New details in Air India crash probe shift focus to plane's captain, WSJ reports

(Reuters) -A cockpit signaling of dialog betwixt the 2 pilots of the Air India formation that crashed past period indicates the skipper turned disconnected the switches that controlled substance flowing to the plane's engines, the Wall Street Journal reported connected Wednesday.

The paper cited radical acquainted with U.S. officials' aboriginal appraisal of grounds uncovered successful the probe into the crash, which killed 260 people.

The archetypal officer, who was flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, asked the much experienced skipper wherefore helium moved the switches to the "cutoff" presumption aft it climbed disconnected the runway, the study said.

The archetypal serviceman expressed astonishment and past panicked, portion the skipper seemed to stay calm, the WSJ reported.

India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Boeing and Air India did not instantly respond to Reuters' requests for remark connected the report.

The 2 pilots progressive were Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder, who had full flying acquisition of 15,638 hours and 3,403 hours, respectively.

A preliminary study released past week by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau depicted disorder successful the cockpit soon earlier the June 12 crash, and raised caller questions implicit the presumption of the captious motor substance cutoff switches.

(Reporting by Anusha Shah successful Bengaluru; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Jamie Freed)