TO the terrified locals who ducked when Air India Flight 171 narrowly missed their apartment block, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and his first officer are heroes.

They are convinced the two pilots saved hundreds of lives by diverting the jet at the last moment after it suffered a catastrophic lack of thrust seconds after take-off.

Yet those grateful families, along with the rest of the world, are now contemplating the awful possibility that either Captain Sabharwal or Co-pilot Clive Kunder may actually be the villain of the story.

This is because the preliminary report into the disaster, which claimed 260 lives, has revealed the plane crashed due to the engines being starved of fuel.

That could be down to a mechanical issue or a deliberate act by one of the pilots — and aviation experts have told The Sun that the focus is very much on the latter.

Crash investigators are now said to be probing the medical records of Captain Sabharwal amid claims he suffered from mental health problems.

The 15-page document released by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau states that the switches controlling fuel supply to the two engines were turned off three seconds after take-off as the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner reached 210mph.

As the engines cut out, one of the two pilots is heard in the black box flight recording frantically asking the other: “Why did you cut off?”, to which the second insists, “I did not do so”.

Moments after the exchange, the switches were turned back on.

One engine did restart but not in time to avert tragedy.

The jet roared over a three-storey apartment block where 18 families live right next to Ahmedabad airport, missing the top floor by a few feet.

‘Murky situation’

It then clipped trees and a building inside a compound belonging to the Army Medical Corps before slamming into a medical college, with nearly 60 tons of aviation fuel exploding in a ferocious fireball.

Nineteen people died on the ground and all but one of the 242 people on board were killed.

Miracle survivor Vishwash Ramesh, 40, was able to crawl through the mangled fuselage and walk to safety, but his brother Ajay, 35, died in the crash.

The preliminary report does not rule out the possibility that the fuel supply was cut off due to a mechanical issue.

But industry experts yesterday said the spotlight was firmly on the pilots — first officer Kunder, 32, who was at the controls, and captain Sabharwal, 56, who was “pilot monitoring”.

Terry Tozer, former pilot and author of Confessions Of An Airline Pilot — Why Planes Crash, said: “The report is absolutely shocking.

“The implication is that somebody on the flight deck turned the fuel switches to cut-off and then somebody rescued that situation and put them back to ‘run’.

“The engines began to reignite but they didn’t have a chance to recover.

The report is absolutely shocking. The implication is that somebody on the flight deck turned the fuel switches to cut-off and then somebody rescued that situation and put them back to ‘run’

Terry Tozer

“First one switch and then the other was set to cut-off, and that’s how it would be done if you were doing it deliberately.

“If we assume the switches were functioning as intended, you could not knock them off accidentally.

“One pilot said to the other, ‘Why did you turn the fuel off?’ and the other one said, ‘I didn’t’.

“So obviously one of them thought the other one deliberately turned them off.

“It’s a murky situation.”

Air safety expert Julian Bray believes that pilot suicide is a possibility, just like in the German-wings disaster of 2015 when 150 people died after the first officer deliberately flew into a mountain.

Julian said: “It’s impossible for a pilot to turn the switches from run to cut-off by accident.

“It has to be a deliberate act.

“It could be pilot suicide, which we had with Germanwings.

“We don’t know yet from the exchange on the flight deck because one says, ‘Why did you turn it off?’ and the other comes back, ‘I didn’t’. Was he suddenly feeling guilty?”

Julian also raised the possibility of a software glitch or even a third person being present in the cockpit.

He said: “Could it have been someone in the jump seat?

“The Dreamliner has two jump seats, which are behind the pilot and co-pilot seats.

“It’s not uncommon for people to be in the jump seat.

“Quite often pilots or cabin crew will hitch a lift if there are no passenger seats available.

“Someone in one of the jump seats could have been feeling suicidal and leaned over and turned the switches.

“It’s highly unlikely, but it is conceivable and can’t be ruled out.

“Also, what we don’t know is whether there is a software override in the Dreamliner that can actually do that automatically.

“If it’s a dire emergency then all sorts of other systems come into play that might have been part of another procedure.

“The investigators will be looking at all the systems and will try to work out whether it was fired remotely by the software, because these glitches have happened before.”

