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I saw the clip of the crash (including the actual explosion on the BBC news last night). How on earth did that one single man walk out of that, not only alive, but with barely a scratch on him. Truly astonishing.
Bonkers - he just wandered down the street like Jaws in the Bond film where his car goes through the roof of that house and he walks away and brushes himself down.
Luck, God, or he landed on someone’s bedroom mattress ?
Be interesting to see if he feels lucky and goes and buys a lottery ticket, or if he suffers massive trauma for the rest of his life
Got to admit, the film "Unbreakable" sprang to mind.
Hopefully he can get through the potential mental anguish he will probably suffer as a result.
+1 fossy, he's just lost his brother on that flight, incredibly sad and I hope he gets the support he will need.
I think that the media weren't quite sure it was genuine yesterday – there was a lot of use of words like 'reportedly' on the BBC and Guardian websites, but later they changed the wording to 'confirmed'.
I felt very sorry for his younger brother on the TV interviews. Some shockingly in-sensitive questions being asked. Poor lad has lost a brother. Really poor reporting.
Standard stuff for big incidents, the "reporting" is just a rush of speculation, each channel trying to find any "expert", no matter how distant to provide their input and the news anchors asking increasingly stupid questions just to cover the rolling 24hr coverage.
pprune website has some much more informed speculation.
There's also a report here of one of the whistleblowers at Boeing warning of the subpar spec of the planes sent overseas. The whistleblower apparently committed suicide (much like those generals in Moscow that walk too near to open windows...) half way through his deposition.
One of the news sites posted the seat map. He was in 11A, the seat at the front of economy, right by the door. Maybe by some miracle the door broke off on impact and he got thrown clear - I guess we'll never know.
Maybe by some miracle the door broke off on impact
Wouldn't be the first time a door had broken on a Boeing...
Wow - another British-National 'survived' the crash yesterday...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgv26zz5wzo
He was in A11 at the emergency exit. the fuselage broke open at that point and he squeezed through the gap (not the door). His brother and all around died including the flight attendants he was sat facing. Those on the other side could not exit as there was a wall blocking any route.
And +1 for pprune for formal speculation.
Amazing one person survived. I don't mean to insensitive - how is he going to travel back to the UK? Not sure flying will be an option for him ..
There's also a report here of one of the whistleblowers at Boeing warning of the subpar spec of the planes sent overseas.
Is there any actual evidence of what caused the crash? Yes, Boeing have serious problems but this might just have been a birdstrike or engine failure or something unrelated to Boeing.
how is he going to travel back to the UK?
Honestly, I doubt if that's a consideration just yet.
They will fly him back..... Maybe with some meds!
The chances of anything happening again are infinitesimally small.
this might just have been a birdstrike or engine failure
From the short bit of video it really does look like it just didn't have enough thrust which could be caused by a couple of things... But it's all guesswork ATM even though it's being mentioned that the captain did say it was engine failure before the impact.
He was massively experienced though so the chances of having the plane configured incorrectly are, hopefully, slim.
My daughter and boyfriend are here atm. They are both cabin crew with Emirates and I asked them if they thoughts about this sort of incident happening - "every take off" 😬
On the plus side she only fly's A380 and the 4 engine config might just get them out of trouble if something happened at take off.
They're very matter of fact about the realities though 🙁
Fuel blockage seems to be most likely reason from what I have read. Bird strikes in both engines, significant enough to cause failure in both too is apparently very rare.
Fuel blockage seems to be most likely reason from what I have read.
i thought it had been confirmed there were no flaps deployed . That tends to stop aircraft being able to take off
Seen it said the RAT deployed, but I don't know if the video is good enough to make that level of detail out. The thought occured it must have sounded sufficiently different for someone to think "I must film that plane that's already passed me overhead".
i thought it had been confirmed there were no flaps deployed . That tends to stop aircraft being able to take off
I've seen that proposed, but it definitely DID take off.
Yep - reached 600ft apparently - I assume it was filmed because it so low as it past
Fuel blockage seems to be most likely reason from what I have read. Bird strikes in both engines, significant enough to cause failure in both too is apparently very rare.So is a fuel blockage during take off big enough to cause both engines to fail but have supplied enough fuel to initially get airborne - especially as I'd assume that with two engines and fuel tanks in each wing the default situation would be for them to be independent.
