"The plane is in your hands"; Footage from the black boxes revealed new details about the plane crash in India

"The plane is in your hands," Captain Sumit Sabharwal allegedly told First Officer Clive Kunder, two Western sources familiar with the content of the footage told Corriere della Sera.

Sources said it is not unusual for a plane's captain to hand over control to the first officer during takeoff. However, pilots familiar with the preliminary accident report estimated that Mr. Kunder "had his hands full" flying the plane at the time.

The plane took off from the ground at 13:38:39 and remained in the air for about 30 seconds before losing power and crashing into a residential area, killing 19 people on the ground and all but one person on board.

Before the crash, Mr. Kunder asked the captain why he had moved the fuel switches to a position that cut off fuel to the engines, a source familiar with an early assessment of the evidence by U.S. officials told Reuters.

The full transcript has not been released and the case is still under investigation. India's Air Accidents Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is investigating the crash, but others have also reviewed the content of the flight footage.

Corriere della Sera sources said Mr. Kunder was heard asking the senior pilot: "Why did you shut down the engines?" Another microphone recorded a "vague" denial: "I didn't do it." The paper reports that Mr. Kunder was "not convinced" and asked the same question "several more times" for an additional six seconds.

A source told Reuters that the recording of the dialogue from the cockpit supports the view that the captain cut off the fuel supply to the plane's engine.

A preliminary report released Saturday by India's AAIB confirmed that the fuel switches were switched from "on" to "off" immediately after takeoff - but did not say how they were moved, nor did it speculate whether it was on purpose or by accident. The report found no mechanical or maintenance failures during the flight.