Air India Flight AI171 (Boeing 787-8) Crash

[john_pifer]

242 souls on board, reportedly, and it’s also been reported that it crashed into a building. So there may be casualties on the ground.

RIP

In a video I saw, it appeared to fail to gain altitude, and possibly stall.

First hull loss of a 787.

https://aviationweek.com/air-transp.../air-india-boeing-787-8-crashes-after-takeoff

 

[Lubener]

Very sad event.

 

[demarpaint]

Sending prayers.

 

[JavierH19]

Wow this just happened some hours ago. My god that's depressing, no survivors.

I wonder if this video is real or if it's some disgusting AI fakery. Nowadays I don't even know. It looked like it had a quick descent at the very end and was pitch up and I don't think I see flaps extended out? so a stall maybe? but I can't trust anything to be real I hate AI so much.

 

[billt460]

It looks like the exact type of accident that brought down that Air France Airbus, that was doing a low and slow flyby at an airshow.

That thing went into a nose up descent, and crashed into a bunch of trees at the end of the runway. But we won't know anything certain for months. 250+ people gone in an instant. Terrible!

 

[Astro14]

It looks like the exact type of accident that brought down that Air France Airbus, that was doing a low and slow flyby at an airshow.

That thing went into a nose up descent, and crashed into a bunch of trees at the end of the runway. But we won't know anything certain for months. 250+ people gone in an instant. Terrible!

It’s not quite that simple -

If you’re referring to the crash in Toulouse, that Airbus was flying slow, deliberately, with an engine out, and was doing a go around with the engine out as part of a test flight.

This airplane was taking off. It doesn’t appear that an engine was out.

My gut feeling is that the crew did not select the correct takeoff flaps, in the social media posts, the wing looks awfully “thin”. For a long range (meaning heavy) takeoff, flaps should be visible.

 

[JustN89]

It’s not quite that simple -

If you’re referring to the crash in Toulouse, Airbus was flying slow, deliberately, with an engine out, and was doing a go around with the engine out as part of a test flight.

This airplane was taking off. It doesn’t appear that an engine was out.

My gut feeling is that the crew did not select the correct takeoff flaps, in the social media posts, the wing looks awfully “thin”. For a long range (meaning heavy) takeoff, flaps should be visible.

Completely agree. The video is a bit too grainy to say conclusively, but it looks like the flaps were retracted. Add to that the gear being down, it being near capacity with a full fuel load and it wouldn’t be surprising at all that it couldn’t gain altitude.

 

[FowVay]

Gear down, flaps retracted... that doesn't seem correct for that altitude. Curious though, the article states that the passengers were rushed to the nearby hospital. Did something state that there were no survivors or am I misreading this? One post above says 250+ people gone.

 

[billt460]

Gear down, flaps retracted... that doesn't seem correct for that altitude. Curious though, the article states that the passengers were rushed to the nearby hospital. Did something state that there were no survivors or am I misreading this? One post above says 250+ people gone.

Fox is currently reporting all 242 on board were killed. They are also saying it hit a building, and there were casualties on the ground as well.

It's too early yet. Give it 24 hours for everything to settle down.

 

[fdcg27]

I happened to catch this awful event on the news when I got up this morning.
There is already a long thread on this accident on one of the dedicated Av sites.
It is only around 3700 NM AMD to LGW, so the aircraft would have been a long way from full tanks, although AI could have dispatched the flight with tankered fuel, since fuel refined from Russian crude is certainly cheaper in India than Jet A would have been at Gatwick, although it does cost fuel to carry fuel.
The departure airport is only a couple of hundred feet MSL, but it was quite warm, around 40C, or just over 100F.
Speculation is that the crew elected to take off from the point where they entered the runway from an intersecting taxiway, leaving about 6000' available but even if true that shouldn't have been a factor, since they did achieve 174 knots and an altitude of 625', so around 400' above ground level.
It's also speculated that there may have been a power loss on one or both engines, or that the crew retracted flaps when they meant to retract the gear. The available video (with audio) is far from clear or conclusive as to aircraft configuration or power, so people seem to be seeing what they want to see, but the black boxes will tell the story.
At this point, who knows?
We must await the results of the investigation to follow to learn what really happened to doom this flight.
A horrible accident for all aboard and on the ground at the point of impact.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

The A320 that crashed in Toulouse didn’t crash into the trees because it was doing a single engine go around, it crashed because the Air France line pilot deviated from the air show protocol ( not supposed to descend below 170 feet ) and initiated a 2 engine ( 112 knots ) go around at 30 feet, dirty, gear down and at idle power while heading towards the trees.

