INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A cockpit recording of dialogue between the two pilots of the Air India flight that crashed last month supports the view that the captain
switches into a position that starved the engines of fuel and requested that he restore the fuel flow, the source told Reuters on condition
of anonymity because the matter remains under investigation.The U.S
assessment is not contained in a formal document, said the source, who emphasized the cause of the June 12 crash in Ahmedabad, India, that
killed 260 people remains under investigation.There was no cockpit video recording definitively showing which pilot flipped the switches,
but the weight of evidence from the conversation points to the captain, according to the early assessment.The Wall Street Journal first
was ongoing and it remained too early to draw definitive conclusions.Most air crashes are caused by multiple factors, and under
international rules, a final report is expected within a year of an accident.A preliminary report released by the AAIB on Saturday said one
the ground, closed-circuit TV footage showed a backup energy source called a ram air turbine had deployed, indicating a loss of power from
the engines.The London-bound plane began to lose thrust, and after reaching a height of 650 feet, the jet started to sink.The fuel switches
too low and too slow to be able to recover, aviation safety expert John Nance told Reuters.The plane clipped some trees and a chimney before
crashing in a fireball into a building on a nearby medical college campus, the report said, killing 19 people on the ground and 241 of the
242 on board the 787.NO SAFETY RECOMMENDATIONSIn an internal memo on Monday, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the preliminary report found
recommendations for Boeing or engine manufacturer GE.After the report was released, the U.S
Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing privately issued notifications that the fuel switch locks on Boeing planes are safe, a document
seen by Reuters showed and four sources with knowledge of the matter said.The U.S
National Transportation Safety Board has been assisting with the Air India investigation and its Chair Jennifer Homendy has been fully
briefed on all aspects, a board spokesperson said
That includes the cockpit voice recording and details from the flight data recorder that the NTSB team assisted the AAIB in reading out, the
contributing factors which would take time, he said.The Air India crash has rekindled debate over adding flight deck cameras, known as
cockpit image recorders, on airliners.Nance said investigators likely would have benefited greatly from having video footage of the cockpit
