AI 171 crash—Why is US media targeting Indian pilots

Why is the US media targeting Indian pilots ? Since 2018, US airline major Boeing has been under public scrutiny following safety gaps exposés by whistle blowers, regulatory probes and two 737 Max crashes. Accusations against it also include “pressures to meet production goals at the cost of engineering safeguards” and attempts to “cover-up”.   According to the Wall Street Journal the cockpit recording of the last conversation between the two pilots indicated that the Captain cut off the fuel to the plane’s engine. It says that the first officer flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner asked the more-experienced Captain why he moved the switches to the “cutoff” position shortly after the flight took off from the runway. The First Officer (late Clive Kunder) then expressed panic, while the Captain remained calm, as per the report However, according to the report posted on AAIB website, “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.” Notably, AAIB’s preliminary report does not mention any names While Wall Street Journal maintained that the AAIB report did not say “whether turning off the switches might have been accidental or deliberate,” New York-based Intelligencer went a step further in the article ‘The Debate Over the Air India Crash: Was It Suicide?’ by Jeff Wise, a science journalist and private pilot. The theory is based on a 2015 Germanwings Flight 9525 disaster, in which 150 people were killed. According to reports, the co-pilot may have intentionally crashed the plane in a suicide attempt, highlighting the importance of better understanding the mental health of commercial airline pilots. The first officer, who had previously been treated for suicidal tendencies and declared unfit to work by his doctor, kept this information from his employer and instead reported for duty. Shortly after reaching cruise altitude and while the captain was out of the cockpit, the first officer locked the cockpit door and set the plane to fly downward in a controlled descent into a mountain.