So is a fuel blockage during take off big enough to cause both engines to fail
I'm defo no pilot but I would have thought that they were at the single most power hungry point of take off..... Just losing one engine may be enough to stop the planes' ability to climb.
(Which might tie in with the video showing a slow return to the ground rather than a "drop")
i thought it had been confirmed there were no flaps deployed . That tends to stop aircraft being able to take off
The speculation seems to be that that flight crew raised the flaps after liftoff instead of the undercarriage.
So is a fuel blockage during take off big enough to cause both engines to fail
I'm defo no pilot but I would have thought that they were at the single most power hungry point of take off..... Just losing one engine may be enough to stop the planes' ability to climb.
(Which might tie in with the video showing a slow return to the ground rather than a "drop")
Planes are designed (and tested) to he able to take off with just one engine
Ahh, OK. I didn't know they could take off on a single engine.
I felt very sorry for his younger brother on the TV interviews. Some shockingly in-sensitive questions being asked. Poor lad has lost a brother. Really poor reporting.
Absolutely agree. Some of my work colleagues are from that community in Leicester and it was incredibly insensitive
I felt very sorry for his younger brother on the TV interviews. Some shockingly in-sensitive questions being asked. Poor lad has lost a brother. Really poor reporting.
Yea, agreed, survivng that when so many died, must be very mentaly challenging in itself, but to lose your brother when you somehow survived I would imagine is even more difficult by several magnitudes...
It's just not cool.
i thought it had been confirmed there were no flaps deployed . That tends to stop aircraft being able to take off
There's a story in one of the Tornado books by John Nichol (one of the RAF crew shot down in Iraq) about a flaps failure on takeoff in a Tornado and even with the vast amounts of power and much lower weight of that, it was very much a touch and go situation getting it airborne (the aircraft was going far too fast along the runway to stop by the time the crew realised the failure).
The fact the crew called a mayday suggests it's more of a system failure than a pilot failure (raising flaps instead of landing gear for example).
The speculation seems to be that that flight crew raised the flaps after liftoff instead of the undercarriage.
I really don't think that is what happened. The flaps are retracted in stages at specific speeds & altitudes and not in "one go".
Gear-up will be second nature to pilots once a positive climb is established. They just wouldn't confuse the two.
So many unknowns at the moment,
I felt very sorry for his younger brother on the TV interviews. Some shockingly in-sensitive questions being asked. Poor lad has lost a brother. Really poor reporting.
Yea, agreed, survivng that when so many died, must be very mentaly challenging in itself, but to lose your brother when you somehow survived I would imagine is even more difficult by several magnitudes...
It's just not cool.
Do not, whatever you do, go on any social media at the mo. The final straw for me deleting FB (I use it for local community news and skateboarding groups) came yesterday when a friend shared a story, I clicked on it, and was met with comments ranging from jokes about curry to 'British survivor? He doesn't look very British,'.
Utterly repulsive.
The speculation seems to be that that flight crew raised the flaps after liftoff instead of the undercarriage.
I really don't think that is what happened. The flaps are retracted in stages at specific speeds & altitudes and not in "one go".
Gear-up will be second nature to pilots once a positive climb is established. They just wouldn't confuse the two.
So many unknowns at the moment,
If they can mix up their left and right hands then anything’s possible…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wgjqj4xx4o.amp
As noted above, they called mayday and air speed started to drop straight after they took off, so it seems unlikely that they raised the flaps in error.
Regarding this man who survived.....it's truly incredible. The fireball afterwards alone let alone the impact. I guess most of the fuel (enough to travel nearly 8000km) is in the wings and they would have got torn off so the centre of the flash fire would have been behind him but even so.
In the nicest possible way I hope he becomes anonymous fast. It's going to be hard enough living with this for the rest of his life without becoming some sort of macabre celebrity too. Religious and conspiracy nut jobs could hound him for life. I don't think Vesna Vulovic enjoyed the experience of being a sole survivor and she didn't live through the internet driven age of nutjob w***erdom.
