The revelation that cockpit voice recordings captured one Air India pilot questioning the other about cutting fuel mid-climb has intensified scrutiny on a troubling possibility: that a seasoned captain may have deliberately doomed his jet—and nearly 250 lives—raising urgent questions about how the aviation industry addresses pilots’ mental health.

In early June, a Boeing 787 operated by India’s flag carrier crashed just outside Ahmedabad airport, killing all but one of the 242 people on board. It was the deadliest commercial aviation disaster in nearly a decade. As the investigation continues, a growing body of evidence suggests the possibility that the crash was intentional, fueled debate over how pilots are screened, supported and monitored for mental health concerns.

New details reported by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday revealed that the aircraft’s fuel controls were shut off seconds after takeoff. According to India’s directorate general of civil aviation, the two switches were flipped roughly one second apart. The Journal also cited cockpit voice recordings in which one pilot frantically asked the more senior pilot why the engines had been cut—a moment that has become central to speculation about deliberate action.

Aviation consultant and former Boeing pilot Mohan Ranganathan told NDTV that the likelihood of an accidental fuel cutoff is “absolutely” improbable.

“It has to be done manually, it cannot be done automatically or due to a power failure because the fuel selectors, they’re not the sliding type…. You have to pull them out and move them up or down. So, the question of inadvertently moving them off position doesn’t happen.”

Investigators have not yet determined whether the act was intentional or accidental, and India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has urged against drawing premature conclusions.

Pilots Under Pressure

Such instances of pilot murder-suicide, though rare, have happened before. In 2015, Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locked his captain out of the cockpit and maneuvered an Airbus A320 straight into the French Alps, killing all 150 on board.

U.S. investigators concluded that EgyptAir Flight 990 in 1999 and SilkAir Flight 185 in 1997 were also caused by deliberate pilot actions, though both Egypt and Indonesia disputed those findings. Those two crashes killed a combined 321 people.

More recently, China Eastern Flight 5735 in 2022 plummeted from cruising altitude in what leaked data suggests was another intentional crash that killed 132 people.

And while there is still no official determination over what caused the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 over the Indian Ocean in 2014—one of the great mysteries of modern aviation — one of the leading credible theories is mass murder-suicide on behalf of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

If all of those incidents covering the last 30 years were confirmed to be cases of pilot murder-suicide, their combined death toll would amount to 1,084, or about 3.5 percent of total worldwide fatalities from commercial aviation accidents over the same period, according to a Newsweek analysis of data from the Swiss Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archive.

“These incidents are rare, but they have catastrophic consequences, and they remind us why mental health needs to be treated as a critical component of aviation safety,” Dr. Robert Bor, a clinical psychologist at the Centre for Aviation Psychology, told Newsweek.

While deliberate crashes make up only a small fraction of aviation disasters, their impact is outsized. It devastates families, shakes public confidence, and exposes blind spots in how the industry monitors pilot mental health.

Dr. Bor said the demands on pilots can be harmful if left unaddressed.

“Pilots are expected to maintain a high level of vigilance and composure under pressure,” he said. “But their challenges are not just technical — they’re personal, financial, and relational. These pressures accumulate, and if left unchecked, can become dangerous.”

Bor added that stigma in the pilot community continues to discourage even seasoned aviators from seeking help. “We now understand something called ‘healthcare avoidance,'” he explained. “It happens in professions where acknowledging a mental health issue can jeopardize your livelihood. And it’s very real in aviation.”

In India, where the Air India crash occurred, mental health challenges are often viewed as a personal weakness rather than a treatable condition. A 2023 study conducted in northern India found that the treatment gap for mental illness is as high as 95 percent, as many individuals remain hesitant to seek psychiatric care due to fear, shame or discrimination.

Former pilot and aviation expert Dan Bubb added that silence around mental health is often motivated by fear of the career risks involved. “If you tell your airline or the FAA that you’re struggling, you could lose your license or be grounded,” Bubb told Newsweek.

Cultural and Regulatory Changes

Several aviation authorities in the United States, Europe and Australia are expanding peer support programs to create accessible pathways to care. But experts say meaningful change will require not just regulatory leadership, but also a shift in the culture of the aviation industry.

Proposed solutions to help prevent the risk of pilot interference and murder-suicide include tighter surveillance of pilots in the cockpit. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has pushed for cockpit cameras since 2000. However, the debate over video recording in the cockpit has been ongoing, with many pilots arguing for their privacy.

The risk of pilot suicide has become a leading factor in the push for cameras as a precautionary measure. On the speculation surrounding the recent Air India tragedy, International Air Transport Association chief Willie Walsh said: “Based on what little we know now, it’s quite possible that video recording in addition to the voice recording would significantly assist the investigators in conducting that investigation.”