Security camera footage accessed and verified by the Associated Press showed Air India flight 171 bound for London taking off and crashing into a medical college in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, killing more than 180 people in one of India's worst airline disasters in decades.
It seems to climb OK for a little while then suddenly start sinking. There’s no sign of an obvious engine problem. Not sure whether we’d be able to see any sign of a bird strike from this far away.
Agree with your comment regarding the pilots but the plane has with Air India for 13 years. If there was a mechanical problem it’s likely to be maintenance at fault. And I say that as someone who goes out of their way to not fly Boeing.
not necessarily. John Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower which died after 2 days into his three day deposition, said that that the assembly line sloppiness would take about ten to twelve years to culminate in a crash.
Let’s see what the black boxes give us. We should have the first information soon. I’m not going to categorically defend Boeing (again, I am not flying on their planes myself) but right now we just have no information on what caused the likely dual engine rollback.
This has to be pilot error. Even at stall, it looks like pilot didn’t even try to level out
They were like less than 200m from the ground. There was literally no space to recover from the stall. You need some altitude to pitch the nose down and recover from a stall.
Yeah, it’s rather strange. There is another one from a perspective where the aircraft almost “overflew” the cameraman (basically at a 5’o clock angle)- it shows them having aileron and elevator control right until they crash. And while the quality is poor, I am somewhat convinced that the RAT has not deployed (yet?)
A bird strike would likely have caused something visible
So it doesn’t sound like hydraulics or fuel(water in the fueltanks?) or something electronic wise with the engine control.
Strange and sad.
It’s always hard to judge AoA unless you’re looking side-on with a horizon for reference, but excessive nose-up attitude caused by cargo incorrectly loaded or not secured properly so it shifted aft during rotation could have caused an aerodynamic stall.
Why not? Genuinely asking. I thought I remembered wake turbulence being able to cause engine stall or complete shutoff, but I only see that anecdotally, not on the FAA’s website.
I also thought I’d remembered it being able to cause stalls, but I’m mostly only reading about it causing planes to roll on the FAA’s website.
Wake turbulence requires something to cause the wake - usually another aircraft. Additionally wake turbulences autoregulate themselves - they don’t stay “in the air” but rather disperse rather fast, especially close to the ground.
VAAH is a pretty small airport that has no continual taxiway(which they once had,for some strange reason) so aircraft need to backtrack(Basically go in the wrong direction on the RW, then do a U-Turn) at the end of the runway if they go for a take-off runway of RW23.This leads to a long time for any wake turbulence to disperse.
Additionally the 787 is a mighty big aircraft and mostly wake turbulences affect aircraft that are smaller than the ones which caused it. (This is of course not fully accurate,but it gets complicated then) And the 787 is absolutely powerful enough to power through basically any wake turbulence.
Last but not least there was not a starting aircraft directly before the flight but a (very small) landing one - so even more time for any wake to disperse.
So in the end I would be pretty damn sure it wasn’t that.
What’s way weirder is that he’s got zero flaps and gear is still down, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do when climbing out. Maybe pilot error (control inversion)?
Slats are 100% deployed, you can see that in the videos, indicating the plane was in Takeoff Config. Now, the flaps themselves are hard to make out in the grainy videos and they don’t extend much on takeoff. Edit: https://imgur.com/a/JzS3ro9
Much more important is the lack of engine noise. We can also see the rat turbine was automatically deployed, indicating a complete loss of power only seconds after they rotated. Which is also why the landing gear did not retract.
I don’t know what could’ve caused a dual engine failure, simultaneously, immediately after takeoff but that seems to be where everything is pointing to. Possibly problems with the fuel?
Looks like it stalled due to lack of thrust. What could have killed both engines right after takeoff?
It seems to climb OK for a little while then suddenly start sinking. There’s no sign of an obvious engine problem. Not sure whether we’d be able to see any sign of a bird strike from this far away.
bird strike taking out both engines? nah.
This has to be pilot error. Even at stall, it looks like pilot didn’t even try to level out.