He was in 11A, the seat at the front of economy, right by the door. Maybe by some miracle the door broke off on impact and he got thrown clear - I guess we'll never know.
He’s pretty much confirmed that’s exactly what happened - he realised the door was missing, undid his seatbelt and jumped down onto the ground and walked away. He’s said he actually saw cabin staff die in front of him.
I don’t know about going and buying a lottery ticket, he’s just won the ultimate lottery, walking away from an aircrash that killed everyone else on board, plus an unknown number of people on the ground.
Got to admit, the film "Unbreakable" sprang to mind.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0220580/
Intacto sprung to my mind.
I'm willing to bet there's been a statistically significant increase in the number of people booking Seat 11A on their flight, no matter what aircraft they're on.
I really don't think that is what happened. The flaps are retracted in stages at specific speeds & altitudes and not in "one go".
Gear-up will be second nature to pilots once a positive climb is established. They just wouldn't confuse the two.
It happens surprisingly often, although usually on short-haul where action slips are more commonplace. Having said that it would be extremely difficult to retract all the high lift devices in a single movement because the process involves pushing the flaps lever down to get it through the baulk between flaps 1 and up.
You could inadvertently retract all the flaps in one go, but the slats would remain extended (the position labelled "1" is slats only, and the slats increase the margin to stall even if they don't directly increase lift). I suspect that although there would be some unpleasant wallowing, the aircraft would continue to fly and climb away in this configuration. The fact that it's even possible to do so suggests that Boeing have done a safety assessment and it wouldn't be a critical mistake.
It's inconceivable that they got airborne with the flaps retracted and I'd dismiss this theory out of hand.
I have thousands of hours of experience flying the 787 and although I sometimes wanted to bang my head on the wall at some of Boeing's design decisions because they increased my own workload, I think that it's a fundamentally safe aircraft.
seems the RAT was deployed, and Steve has retracted his earlier analysis. the Blanco Liro channel on YT seems to have been most accurate so far.
They will fly him back..... Maybe with some meds!
The chances of anything happening again are infinitesimally small.
Not really. The chances of him being on a plane that crashes is very low, I agree. But not infinitesimally small. They are exactly the same as the chance that the plane he boarded a few days ago would crash. The fact that he survived 1 crash has absolutely no bearing on the probability that a subsequent plane he gets on will crash or not. The two events are independent of each other.
The two events are independent of each other.
Not necessarily. If it was a mechanical issue then Air India being ordered to carry out checks should reduce the risk somewhat (unless some checks actually increase the risk of someone leaving a spanner where they shouldnt).
Plus of course who gives a toss about statistics in this sort of scenario. Rationally I would agree but I think if I had somehow walked away from that I would be thinking I dont fancy another flight/playing the lottery anytime soon since my luck quota is way into overdraft. Irrational yup but...
Irrational yup but...
Yes. In googling to remind myself of Vesna Vulovic's name for the earlier post I read that whilst she was happy to return to being an air hostess the airline kept her in a desk job because they thought her presence on a flight might freak out the passengers. Sometimes we are more than numbers.
1. Their mayday specifically started they had a power/thrust problem.
2. There's seemingly no sign of a double bird strike, no reports of bangs, no smoke from the engines, no reports of debris from the airfield - this would've likely also been reported by the crew in the initial mayday.
3. The fact that the landing gear wasn't retracted and that the RAT was deployed seems to support 1
4. Flap retraction, if it happened, may have been an attempt to reduce drag and glide for longer. It's a risky move that I've tired in sims and which might have worked/helped to get them to the park/cemetery only a further km away if the gear had been up and they'd had more speed , but it wasn't and they didn't.
IMO - the only thing that can affect both engines, at the same time, after allowing sufficient thrust/speed to clear V1, Vr and V2 is fuel and the system which supports it.
In most aircraft (I don't know specifically about the 787) the RAT will provide only hydraulic and some electrical power, it won't pump fuel, so if the fuel was contaminated or the pumps themselves were damaged/starved, it wouldn't matter what they did, they'd have struggled to get an engine restart using alternative pumps/fuel tanks in the time they had.
