A black-box recording of dialogue between the Air India flight's two pilots indicates it was the captain who turned off switches that controlled fuel flowing to the plane's two engines, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with US officials' early assessment of evidence uncovered in the crash investigation.

Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and first officer Clive Kunder were flying the aircraft.

“The first officer who was flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner asked the more-experienced captain why he moved the switches to the “cutoff” position after it climbed off the runway, these people said,” the Journal reported. “The first officer expressed surprise and then panicked, these people said, while the captain seemed to remain calm.”

Air India did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment outside regular business hours. The WSJ said: “When asked to comment on the Journal’s reporting about the pilots, a press officer for India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation and AAIB called it one-sided and declined to comment further.”

The WSJ report said Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the US National Transportation Safety Board, has sought to listen to the recording.

India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB), in its preliminary report released on Saturday, said the switches controlling the fuel supply to the aircraft’s two engines had “transitioned” from “run” to “cutoff” moments after its takeoff. A few seconds later, both switches were moved back from the “cutoff” to “run” mode. Both engines relighted, but the aircraft was flying too low to recover.

Aviation experts who have reviewed the AAIB report say its language appears carefully chosen. The report states the switches “transitioned” from run to cutoff, a phrasing that, while technically correct, implies human action without stating it outright.

Multiple pilots have said the switches cannot move on their own. They point out that the one-second lag between the two switches being flipped is consistent with manual operation.

A key point of concern is a brief exchange cited by the report: one pilot is said to have asked the other why he had cut off the fuel, to which the second pilot replied that he had not. Shortly after that exchange, the air traffic controllers heard the Mayday call, seconds before the crash.