Aviation lawyer Demetrius Danas, from legal firm Irwin Mitchell, is representing a number of the British victims’ families.

He said: “The initial findings are deeply concerning.

“Three seconds after take-off, the fuel was cut off to one engine and then almost immediately the other one.

“It is a really chilling conversation between the two pilots.

The initial findings are deeply concerning. Three seconds after take-off, the fuel was cut off to one engine and then almost immediately the other one. It is a really chilling conversation between the two pilotsegan to reignite but they didn’t have a chance to recover

Demetrius Danas

“Hopefully we will learn what was said before this exchange but it does seem clear these two buttons were switched off and then tried to be put back on again, but it was too late.

“If it is pilot error, was it inadvertent, absent-minded or was it deliberate?

“It is baffling.

“If it’s intentional, is it muscle memory doing something you have done many times before but on this occasion at the wrong time?

“The switches are used on every flight, but when it ends.

“This time it was done when it started.

“The families are desperate to know why the engines were starved of fuel and how that happened.”

Lawyer, aviation expert and qualified helicopter pilot James Healy-Pratt, of Keystone Law, is representing another 20 of the British families.

He added a note of caution to the speculation that the fuel switches were turned off by a deliberate act.

James said: “It is possible they were deliberately touched, but that’s as hard as I can go at the moment.

“I think it is too early to come to conclusions such as suicide or mass homicide, because put yourself in the shoes of one of the families.

“It’s one thing to lose loved ones from an accident.

“It’s very different to lose loved ones who suddenly become victims of an intentional crime.

“Everything does now centre around two things — those fuel control levers and what happened in the cockpit over about 20 seconds.

“We will be filing a lawsuit against Boeing in the States to get more information about those switches.

“It’s the only way we have of trying to get some evidence, and our families want answers.”

One of the families waiting to learn more are the relatives of Ashok Patel, 74, and his wife Shobhana, 71, from Orpington, Kent.

They had been married for 47 years and were flying home after visiting India on a religious pilgrimage.

Furious row

Ashok was a financial adviser and Shobhana a microbiologist who had worked for the NHS for 37 years.

Son Miten, 40, who now wears the emerald ring his dad had on when he died and which was recovered from the crash site, said: “They had gone through so many challenges in life.

“They had this strength that you don’t give up. That is what is keeping us going now. They were inseparable and were loved by so many people.

“It’s incredible the number of text messages I have had since they died.

“Dad had the ability to walk into a room and talk to anyone. He was always interested in other people.

“And Mum was the rock of our extended family. She was there every day for any relative, in good times or bad. If someone was coming round for lunch she would make a full-blown Hindu meal.

“I would say, ‘Mum, what are you doing? You’re spending the entire evening making this huge meal and they are just calling round’.

“She would say, ‘They’re coming to our house and we always welcome our guests properly’.

It’s impossible for a pilot to turn the switches from run to cut-off by accident. It has to be a deliberate act. It could be pilot suicide, which we had with Germanwings

Julian Bray

“Since the plane went down, there have been so many theories but until we see the final report that this is the cause or that is the cause, only then should we go down that route.

“It is going to take time, which causes more heartache and frustration because people want answers.

“For all of the families this is a tragedy and we are entitled to know what happened and there has to be accountability.

“But we have to wait for the final report and hope it will conclude on evidence-based information which will prevent this from ever happening again.”

The preliminary report reveals that Flight 171’s throttle control module, which includes the fuel switches, was replaced in 2023.

But that was not due to any problem with the switches, and there has been no report of any defect with the switches since then, it states.

That further turns the focus on to the pilots, which has triggered a furious row in India.

The Airline Pilots’ Association of India blasted the report because it “appears biased toward pilot error”.

The pilots union added: “This investigation seems to presume pilot fault, and we strongly object to that narrative.

“We strongly reject any premature conclusions and urge a fact-based, unbiased inquiry.”

Meanwhile, the only survivor from the flight continues to struggle to deal with the aftermath a month on from crawling out of the wreckage.

Vishwash Ramesh’s cousin Sunny Kumar said Vishwash is struggling with insomnia and panic attacks, adding: “He hasn’t recovered from the trauma of the crash or the loss of his brother.”