Air India 787 Crashes in Western India

traumamed said:
For the record, I agree that it seems very difficult to imagine such a rapid-fire sequence of incorrect/poor/incompetent decisions was the root cause of this accident. Pilot error could end up being the determination, but even if so, I don't see it being quite that egregious. Then again, Asiana 214:

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the flight crew's mismanagement of the airplane's descent during the visual approach, the pilot flying's unintended deactivation of automatic airspeed control, the flight crew's inadequate monitoring of airspeed, and the flight crew's delayed execution of a go-around after they became aware that the airplane was below acceptable glidepath and airspeed tolerances.

AI "pilots" sound great. You can be their first passenger.
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Somebody will… as with everything “first”.
 
sourdough44 said:
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There's another video above with a photo showing the leading edge slats extended on the right wing shown in the wreckage.
Assuming it is what it appears to be, doesn't look as though the the co-pilot retracted flaps instead of the gear.
 
tobnpr said:
There's another video above with a photo showing the leading edge slats extended on the right wing shown in the wreckage.
Assuming it is what it appears to be, doesn't look as though the the co-pilot retracted flaps instead of the gear.
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I believe the thinking was that the PM (do we know the CA was flying?) brought the flaps from 5 to 1, so the slats would still be out.

Doesn't really explain the RAT though, unless someone interpreted the settling as a loss of both engines and ran through the memory items*.

I'm sure we'll know more soon enough. It's definitely pretty baffling.


*I don't fly the airplane, but this is taken from our 787 QRC:
IMG_3649.jpeg
 
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Jdm said:
Not all airlines have memory items. Some have quick action cards, etc. The same procedure is used on the 757/767. Fuel cutoff cycle and deploy the RAT. The RAT will auto deploy with dual failure but the checklist redundantly requires manually deploying the RAT. It’s a guarded push switch that illuminates once deployed.
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75/76 memory items for a dual engine failure are to put the start selectors to flight and thrust levers to idle.

The start selectors are up in the overhead panel above the pilots heads, the fuel cutoff switches are down behind/under the throttles. Maybe a new FO could get that wrong, but not too likely. Deploying the RAT is not a memory item for any emergency.
 
Jdm said:
It’s probably the camera angle on the 1st video but the jet appears to drift toward the left during departure. Anyone else notice this? No visible yaw, just drifting.
Also saw that the OAT was 43C. If this is true they probably couldn’t use an assumed temp setting. They may have been at max n1/epr for the conditions. I know there’s differences among the Boeings when it comes to applying reduced thrust. Not sure how the 787 accomplishes it.
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I had an assumed temp takeoff this week out of Phoenix that was 51C and the system accepted it. Although, I’m pretty certain I’ve seen the max indicated be somewhere in the 40’s before and in that case, the company manual directed us to just set the highest allowed if recommended was higher. However, I can no longer find it in the company manuals, so I’m wondering if there’s been a change allowing higher settings?
 
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There is a form of ‘auto-slats’ on the 787. Meaning that, at slow speeds the slats can extend to ‘full’, under specific conditions. One could raise the flaps prematurely, and command full slats, due to slow airspeed.

Didn’t I just read a news article that the f/o may of made a ‘mistake’?
 
Tons of aviation experience here, and speculation galore, but seemingly little time spent looking for relevant info on the Internet. This was originally published on 6/12, two days ago. No mention of this anywhere here so far.

Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, who had 8,200 hours of flying experience, desperately cried 'Mayday…no thrust, losing power, unable to lift' before the aircraft went down and hit a residential property.
www.dailymail.co.uk

Revealed: Air India pilot's frantic mayday call seconds before crash

The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plunged into the busy suburb just seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad Airport on Thursday morning, claiming the lives of all but one passenger.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
 
Turbo-Arrow-Driver said:
Tons of aviation experience here, and speculation galore, but seemingly little time spent looking for relevant info on the Internet. This was originally published on 6/12, two days ago. No mention of this anywhere here so far.

Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, who had 8,200 hours of flying experience, desperately cried 'Mayday…no thrust, losing power, unable to lift' before the aircraft went down and hit a residential property.
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Power loss is one of the possibilities. Mistaken flap retraction is another. Lower than necessary TO power setting is another. LGM haven't been mentioned yet, but I'm sure that will come up if the investigation takes too long.
 
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kyleb said:
D

Power loss is one of the possibilities. Mistaken flap retraction is another. Lower than necessary TO power setting is another. LGM haven't been mentioned yet, but I'm sure that will come up if the investigation takes too long.
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dmspilot said:
Every garbage man and hairdresser on the internet has already decided the crash was caused by the FO retracting the flaps by mistake. Why have an investigation :dunno:
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I dunno, I'm seeing all sorts of theories. There's a huge discussion about FADEC on another board I'm lurking on. We'll know more soon enough.
 
We had someone do the flap thing on a 777. Still didn't settle like that.
 
Retract the flaps by mistake? If so, how does the RAT deployment fit in? Manually deploy RAT? These are questions, not a theory.

Lots of ???? Trying to see how the pieces fit. Hope we get new data soon.
 
Spinka said:
We had someone do the flap thing on a 777. Still didn't settle like that.
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I would agree. Based on many years of teaching other Boeing recoveries and upset events. Not saying it wouldn’t negatively impact the situation. Just don’t think this was the cause. Like Larry said, there’s not much you can do with dual engine failure at 200’. The RAT had nothing to do with it either. The only reason I care about the RAT deployment is bc it basically confirms dual failure.
 
