Air India Crash
- Thread starter unassuming
- Start date
I copied that page from a Boeing manual but did the calculations and marked up the Table with coloured lines to help those so inclined understand the subject better.
Basically *I* am inclined to think there was incorrect data entered into the FMS which resulted in an inadvertently incorrect take-off configuration...Mayyybe followed by mistakenly raising flaps instead of the landing gear.
I'm a fan of Cpt Steve, but I am puzzled at his assessment on this one.
Both the FO and the CPT had plenty of hours on this type of aircraft. Even if they did NOT... just on training alone, a certified pilot would know that the landing gear handle and the flaps handle are in 2 completely different sections of the cockpit. I cannot see how muscle memory would make either pilot select the wrong lever in this situation. The flaps handle is next to the thrust levers (to the right or left of a pilot) and the landing gear handle is closer to the yoke (either pilot would have to reach across the body to retract). The levers are designed differently as well. The flaps lever has notches for each setting (a notch for 0 degrees, 5, degrees, 10 degrees, ect) where you have to slide out and then pull down or up. The landing gear lever is a straight up or down motion. The landing gear lever also has a rounded shape holder (it looks and feels like a wheel). They are also designed in such a way that the motion of moving the lever is the same as the motion of the item you are trying to move. You move the flaps lever from front to back (just like how the flaps move front to back) and you move the landing gear level up and down (just like how the landing gear drops down and retracts upwards).
There are certain situations where the pilot in command would NOT raise the landing gear up immediately after takeoff. If they deem their is a reason for a go around or an emergency landing, the landing gear would stay in the locked position. If the PIC didn't believe the aircraft achieved "positive rate/climb" then he would not call out "gear up."
The Cpt also called out a mayday call of " Mayday... no thrust, losing power, unable to lift"
The survivor also stated he heard a loud BANG after takeoff.
I understand that we have to take both the Cpt's mayday call and the survivors statement with a grain of salt. The Cpt may have been mistaken with "no thrust" and the survivor may have heard something that sounded like a loud bang, but it could have been anything (luggage shifting, ect).
I also don't understand how ANYONE can tell the flaps setting by the videos on the internet. The NTSB will use sophisticated computers to analyze the video, and they will truly be able to tell what flap settings were set (or retracted in flight).
I'm not saying Cpt Steve is wrong, nor am I saying I am correct. NOBODY knows. I was just surprised that was his assessment based on his experience as a pilot. Unless it was intentional, the chances of ANY trained commercial pilot with plenty of hours of flight time moving the WRONG lever during a routine take off just doesn't seem plausible to me.
With that being said, it looks like the tail section survived the crash, and that's where the 2 black boxes are located. Hopefully, they kept recording properly, and we'll have our answer soon enough.
2 things about this:
1. That Spanish accident resulted from 3 separate checks that went amiss. The configuration checklist, the confirm and verify checklist, and the Take-off Warning System (TOWS). The pilot indeed ignored the first 2 checklists, and on top of that the TOWS didn't work. The investigation could not determine why the TOWS didn't kick in. Could it have happened this time? I guess, but that would be beyond rare. I suck at math, but the odds would have to be insane for this to happen again (especially on a newer, more sophisticated Dreamliner VS a much older MD-82). On this crash alone, the NTSB made recommendations for more warnings and redundancies.
2. That aircraft suffered STALL conditions just 3 seconds into the flight AND it started to violently bank from side to side. That didn't happen here. The same can be said about Northwest flight 255. Within a second or 2 of liftoff (rotate) from the runway, the Northwest aircraft started to immediately stall. It couldn't achieve any height (the wings clipped light poles). This Air India flight achieved some type of normal airborne flight.
Again, I'm not trying to speculate what happened here, but the sheer odds of it simply forgetting to set the flaps prior to takeoff, are insanely crazy.
I am leaning more to dual engine failure, when the plane flew by the camera, the sound it made sounded more like you would hear on landing then takeoff. The engines did not sound like they were producing much power. I am leaning away from flaps as the descent was very stable with no yaw, like a perfect landing.