It is a Boeing plane. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions on the pilots being at fault.
Fair Point
Agree with your comment regarding the pilots but the plane has with Air India for 13 years. If there was a mechanical problem it’s likely to be maintenance at fault. And I say that as someone who goes out of their way to not fly Boeing.
not necessarily. John Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower which died after 2 days into his three day deposition, said that that the assembly line sloppiness would take about ten to twelve years to culminate in a crash.
https://prospect.org/economy/2025-06-12-dreamliner-gave-boeing-manager-nightmares-just-crashed-air-india/
Let’s see what the black boxes give us. We should have the first information soon. I’m not going to categorically defend Boeing (again, I am not flying on their planes myself) but right now we just have no information on what caused the likely dual engine rollback.
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Why not? That’s the reason Sully had to land on the Hudson.
They were like less than 200m from the ground. There was literally no space to recover from the stall. You need some altitude to pitch the nose down and recover from a stall.
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Yeah, it’s rather strange. There is another one from a perspective where the aircraft almost “overflew” the cameraman (basically at a 5’o clock angle)- it shows them having aileron and elevator control right until they crash. And while the quality is poor, I am somewhat convinced that the RAT has not deployed (yet?)
A bird strike would likely have caused something visible So it doesn’t sound like hydraulics or fuel(water in the fueltanks?) or something electronic wise with the engine control. Strange and sad.
is it going fast enough for the RAT to deploy?
“Did I fill the water in the right hole on that plane?” – Guy at the airport driving the freshwater tanker.
I was just thinking about this, perhaps when the aircraft rotated, water or other contaminants got drawn into the fuel system?
Or shifting cargo damaged the fuel lines?
It’s always hard to judge AoA unless you’re looking side-on with a horizon for reference, but excessive nose-up attitude caused by cargo incorrectly loaded or not secured properly so it shifted aft during rotation could have caused an aerodynamic stall.
It’s a passenger plane. I don’t think 200 people slid to the back of the plane after rotation.
While I am a bit of a misanthrope, I do stop short of referring to people as cargo.
Maybe the high-lift devices malfunctioned?
Wake turbulence?
Definitely not.
Why not? Genuinely asking. I thought I remembered wake turbulence being able to cause engine stall or complete shutoff, but I only see that anecdotally, not on the FAA’s website.
I also thought I’d remembered it being able to cause stalls, but I’m mostly only reading about it causing planes to roll on the FAA’s website.
Wake turbulence requires something to cause the wake - usually another aircraft. Additionally wake turbulences autoregulate themselves - they don’t stay “in the air” but rather disperse rather fast, especially close to the ground. VAAH is a pretty small airport that has no continual taxiway(which they once had,for some strange reason) so aircraft need to backtrack(Basically go in the wrong direction on the RW, then do a U-Turn) at the end of the runway if they go for a take-off runway of RW23.This leads to a long time for any wake turbulence to disperse.
Additionally the 787 is a mighty big aircraft and mostly wake turbulences affect aircraft that are smaller than the ones which caused it. (This is of course not fully accurate,but it gets complicated then) And the 787 is absolutely powerful enough to power through basically any wake turbulence.
Last but not least there was not a starting aircraft directly before the flight but a (very small) landing one - so even more time for any wake to disperse.
So in the end I would be pretty damn sure it wasn’t that.
Maybe, maybe not.
What’s way weirder is that he’s got zero flaps and gear is still down, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do when climbing out. Maybe pilot error (control inversion)?
Slats are 100% deployed, you can see that in the videos, indicating the plane was in Takeoff Config. Now, the flaps themselves are hard to make out in the grainy videos and they don’t extend much on takeoff. Edit: https://imgur.com/a/JzS3ro9
Much more important is the lack of engine noise. We can also see the rat turbine was automatically deployed, indicating a complete loss of power only seconds after they rotated. Which is also why the landing gear did not retract.
I don’t know what could’ve caused a dual engine failure, simultaneously, immediately after takeoff but that seems to be where everything is pointing to. Possibly problems with the fuel?