IMO - the only thing that can affect both engines, at the same time, after allowing sufficient thrust/speed to clear V1, Vr and V2 is fuel and the system which supports it.
There was an Air Crash Investigations documentary into a 777 landing at Heathrow; the aircraft crash-landed just short of the runway (no casualties) because the fuel lines got blocked due to formation of ice crystals. A weird fluke of exact temperatures at various altitudes after a long flight and the exact amount of fuel left.
The issue was just how quickly it happened and at such low level (approach) giving near zero time to do much about it. Obviously it's not going to be that exact problem here but I love the expert contributions from STW resident pilots (thanks @Daffy and @Flaperon !)
It took over 2 years to identify that issue on the 777, the ice formation within the fuel was so incredibly specific and once those conditions didn't exist, there was no ice and no evidence. Also only happened on one type of engine with a certain heat exchanger.
Thanks to our resident pilots for the insight.
Someone on local media speculated that a possible cause in the drop in thrust was the 40°C+ heat affecting engine performance.
The airframe doesnt appear to stall in the videos. Its a gradual decent with the nose up and wings level . Almost as if the engines lacked sufficient power to maintain a speed high enough to even fly level with or without the assistance of flaps . The plane doesn't appear to push through to level flight though . I know altitude is imperative when it comes to emergency situations , giving time and options but without airspeed or height your choices dramatically reduce.
Could the plane T/O weight have been miscalculated ? Doubtful but possible, but by enough to enable the plane to accelerate and take off then crash almost immediatly ? Weight distribution? I know tons of fuel are loaded into multiple locations , could the wrong amount of fuel be in the wrong tanks to unbalance the aircraft. Acceleration would feel the same, rotation and leaving the ground similar , but then trying to fly would be alot harder ,but impossible? I dont know .
Wrong fuel. Possible but acceleration and reaching the go / no go point would surely take longer .
Contaminated fuel . That could cause dramatic loss of power , but I would have thought the spool up jets do before releasing the brakes would indicate and issue. Slow or fluctuating rpms in one or both engines.
Mechanical issue. Pump failures that feed the engines at a critical time possibly. But surely 2 x pumps and redundancy in control systems , but maybe not enough time to correctly identify teh problem.
Electrical issues. Solenoids or electronic control system having a moment causing engines or critical control systems to drop out just when you need them .
Sabotage . You would need to be an aero engineer to be able to nobble an aeroplane so its not obvious to ground crew and aircrew to cause a failure at an exact time. Its possible , but unlikely, imo.
I hope they do find a reason. Be better for everyone affected and for everyones safety moving forward.
I hope they do find a reason. Be better for everyone affected and for everyones safety moving forward.
Oh they'll undoubtedly solve it.
The problem is that the findings don't happen in the timeframe that rolling 24hr news coverage (or grieving relatives) would like. The world wants instant answers; the aviation industry and the professionals that deal with accident investigations want the correct answers and a set of defined solutions - which can take years rather than a few hours.
It took over 2 years to identify that issue on the 777
Even then its only the best guess since as you say there was no evidence and so they had to look at the evidence they had and try and figure out the gaps.
The AAIB looked at those gaps and figured out what might be the issue and then set up some experiments to test their theory out. They could still be wrong and have found some other weird edge case though.
Admiral cloudberg has a good article on it.
A quick Google finds this from the BBC. I'm no expert, just adding something I heard on the radio that hasn't been mentioned so far:
In Ahmedabad, where temperatures neared 40°C (104F) on Thursday, the thinner air would have demanded higher flap settings and greater engine thrust, one pilot told the BBC. In such conditions, even a small configuration error can have catastrophic consequences.
It took off. I'm not a pilot but I can't think what settings you could set that would allow take off then bring you down 30 seconds later. Plus, RAT apparently deployed.
Shirley Full Throttle is Full Throttle . There is no magic setting where you can turn it up to 11 if its hot outside. Or Afterburners on military setting for take off .
Potentially water injection could be used to cool the intake charge to make it denser , or methanol but thats bad for oxidising corrosion on certain metals . Dunno if its made it to jet tech but it was on the saab 99 turbo in 1979.
