Fuel to the engines of the Air India plane that crashed last month appears to have cut off shortly after takeoff, a preliminary report has found.

According to the report, the “Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of one second.

“The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut
off.”

There is then confusion in the cockpit. In the voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why he “cut off”. The other pilot responds that he did not do so.

One of the engines was able to be restarted, but could not reverse the plane’s deceleration, the report found.

The plane plummeted into a busy area, killing 241 passengers and 19 others on the ground while incinerating everything around it.

The report has been filed by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) and is based on the initial findings of the probe, marking 30 days since the crash.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

Please refresh the page for the latest version.

You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.