This guy wasn’t good enough to be a test pilot.

Test pilots follow procedures.

 

[Hirev]

What horrific event. Very sad to hear about.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

No clue about the safety protections on Boeing 787 ( a lot newer than A320 design ) but if the flaps are , accidentally, retracted too early ( before the aircraft accelerates to clean up ) on the Airbus, it won’t let you do it if the speed is too low ( alpha lock protection ).

The 787 is a newer design, you would think it has similar protections.

If you take off and start sinking not caused by windshear, you either don’t have enough power or lift. They had enough thrust or else they would not have even reached 400 AGL ( and the high drag gear still down ).

TOGA, firewall power, select more flap ( highest take off setting ) and select the gear up to accelerate ( tremendous drag ).

Not the best video but I am sure another video will turn up.

 

[RoadDukie]

Interesting note is that the pilot declared Mayday which could possibly point to a failure of some kind.

 

[4WD]

In the real world - betting on pilot error …
Once the billboard cowboys do their rapid descent - it will be Boeing …
Personally, I take zero lawsuits as evidence of anything these days …

 

[billt460]

As far as not having the flaps configured properly for takeoff. Many years back wasn't there a 727 that attempted to takeoff at Detroit, that crashed with a high loss of life?

If I remember correctly the flaps were not extended to takeoff position. They were busy jabbering in the cockpit, instead of paying attention. I think they attributed that behavior to the cause of the crash.

 

[2005jettatdi]

Why is it that to get the best information on any airplane crash, this is the site to go to? As I read about it elsewhere, my thought was, I need to go to BITOG to find out what happened.

It looks like the flaps were not deployed at all. Those check lists are there for a reason.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

Why is it that to get the best information on any airplane crash, this is the site to go to? As I read about it elsewhere, my thought was, I need to go to BITOG to find out what happened.

It looks like the flaps were not deployed at all. Those check lists are there for a reason.

You can’t take off with zero flaps, but you can take off with the wrong flap setting versus what the pre take off take off performance calculations ( and supposed to be independently reviewed by each pilot ) said you need.

On the Airbus, take off flap setting range between 1 ( 99% of the time ) , 2, and 3 according to what the take off analysis calculations indicated we need.

That said, I could easily select the ( part if my after engine start flow ) the wrong flap settings but the FO ( and CA ) should notice that errir in the after start checklist and before take off checklist.

If we were incompetent enough to forget to select any flap , the take off configuration warning ( but it’s not smart enough to know if you need flap 1,2, or 3 ) will go off warning us we don’t have any flaps out.

Previous, older jets had no way to warn pilots if they forgot to put flaos out for take off and a few fatal crashes happened because ground effect will allow the plane to initially get airborne but then it will crash.

You have to make sure you have the correct thrust and flap setting for take off

 

[Astro14]

The A320 that crashed in Toulouse didn’t crash into the trees because it was doing a single engine go around, it crashed because the Air France line pilot deviated from the air show protocol ( not supposed to descend below 170 feet ) and initiated a 2 engine ( 112 knots ) go around at 30 feet, dirty, gear down and at idle power while heading towards the trees.

This guy wasn’t good enough to be a test pilot.

Test pilots follow procedures.

Different event.

At 30 feet, alpha prot is inhibited. He was supposed to stay above 50 feet.

I was thinking of this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Industrie_Flight_129

 

[97prizm]

242 souls on board, reportedly, and it’s also been reported that it crashed into a building. So there may be casualties on the ground.

RIP

In a video I saw, it appeared to fail to gain altitude, and possibly stall.

First hull loss of a 787.

https://aviationweek.com/air-transp.../air-india-boeing-787-8-crashes-after-takeoff

I saw the video as well. Seems rather odd for such a new aircraft to crash. It's difficult to tell but it looks like it wasn't accelerating and wasn't climbing.