Shirley Full Throttle is Full Throttle . There is no magic setting where you can turn it up to 11 if its hot outside. Or Afterburners on military setting for take off .
Potentially water injection could be used to cool the intake charge to make it denser , or methanol but thats bad for oxidising corrosion on certain metals . Dunno if its made it to jet tech but it was on the saab 99 turbo in 1979.
They very rarely use full power for takeoff. It would be ruinously expensive and lead to premature wear on the engines & airframe. Instead they use the performance calculations to work out the optimal power setting for each takeoff given the environmental and load info. On an Airbus I think this is called flex power, Boeing have a similar thing.
I was wondering if they somehow put the wrong data in too.
It always seems to be boeings though.
I think it should be more transparent when booking flights whether it's a Boeing or an Airbus.
I'd rather not fly at all if its a Boeing.
They do use full power on take off, it's called toga, take off/go around.The rat is deployed by the aircraft automatically not by the pilots and only when there is either loss of hydraulic pressure,loss of electrical power or both engines fail.
Posted pic twice, but engine failure.
Oh Hell Oldschool, that’s terrible. $hit. Where’s that from?
Looks like one of the WhatsApp news forwarding groups that are Notorious for spreading misinformation in India... "Forwarded as received"
pre flight gpu disconnection?
is that some sort of maintenance or is it just saying the processor? disconnected dur to water ingress?
- Source? That’s the second “initial report” I’ve seen this evening.
I pilot friend shared it so I didn’t think it would be fake. But apologies if it is.
oh i see gpu is ground power unit
was it raining when the plane took off? weather looked hood on that video
No mention of it on pprune so maybe fake.
Does seem dubious the UK authority would be releasing a report vs the Indian authorities.
Does seem dubious the UK authority would be releasing a report vs the Indian authorities.
I pilot friend shared it so I didn’t think it would be fake. But apologies if it is.
if that were true it is the fastest and most detailed AAIB (interim) report produced by any country for any crash.
oh i see gpu is ground power unit
Mentioned on a recent episode of Air Crash Investigation, when a pilot in a remote Canadian location didn't take on sufficient fuel because he didn't want to shut down his engine, as some problem or other was threatening to prevent him starting it again, and there was no GPU available to do so. Didn't end well. Obvs.
No mention of it on pprune so maybe fake.
.... no mention because they are quickly spotting fake/AI "reports" and, quite rightly, deleting all trace of them from the forum.
The fuel switches had almost simultaneously flipped from run to cutoff just after takeoff. The preliminary report did not say how the switches could have flipped to the cutoff position during the flight. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/india-finds-engine-switch-movement-fatal-air-india-crash-no-immediate-action-2025-07-11/
Sounds like the voice recorder data is going to be key. All very sad.
Flightradar reports one pilot saying why did you do that, the other saying he didn't - restart successfully initiated on both engines but they just ran out of time.
**** me. Read the report this morning over breakfast and it's pretty devastating material.
On one hand action slips are frustratingly commonplace; on the other hand confusing the fuel cut-off switches for the gear is almost inconceivable to me. Limit of my speculation there. Personal suspicion is that we'll never know.
Those switches are solid and robust, and you can feel the locking mechanism as you move them. They don't get knocked by accident, not do they wobble out of position. I know there's an airworthiness bulletin relating to them but it's a red herring in my opinion. They don't just fall to the cutoff position as the main gear comes off the ground.
Excuse my ignorance but how many landing gear switches are there, and are they near the fuel cutoffs? I just assumed there was one?
I presume/hope the investigation will show whether they were manually switched off or there was a fault.
I'm assuming they're also investigating the (mental) health of the pilots. Speculation of course, but it could have been intentional.
It's either the brainfart of the millenium, or another murder/suicide.
I'm assuming they're also investigating the (mental) health of the pilots.
The time it took the pilot AND co-pilot to realise they'd cut the fuel to both engines, and the amount of time (some ten seconds apparently) to think "maybe we should turn the fuel back on", somethings not adding up here...
Flightradar reports one pilot saying why did you do that, the other saying he didn't
Read that and that is an odd one. So does pilot1 mean he saw the other chap flip the switch ?