Skeptic here. I'm not gonna dig too deep here, but I'm finding holes
everywhere, and some of what follows is opinion, common sense & a failing
memory.
- I ALWAYS take a non-government report with a huge grain of salt. It's
not true until I can determine for myself that it IS true. Scrub the damn
thing, "Guilty until proven innocent."
- I was suspicious from Day 1 when I got the impression that all the
reports from India seemed to point away from even considering human
involvement. That leaves LOTS of room for "best guessing".
- A technical detail: normally a short circuit doesn't fix itself,
especially within seconds and without leaving some sort of evidence. And
(AND) a short circuit in such a critical area like ALL thrust loss would
have an effect in some other system, and it's reasonable that some
evidence, a glitch of some sort, would be found in the recorded data. I'm
wondering if the folks who put this together started with an *assumption
*that there was a short circuit. I don't know if it has been established
as a fact, all we have is an Airworthiness Directive that requires a fix.
- Speaking of, AD 2016-14-04 is mentioned, then tells us of another 2024
NPRM followed by an AD in 2025 AD but they don't publish the number. That
doesn't mean the AD doesn't exist, it's just a lack of thoroughness. And
I'm feeling too lazy to hunt it down.
- They write " We believe we have identified the cause of the crash..."
but it's really not clear who "we" might be. Do they have full access to
all the data?
- A few lines down from the headline they wrote "We have formed a
community of pilots, aircraft engineers and aviation experts and this has
been a team effort." OK fine but it's still vague.
- From some quick research it looks like the switches had moved but it's
not clear to me how that happened or how it was recorded. My best guess is
that the physical switch position is recorded as opposed to some sort of
hidden electronic switching for BOTH engines. From the cockpit position I
can imagine the pilots want a switch when things happen fast and it makes
sense that the DFDR would record it. And I could be wrong so...
- How do they know THIS? I'm having trouble believing the CCR can shut
down both engines. AND it also makes sense that the engines have FADEC, not
EEC, I hit that in another bullet.
- [image: image.png]
- Very sorry, but THIS (screenshot below) makes no sense:. When all
engine systems are functioning properly, I can't think of any reason why
spooling down to idle can be a protective measure. HOWEVER I was on a
Boeing 757 flight test about 40 years ago when we had an overspeed on a
PW2037 that caused the FADEC to command idle, but that was an overspeed &
that can be very, very bad if not corrected. AND we were still in the
installation development stage, I don't remember the cause but it got fixed.
- [image: image.png]
- THIS is absolute BS: "Each Engine Electronic Control (EEC) has its
own internal power conditioning system called a FADEC." In the
engineering world, EECs and FULL AUTHORITY digital engine controls (FADEC)
are entirely different systems. It's been a while but I can't think of any
engine having both. It was necessary in the engine world to keep their
nomenclature separate. And,
- EEC is not Engine Electronic Control, it's Electronic Engine
Control. "Back in the day" before FADEC, an EEC was what we called
"supervisory". You might call it an efficiency control to save fuel. EEC
failure caused reversion to the old style, very reliable hydromechanical
control, no biggie, just burn a bit more fuel. FADEC was the next
reasonable evolutionary step. Maybe think of EEC as a trim system.
- Little bit of credit, they tossed out some nice-sounding words &
acronyms but after digging in I say it's word salad.
Bottom line, whether "we" (the "root cause" writers) are competent or not,
it really bugs me when a so-called authoritative report can be torn apart
so easily. Get it 100% correct, even when describing acronyms. Credibility
in these situations must be unassailable.
Re-reading my little diatribe I guess I got spooled up a bit (like those
engines didn't have enough time to accomplish). I've been guilty of this
myself, learned a hard lesson or three, but it REALLY irks me to see
reports like this, even though they may be well meant. The investigation
continues, there's a long history of doing it properly, so let the process
do the work.
Harumph.
Borfitz
On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 6:30 PM Karl L. Swartz via Mifnet <
[email protected]> wrote:
> One snippet:
>
> Each Engine Electronic Control (EEC) has its own internal power
> conditioning system called a FADEC ...
>
>
> Huh, I always thought FADEC stood for Full Authority Digital Engine
> Controller—an EEC plus supporting accessories. It’s not just the support
> goo for the EEC.
>
> Errors like that always make me wonder about the veracity of the remainder
> of an article, which is not to say that the hypothesis is wrong.
>
> -- Karl
>
> On Oct 29, 2025, at 12:38 PM, Kathryn Creedy via Mifnet <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> I just read this saying it was a short circuit caused by water
> infiltration.
>
> Any comment?
>
> https://42kft.com/root-cause-of-the-air-india-ai171-crash/
>
> Kathryn
>
> --
>
>
>
> Kathryn Creedy
> PHONE # 321 405 4395
> US-Eastern Time Zone
> *Visit me on LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbcreedy/> *
> <image007.gif>
>
>
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