The Air India Flight Accident Report; in search of questions

Since the report of Air India Ahmedabad plane accident is out there are many who are discussing a lot of possible scenarios. Since the investigators have given their answers, it’s time for us to ask the right questions.

We are living at a time where sometimes questions become more prominent than answers. If you can ask the right question it means you understood half of its answers. This is true with chatGPT, if you correctly explain the question you get perfection of the answers. Even if you change a word or a sentence the answer will be different.

For the flight accident the report is out and everyone is discussing the veracity of the elaboration. They have their intentions, we have our own, however we should keep the emotions of family members who lost loved ones in perspective when we ask questions and give out answers.

We live in an era where machines take most of the decisions depending on the scenario it is designed for. There are a variety of parameters where machines function in perfection depending on the design integration, operating environment, function logic, inputs, outputs, boundary condition etc.

Machines are designed to work with many scenarios, depending on the inputs the machine reacts to the designed function logic for the output. To make this happen there are several factors that should be within a certain boundary condition and operating environment.

Here the machine in question is the engine, input is the fuel, and the fuel is used to generate power by combustion which is the output. The boundary condition defines the minimum and maximum amount of fuel injected controlled by fuel pumps and temperature will be the operating condition. The design integration is between the fuel pump and the engine.

Quality of fuel matters a lot, these engines use high grade kerosene to operate at range of temperatures.if the fuel is fine and engine is maintained properly and the fuel pump maintains its boundary condition, the hardware should work fine. Now comes to the logic where the software controls the hardware. This part is the embedded layer that uses sensors to get inputs and makes the decision depending on the many design scenarios. This decision depends on the inputs from the sensors.

So, quality of fuel, operating temperature, health of fuel pump, software glitch, design scenarios, quality of the sensors are the many questions we would like to ask.

During the manufacturing of the plane most of the scenarios will be tried and tested with all of the above parameters with numerous scenarios. And the aviation industry puts forth the strictest quality testing procedures. However what happens if they miss a scenario or even the design has not been considered a rare scenario?

Are there logics in place where the fuel switch can be switched-off by the flight system itself?. Say, if the outside temperature is beyond the operating temperature of the engine there is no point in pumping more fuel or the sensors may have reported a temperature out of fault beyond its operating range and software logic kicked in to switch off the fuel? Or it may be a software glitch that is one in a million.

These are some of the questions in the social media — the fuel switch was made on after the captain saw it was switched off. But the engine failed to start, can this be a design or maintenance fault?. The ability of the pilot to switch off/on the fuel is allowed when it is required. Now, after this disaster should the design be not to allow in certain circumstances?, like here, during take off there is no point in switching off which can only end in a disaster.

I know it’s easier to ask a question, but at least we have the right to know what are the circumstances where the fuel switches can be automatically switched-off.

I beg both Boeing and Air India to take equal responsibility. Let the public hear from both the parties about the new changes they would be doing even if it has not directly contributed to this disaster. This can only build trust with us.

Trust cannot be manufactured, it’s a service that needs constant maintenance. Our questions are not to question you, but to build trust.