Trump gave them a couple of pointers as to could have happened so were all good.
I read elsewhere another clue suggesting an electrically induced dual engine failure may be possible.
The main landing gear bogeys (the tilting multi-axle assembly holding the wheels) were NOT tilted but the gear doors weren't open. Apparently in the 787 thus anomaly is consistent with the gear retraction sequence being interrupted during the retraction process.
As the 787 is a completely electrical plane there are many, many interconnected, fused, cross-tied and redundant circuits. The engine fuel pumps are all electric but (so he explained) and can only be driven by aircraft's APU (Aux Power Unit-a little mini jet engine generator in the tail), not the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) generator that sounds like it was automatically deployed when both engines failed.
Having said all that all of this speculation is just harmless idle chatter... kind of like 'what would YOU do if you won the lottery?'.
The main landing gear bogeys (the tilting multi-axle assembly holding the wheels) were NOT tilted but the gear doors weren't open. Apparently in the 787 thus anomaly is consistent with the gear retraction sequence being interrupted during the retraction process.
As the 787 is a completely electrical plane there are many, many interconnected, fused, cross-tied and redundant circuits. The engine fuel pumps are all electric but (so he explained) and can only be driven by aircraft's APU (Aux Power Unit-a little mini jet engine generator in the tail), not the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) generator that sounds like it was automatically deployed when both engines failed.
Having said all that all of this speculation is just harmless idle chatter... kind of like 'what would YOU do if you won the lottery?'.
He actually DID say that!
What kind of out of control narcissist lacks the self-control to offer advice on a mysterious airliner crash in a place he probably couldn't point to on a map, who is not even a pilot.
If you go back to my post with the take-off chart, you might see how it needed to be a FLAPS 20 takeoff with that load, temp and runway length, And you would DEFINITELY see the flaps if they were deployed 20 degrees... even though the entire trailing edge of the 787 is operated as a single flaperon with a fancy computer that can adjust the wing camber in cruise.
This plane is a whole 'nuther machine.
One of my buddies is a Captain on the Dreamliner. Says he absofuckinglutely loves it! Haven't spoken to him about this but we're having breakfast Sunday so will be interesting to speak with him when more info comes out by then.
If you go back to my post with the take-off chart, you might see how it needed to be a FLAPS 20 takeoff with that load,
I'm going with load.
Its possible but stalls are typically not so controlled. One person posed the theory that if they selected flaps 1 there would only be flaperons and no takeoff config warning. Also they make have set climb to 400 ft instead of 4000, which means the engines will rollback at 400.
It was a ball of fire when it crashed, can't believe how he survived, complete gangster. It looked slow but still probably going 150 mph, anyone guess how fast it was going? Look like there wasn't much time to prepare. There's a video showing a guy who flew on the same plane earlier in the day, he said nothing was working electrically.
takeoff was 174kt which is 322 kph. When they knew they were going in for sure they flared the plane to bleed off as much speed as possible so I would say between 220 to 260 kph
You might be onto something there notty with the inadvertant mis-selection of ALT HOLD theory.
I was just on the phone with my 787 captain buddy and he said there was an FAA Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin published 2-3 years ago that describes an unpublished buttonology autopilot glitch that could explain some of this, although not the deployment of the RAT and interruption of the gear retraction sequence.
Basically, when you bring these machines to life, you turn on various systems in specific sequences, input various information like barometer setting, load your flight planned route, autopilot and flight management system checks etc. If you inadvertantly engage the "ALTITUDE HOLD" mode (several ways that this could happen) , then the plane may want to level off as you take off.
MUCH more to that theory but doesn't quite fit in with *all* that we seem to know by observation so far.
Here is a link to the FAA's SAIB
SPECIAL AIRWORTHINESS INFORMATION BULLETIN
SUBJ: AUTOPILOT FLIGHT DIRECTOR SYSTEM: ALT HOLD Engaged on Takeoff on Boeing Model 777/787 common fleets.