Article on Boeing quality problems I posted earlier contained this quote about a lot of 787 engine problems:

"A now-defunct Norwegian airline claimed in a 2020 lawsuit blaming Boeing for its demise that it had been forced to divert flights and cancel whole routes due to engine problems, and replace the engines on its Dreamliner fleet hundreds of times. In 2023 one of the airline’s former 787s was dismantled for scrap, a literally unheard-of fate for a 10-year-old plane with a nine-figure list price."​
 
Piperonca said:
Article on Boeing quality problems I posted earlier contained this quote about a lot of 787 engine problems:

"A now-defunct Norwegian airline claimed in a 2020 lawsuit blaming Boeing for its demise that it had been forced to divert flights and cancel whole routes due to engine problems, and replace the engines on its Dreamliner fleet hundreds of times. In 2023 one of the airline’s former 787s was dismantled for scrap, a literally unheard-of fate for a 10-year-old plane with a nine-figure list price."​
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Boeing doesn't make the engines. In fact, it supports engine options from two different manufacturers. No idea of what problems the two engine manufacturers may (or may not have) had, but...
 
kyleb said:
Boeing doesn't make the engines. In fact, it supports engine options from two different manufacturers. No idea of what problems the two engine manufacturers may (or may not have) had, but...
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Might’ve been some persistent integration issue somewhere between the throttles and the tailpipes. Lots of room for mischief in between.
 
Piperonca said:
Might’ve been some persistent integration issue somewhere between the throttles and the tailpipes. Lots of room for mischief in between.
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And they replaced hundreds of engines to correct that? I'm going with "not likely".
 
One of the Boeing experts on PPRUNE said this is the first Dreamliner that will be removed from the list of manufactured Dreamliner's built. Two which had lithium battery fires were rebuilt, and returned to service.

Several returned to Boeing for remedial services in the first 3 years of construction.

The accident plane was the 27th built, and probably had quite a number of engine changes by now. It was overdue for seat replacement, and the general refurbishment (a popular British term for major cosmetic processes). Air India is 2 years behind schedule for this type of maintenance across the fleet. Part of this is from the Wall Street Journal. The seat 11 A story is fascinating.
 
I thought this was an interesting perspective. Stolen from Beechtalk…
Stolen from another forum I visit, posted by a guy I know who recently retired from Boeing

Quote:
Prayers for all of whom lost a loved one in this tragedy. I cannot imagine what they must be going through.

I wish everyone would save the speculation and, worse yet, the accusations. Blaming this on Boeing at this point in time is akin to blaming Ford every time a 12 year old Mustang plows into a crowd leaving a cars and coffee. Myself, I prefer to wait for the results of the investigation.

As many of you know, I worked on these things around the world as a part of the Boeing AOG (Aircraft on Ground) team. I was the engineer responsible for the design of the tooling and equipment we used to affect repair, maintenance, and modification.

If I told you guys half of what I saw on these aircraft in countries like India you would probably quit flying anything but North American, European, Japanese, or U.K. based carriers. What passes as "maintenance" in countries like India would absolutely never pass muster here. We grounded more than one aircraft upon inspection, finding shoddy work and exceedingly substandard counterfeit parts. The stuff we would find was often unrelated to the work we were performing, but it was our moral obligation to ground that aircraft.

We did this through a memo sent to whatever governing body has authority in that region. We nicknamed this particular piece of paperwork "The Eight Deadly Words": "Prior to Further Operation, the Boeing Company Recommends..." Essentially, that particular aircraft was grounded until our "recommendations" were met.

This particular aircraft had just recently requested an emergency landing. That could mean a lot of things. It was 12 years old. That means "maintained" by that airline for those 12 years. In India. Perhaps some of the rest of you who've travelled to India on assignment from a large U.S. corporation went through this as well, but we had to suffer through training under the India Anti-Corruption Act, an actual U.S. law requiring us to be trained in how to spot attempts to bribe or coerce us into doing things we should not. Like looking the other way when (not if) we discovered something amiss on their aircraft. The only country on Earth that has risen to such a level so as to have come to the attention of the United States Congress, compelling them to pass such an act.

That was the environment in which this aircraft was being operated and maintained.
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Kenny Phillips said:
Gonna toss in misfueling.
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How so? AFAIK, VAAH is pretty much all jets. The are some, but not very many, gasoline planes in India. I'm sure other planes used the same fuel source but only one had issues. I had a thought about fuel as well, but I have seen no evidence to support that hypothesis as yet.
 
X3 Skier said:
“If I told you guys half of what I saw on these aircraft in countries like India you would probably quit flying anything but North American, European, Japanese, or U.K. based carriers.”

Exactly what I do.
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Well that rules out Qantas, Air NZ, Cathay, Singapore, Emirates, and several other airlines up there at the top of both the best airline and safest airline scales…
 
X3 Skier said:
“If I told you guys half of what I saw on these aircraft in countries like India you would probably quit flying anything but North American, European, Japanese, or U.K. based carriers.”

Exactly what I do.
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Has the cheap divorce joke been lost? It really wasn't a joke.
 
Clearer video / audio shows RAT deployed!
Take back all I said. Game changer.
 
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