climb setting we are going to adjust our altitude our flight level change and only then once we have actually configured the aircraft for flight and we are at a level of flight where we are slowly gaining altitude only then are we actually going to move to completing an engine failure shutdown checklist in other words there is zero memory item for an engine failure to shut down the aircraft in fact there aren't even memory items for an engine failure on this particular checklist beyond the usual which is maintain aircraft control so this is your counter rudder m you know pitching for a lower bank uh attitude uh sorry low lower attitude not lower bank that's confusing uh and uh and then maintaining aircraft control and this is something that Hoover always talks about he always talks about maintain aircraft control in fact he says that when you have a failure in an aircraft the military used to teach him you would say number one fly the damn plane aviate navigate communicate but whatever you do just fly the damn plane and so I'm surprised that didn't come up in his discussion here now for an engine fire an engine fire is going to have a slightly different checklist an engine fire in flight is going to call for the following during takeoff continue the takeoff rotating to flight director or initial pitch which we adjust to more of a V2 or pitch for the uh pitch for the horizon uh and then of course adjust to V2 so you're slowly climbing but you've reduced that pitch at positive rate we're going to go gear up maintain V2 identify affected engine mind you this is literally with the engine on fire we were still gear up identify pitch set the autopilot set the uh uh you know the altitude controls retract the flaps on schedule and then we're going to set our thrust to continuous and climb our recall items affected thrust lever we are going to go to idle this is part of our identify the affected engine setting we're going to make sure we're not shutting off the wrong engine this is so drilled into us this is why I think it's so unlikely that the uh pilots accidentally set on turned off the wrong engine because we're going through so many steps there's really no rush to turn this engine off and even in an engine fire it is so important that we verify that engine and this is drilled into us in either simulator training at like CE or uh just frankly in aircraft training then after we go to idle on the affected engine now we know which engine is affected only then would we go to the engine start stop knob and move it to stop as well as uh push in the associated shut off button and if after 30 seconds we still have an engine fire in this case we would generally deploy our oxygen or our you know oxygen removing bottle which is a gas that starves the engine of oxygen to extinguish any potential fire that's there those are our fire extinguishers in the engine but notice that no matter what checklist you go through you're typically delaying the shutdown of this engine even when the darn thing's on fire it's fly the aircraft first and this is where I have to say I take real issue with this idea that we're going to rush to shut down the engines in fact uh I uh responded to um one of my co-workers where yesterday he sent me Hoover's video and sort of gave me a quick TLDDR and uh and and uh you know they wrote accidentally turning off your one good engine that would be the worst feeling ever uh I wrote cascade of SH9T is what it was many oopsies which is very common i personally still think it's likely that the fedc was for some reason through some catastrophic electrical failure leading to ram air turbine deployment and some form of other either surge in the electrical system or something these fedex for some reason responded to a failsafe thrust zero setting which is very bizarre it should not happen leading to not an engine failure but rather an engine thrust setting of zero but I did write and I feel bad for saying it this aggressively uh but I responded to my coworker who wrote "Accidentally turning off your one good engine seems like the worst thing ever." I wrote "That seems dumb to me there's zero rush in a jet to turn one off in prop there's a rush but also better be damn sure." And unless those engines were literally melting the side of the aircraft which in video we could see was not occurring I don't understand why there is even speculation that the pilots have shut down the wrong engine it just doesn't make sense to me then again in fairness we're all anxiously waiting for data on what actually happened here now forgive me half-dressed here getting ready to go to a wedding i just wanted to share this perspective as a jet pilot hopefully this is useful for you and gives a little bit of perspective uh from my point of view and I'm not saying that I'm right i'm not saying that Hoover is wrong i'm just saying here are areas where I disagree with Hoover mind you I love the guy would love to meet him one day i think he's a great person great human i think what he does is one of the most not noble things you could possibly do on aviation YouTube because you are saving lives with the work that you and others in the space are doing mentor pilot with what he just pulled off with the FAA flipping on finally their cockpit smoke rules for the 737 these are the work of God so thank you for doing what you all do