SAIB: AIR-22-09R1
Date: May 17, 2022
This Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin is to advise registered owners and operators of The Boeing Company Model 777-200, -200LR, -300, -300ER, and 777F series airplanes,
and Model 787-8, -9, and -10 airplanes of the potential for mismanagement of the Flight Management Annunciation (FMA) system on takeoff due to Autopilot Flight Director System (AFDS) being latched in altitude hold (ALT) mode.
Some information posted in the PPRUNE professional pilots forum is that the ADS-B information transmissions stopped at 71' above ground level just as the aircraft was crossing over the departure end of the runway. It's possible that both engines failed at that point, which would explain why the Ram Air Turbine was deployed-and the bang heard by the surviving passenger.
Again, no conclusions, just information.
"Flight Radar 24 has now posted granular data, including the AGL corrected for density altitude: www.flightradar24.com/blog/flight-tracking-news/major-incident/air-india-171-crashes-shortly-after-take-off-from-ahmedabad/
I can't include the photo, but it appears to show the following sequence:
We know the flight continued for ~30 more seconds and it climbed higher than 71ft AGL."
Again, no conclusions, just information.
Plane crash near Ahmedabad.. - PPRuNe Forums
Accidents and Close Calls - Plane crash near Ahmedabad.. - There was nothing wrong with the takeoff or the initial climb out from what I could see. A config or thrust derate mistake would have resulted in a different initial profile. The aircraft would have struggled to leave the ground and...
www.pprune.org
"Flight Radar 24 has now posted granular data, including the AGL corrected for density altitude: www.flightradar24.com/blog/flight-tracking-news/major-incident/air-india-171-crashes-shortly-after-take-off-from-ahmedabad/
I can't include the photo, but it appears to show the following sequence:
- 08:08:46 - Rotation at around 184 knots near taxiway Charlie
- 08:08:50 - Climb to 71ft AGL near the runway threshold, 172kt
- No further data received after that point
We know the flight continued for ~30 more seconds and it climbed higher than 71ft AGL."
ONE other weird thing that keeps coming to my mind.
Yesterday, when I was looking at some pics of various 787 cockpits I noticed the Engine Run/Cutoff switches are directly below the throttles I thought that could do it, but would be almost impossible to do without doing it deliberately. For some reason I think I recalled this happening in the early days of the 757/767... I think.
I was searching for more info and came across an Indian language CGI animated YouTube Short that showed the upper middle switch cover panel fall down onto the throttlle quadrant. No english subtitles and I can't find it again.
But.... if that panel did fall down, both Engine Fuel Cutoff Switches are located there (Two black balls on the end of the switch shaft, to the right of the RED switches, directly below the throttles) and dropping something heavy on them could cause them to get pushed down into the Cutoff position. They have a 'Pull-out-to-lift feature to help avoid inadvertant or incidental activation, but it's just a detente in the switch mechanism.
This is kind of pushing the limits of conjecture but IF Maintenance was working on an electrical issue related to Air Conditioning, those A/C and cabin air control are on the cockpit ceiling.
Yesterday, when I was looking at some pics of various 787 cockpits I noticed the Engine Run/Cutoff switches are directly below the throttles I thought that could do it, but would be almost impossible to do without doing it deliberately. For some reason I think I recalled this happening in the early days of the 757/767... I think.
I was searching for more info and came across an Indian language CGI animated YouTube Short that showed the upper middle switch cover panel fall down onto the throttlle quadrant. No english subtitles and I can't find it again.
But.... if that panel did fall down, both Engine Fuel Cutoff Switches are located there (Two black balls on the end of the switch shaft, to the right of the RED switches, directly below the throttles) and dropping something heavy on them could cause them to get pushed down into the Cutoff position. They have a 'Pull-out-to-lift feature to help avoid inadvertant or incidental activation, but it's just a detente in the switch mechanism.
This is kind of pushing the limits of conjecture but IF Maintenance was working on an electrical issue related to Air Conditioning, those A/C and cabin air control are on the cockpit ceiling.
Last edited:
