Pilot saw switch moved but waited 10 seconds? Expert tears into theory of ‘deliberate’ Air India crash

Aviation expert Captain Ehsan Khalid has cast serious doubt on theories suggesting deliberate sabotage by the cockpit crew in the June 12 Air India Dreamliner crash, citing data that he says points to a likely electrical malfunction. 

He argues that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) timeline and switch behavior contradict the claim that a pilot intentionally shut down the engines.

The Air India Boeing 787-8, flying from Ahmedabad to London, crashed just 32 seconds after takeoff, killing 260. Preliminary findings from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) revealed that the fuel switches for both engines moved from “run” to “cutoff” within one second at 08:08:42 UTC, prompting speculation from some Western outlets that one of the pilots may have intentionally killed the engines.

But in a detailed interview with journalist Barkha Dutt, Capt. Khalid dismantled that theory. “Let’s look at the CVR,” he said. “The paraphrased line is: ‘Why did you cut off the engine?’ That indicates one pilot saw the action. So if the switch-off was visible at 42 seconds, why did the person who saw it wait 10 seconds to reverse it?”

He pointed to the next critical timestamps: engine 1 was restarted at 08:08:52 and engine 2 at 08:08:56—a full 14 seconds after the initial cutoff. “You’re in a dying aircraft. Every second matters. Why wait 10 seconds to act, then take four more to complete the relight?” Khalid asked.

According to him, the four-second span to bring the switches back proves the switches were not already in “cutoff.” “If the switches were already off, you would just move them back to ‘run’ in two seconds. But taking four seconds suggests you had to cycle each one—run to cutoff to run,” he explained.

This timeline, Khalid argues, directly undermines claims of deliberate sabotage. “No pilot trying to save a crashing plane delays action by 10 seconds and then takes four seconds to do something that should take two,” he said.

Instead, he proposed a different scenario: an electrical malfunction. “If the electrical system had already transitioned to zero—interpreting the switches as ‘off’—then the recorder wouldn’t register any pilot input. Only when the switches were manually moved back to ‘run’ would the system recognize new commands,” he explained.

Khalid added that this anomaly could also affect other systems, like the engine’s electronic control channels. “When they moved the switch back to ‘run,’ it may have triggered an internal system change—too late to save the flight.”

In his view, the CVR quote—“I didn’t do it”—supports this. “They were responding to failure, not causing it,” Khalid concluded. “The timeline doesn’t support intent. It shows reaction under pressure, delayed by confusion or system behavior—not by design.”