Dreamliner went down due to hardware failure, with, say, 85% probability. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=793&v=8XYO-mj1ugg .

@pavel my money is on a brain fart

there's recent prior art: the nepali turboprop crashed because the pilot accidentally feathered the blades and before that a 737 that went in the drink in hawaii because the pilot shut the wrong engine after the other one failed. had that happened over a land, it would've looked the same. simple mistakes at unfortunate times with no time to recover.

by now the investigators probably know something, inspected at least the air india's fleet and procedures, and didn't ground 787s or anything.

@lkundrak So... how much money? :-).

Mistakes happen, but deploying RAT by mistake ... I'd call that uncommon. AVherald says it was not the pilots.

And in recent history, there are examples of dual-engine problems. One was IIRC 787 over London -- fuel contamination. Other was some airbus -- fuel contamination, too.

Birds can do that, too, but then you find feathers...

@pavel leaving $10 on the table

rat deployed automatically because power was lost. i was implying pilot accidentally shut the wrong engine. it is unusual, but not unheard off. note in the pokhara crash PM feathered the propeller instead of deploying flaps.

avherald quotes the investigators: "the crew did not give up until the very last moment. The probability of a technical cause is high". they're speculating from what they heard on the CVR and are uncertain.

the 737 pilots in hawaii also didn't give up, or realize their mistake in the interviews with investigators. such are the brain farts. it took a FDR readout to figure it out.

@lkundrak I agree that shutting down wrong engine after engine failure can't be ruled out at this point. (But pilots should not be shutting _any_ engines until later in the flight.)

It is possible that pilots could do something to avoid crash / make it less severe -- for example by crashing into different building. 737max MCAS-related crashes were avoidable, too: first crew simply turned off electric trim quickly and continued. Still, we attribute crashes to MCAS.

I'm saying this is not the case of fully functional aircraft crashing. There was some kind of malfunction near end of runway.

@pavel well, while the crash very well might not have been due to a human error,

the investigation at this point is a human error...

"A preliminary report is to be expected in three months."

@lkundrak Not sure, it got more confusing. Latest youtube news say they are starting to investigate sabotage, too.

Lets see. I still believe aircraft was not fully functional before it hit the ground.

@pavel yes the clown minister blabbering about sabotage is the reason to have doubts about competency, if doubting transparency wasn't enough

@pavel life lession:

probably a brain fart

hail the ape brains

*pulls the fuel lever*

*shrieks*

@lkundrak The 737 Handbook
dstoSenorp1t1tfhlm5u8u930u4l2at4uuu2m7943h32ahg2u01cg3tcti55 ·
Preliminary report for Air India is out. Here are main excerpts:
- 08:08:42: Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec
- In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff.
The other pilot responded that he did not do so.
- 08:08:52: Engine 1 fuel cutoff switch transitioned from CUTOFF to RUN
- 08:08:56: the Engine 2 fuel cutoff switch also
transitions from CUTOFF to RUN
The EGT was observed to be rising for both engines indicating relight. Engine 1’s core
deceleration stopped, reversed and started to progress to recovery. Engine 2 was able to
relight but could not arrest core speed deceleration and re-introduced fuel repeatedly to
increase core speed acceleration and recovery.
- The EAFR recording stopped at 08:09:11
UTC

There's good video, too -- yt.

Air\ India\ Preliminary\ Report\ 11\ July\ \[wA_UZeHZwSw\]

And right, that does not look like mechanical failure any more.

@pavel > - 08:08:42: Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF

*your controls*

@lkundrak Well, it is consistent with "I have good life insurance and don't want to live any more" and "gear up means two engines down, riiight?" options.

This is one of the more confusing and unusual cases...