Passenger plane heading for London crashes after take-off in Ahmedabad, India

[Cooperman]

I can attest to this. I’ve been delayed in New York because the a/c wasn’t working.

You were informed that the duration of flight would be made without operable a/c? That’s very, very unusual and it comes with all sorts of additional regulations relating to passenger welfare and so on.

 

[CygnusX1]

You were informed that the duration of flight would be made without operable a/c? That’s very, very unusual and it comes with all sorts of additional regulations relating to passenger welfare and so on.

We were delayed by a couple of hours in Newark airport before we boarded, while they fixed the a/c as they wouldn’t fly without it.

 

[Dillwyn the Dog]

Bit of an odd one, isn’t it? The surviving passenger said he heard ‘a loud noise’ after takeoff, but I’m not sure if that’s true/relevant…that could be anything.

Seems that the pilots had control of the aircraft…a double engine failure would be very unlikely. The flaps thing is a distinct possibility, hard to tell if the plane has 5 degrees of flap on those grainy videos but the way the aircraft behaves, it does look like it rotates and just stalls almost instantly. I believe that the 787 has a takeoff config alarm if you take off without flaps (the 737 certainly has)…if that’s the case then I’m not sure they could takeoff without flaps. Possibly could have retracted the flaps instead of the gear? No idea how a pilot could make that mistake mind, but these things do happen with fatigue etc…

I’m just staggered that someone survived that fireball and hitting into a building…10 hours of fuel onboard plus contingency.

You know your stuff. Are you a b1/b2 engineer? Only asking as I work in the industry.
It could easily be pilot error - strange if true how they got it so wrong so badly. Then again having seen a video presentation of the PIA airbus disaster in Karachi some years back pilots can make some baffling decisions.

 

[MrSwerve]

You know your stuff. Are you a b1/b2 engineer? Only asking as I work in the industry.
It could easily be pilot error - strange if true how they got it so wrong so badly. Then again having seen a video presentation of the PIA airbus disaster in Karachi some years back pilots can make some baffling decisions.

Nah - I'm involved with the Engineering industry - but my interest in aircraft and aviation is a hobby.

 

[Fbreath]

I was aircraft tech in the RAF. All aircraft fly with faults but only faults that don’t impact on safety obviously.
Some faults can only be fixed when the aircraft is in the hanger having a major service etc. as they have to strip aircraft to get to something.

Aircraft are a bit like cars they have different levels of servicing dependant on miles flown.

 

[Dillwyn the Dog]

I was aircraft tech in the RAF. All aircraft fly with faults but only faults that don’t impact on safety obviously.
Some faults can only be fixed when the aircraft is in the hanger having a major service etc. as they have to strip aircraft to get to something.

Aircraft are a bit like cars they have different levels of servicing dependant on miles flown.

Being involved in line maintenance I can vouch for that. Hangar work is more in depth - line maintenance could be anything from replacing an escape slide or a coffee maker.

 

[TheLoneRanger]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1934077913764089919

 

[MrSwerve]

So the initial report for this is out.

To summarise, everything about the flight was normal until seconds after the plane got into the air, when both fuel cutoff switches were switched to ‘off’. One pilot asks the other ‘why did you turn them off?’ and they are both turned back on, by which time it is too late and the plane descends into the ground.

Hard to speculate, but there is a good possibility of this crash being intentional, fuel cutoffs don’t just do that on their own. We don’t know which pilot asked the other why it was cut. It could also be the pilot who cut the fuel, trying to cover themselves.

A lot more to come from this, I think.

 

[Fbreath]

Fuel cut off switches are guarded you have to lift a cover to operate them

Unless one of the pilots did it sneakily in some sort of suicide plot

 

[MrSwerve]

Fuel cut off switches are guarded you have to lift a cover to operate them

Unless one of the pilots did it sneakily in some sort of suicide plot

They aren’t guarded, but you do need to pull them before switching them (i.e. you can’t just knock them into cutoff).

They are well out of the way of a pilot flying’s view/attention, so it’s possible pilot not flying could do it without the other noticing (PNF being the captain in this case).

My initial thoughts are a tragic suicide attempt but I’ll await more information.

 

[Cooperman]

Pilot murder-suicide is now a very possible explanation.

 

[MrSwerve]

Pilot murder-suicide is now a very possible explanation.

Indeed Coops, sadly. I can’t come to any other conclusion yet, from my armchair.

Also going back to the ‘loud noise’ that the surviving passenger heard, that was likely the RAT being deployed automatically.

 

[MrSwerve]

When it first happened we were speculating that it looked like a double engine failure, it’s just such a rare thing that you can almost discount it (without bird activity in the area).

This does indeed seem to be that, albeit an intentional ‘failure’.

 

[Cooperman]

Indeed Coops, sadly. I can’t come to any other conclusion yet, from my armchair.

Also going back to the ‘loud noise’ that the surviving passenger heard, that was likely the RAT being deployed automatically.

It reads like the plane performed exactly as it should. RAT deployed, engine relight initiated once the switches were reset, etc. I wonder if there is an audible alert when fuel cut off is selected.

 

[MrSwerve]

It reads like the plane performed exactly as it should. RAT deployed, engine relight initiated once the switches were reset, etc. I wonder if there is an audible alert when fuel cut off is selected.

I don’t believe there is when one cutoff is selected. Just a visual warning that N1 is low on the EICAS (which pilot monitoring should be scanning). There is an audible warning when both are cutoff, as obviously you’re losing other reliant systems then.