Posts about: "DGCA" [Posts: 35 Pages: 2]

"On 12th June, 2025, Air India B787 Aircraft VT-ANB, while operating flight AI-171 from Ahmedabad to Gatwick, crashed immediately after takeoff from Ahmedabad. There were 242 people on board the aircraft, consisting of 2 pilots and 10 cabin crew," said a senior DGCA official.

The aircraft was under the command of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal with First Officer Clive Kundar. Captain Sumeet Sabharwal is an LTC with 8200 hours of experience. The copilot had 1100 hours of flying experience, the official further added. The officers gave a mayday call to ATC minutes after taking off. However, they didn't respond to ATC's reply.

Not trying to drift the thread away but the 8300 hours being quoted is apparently incorrect and is taken from the relatively new DGCA online database which requires pilots to upload their hours post 2019. None of the pilots have bothered filling up their entire logbooks prior to that. The operating captain was on the Airbus 310 fleet in air India, which probably dates back to him being in the company since the 90s

Seems to have come from a DGCA statement that they haven't released publicly.

https://www.businesstoday.in/india/s...142-2025-06-12

However, I can't find any reference of the specifics of the distress call or any evidence that they said they were suffering a lack of power.

Thank you, and to HI288 too! this combined with the FR24 blog post about adsb loss just over the runway threshold, and the latest DGCA ask for Air India 787 maintenance adds more weight to the theory, IMO, that there was a major technical issue in play here.

I see that the India DGCA has gone in early with some narrative guidance and also some corporate bum steel plating.

DGCA requires inspections on all B787 aircraft before they leave India, various disparate systems, even so far as the cabin pressurisation system. Yep, that would cause a crash a minute after take off.

They are carefully showing that they are DOING something even if it is mostly meaningless and more importantly they are sowing the seeds of doubt in the aircraft. This accident could not possibly be due to the action or inaction of DGCA licenced pilots.

Strong move.

Dont be afraid. I am following along. There is no evidence. Can you vouch for the authenticity of the audio recording? I cannot see a RAT in that image only a blur.

I tell you what I am watching closely, the words and subtle meaning in the press conference of Civil Aviation Minister, Shri Ram Mohan Naidu, who has set up a “special high level committee” to oversee the investigation of this “incident.

A little odd given they have the DGCA and AAIB in place, dont you think?

He indicates they are to report within three months.

It is now 48 hours since the EAFR was recovered. A small group of people know the answer NOW.

Thanks for the heads up. The story also says, "No cause has yet been identified for what would be an extremely rare power loss from both engines, but on Sunday the Indian civil air authority (DGCA) began urgent pre-flight inspections of fuel systems, electronic engine controls and other systems on Indian Boeing 787s."

And it quotes Juan Browne (Blancolirio): \x93There was something terribly wrong with this 787 jet and we need to find out really quickly what went wrong because we\x92ve got a thousand of these operating today and operators need to find out what happened.\x94

Does the article say anything about the toilet habits of bears?

Please, we really don't need any more snark in this thread. And your snark suggests that you may not understand the implications of the story cited in the posts you quoted.

That the Times reports, clearly based on information from official Indian sources, that loss of thrust in both engines was a key factor in this crash, and that DGCA has ordered urgent inspections of 787s because of preliminary findings of the investigation, is important news from one of the most responsible newspapers anywhere. And Juan Browne's urging quick action and citing the importance to the entire fleet and to aviation generally is also significant. He's a respected aviator many here pay serious attention to.

The contrast to the previous inspection order is noteworthy.

The checks on the Indian 787 fleet are proceeding apace. Hindustan Times :

The Times article also helpfully informs us that

"The [RAT] is not intended to provide enough power and controls for an aircraft to climb after take-off, merely to give minimum control for an emergency descent from altitude"

Not trying to drift the thread away but the 8300 hours being quoted is apparently incorrect and is taken from the relatively new DGCA online database which requires pilots to upload their hours post 2019. None of the pilots have bothered filling up their entire logbooks prior to that. The operating captain was on the Airbus 310 fleet in air India, which probably dates back to him being in the company since the 90s

So it could be less\x85.regardless yes it might not be a contributing factor.

On Jun 13th 2025 the DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF CIVIL AVIATION (DGCA) reported, that initial preliminary findings rule out a bird strike as no bird carcasses have been found.

Agreed.
Also, I expect the airport would've sent a car out to check the runway for evidence. Since we agree that the engine failure occurred near rotation, and that rotation occured well inside the runway ( see e.g. fdr here , or the granular ADS-B data), that car would've encountered a bloody mess, and we'd all know about it by now.

The problem with these reports is that the Indian AAIB and DGCA websites ( aaib.gov.in www.dgca.gov.in ) are mute on the subject of this crash, so even the DGCA inspection mandate quoted above is shakily sourced. On Friday, AvHerald had already updated with "On Jun 13th 2025 the DGCA reported, that initial preliminary findings rule out a bird strike as no bird carcasses have been found." I searched for a source for this, and found an "exclusive" which read, "The initial probe report of the Ahmedabad Air India crash, accessed by CNN-News18, reveals key findings from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation\x92s assessment led by the director of security." Other media simply quoted News18. There are two reasons to be skeptical here:
\x95 first, we have seen fake reports circulating;
\x95 secondly, News18 rates badly on mediabiasfactcheck.com: "Launched in 2005, CNN-News18 (formerly CNN-IBN) is an English-language Indian news television channel based in India. We also rate them Questionable based on a poor fact-checking record with numerous false claims."
That leads me to consider that this "exclusive" might be sloppy reporting based on a fake\x97I have no way to know whether it is legitimate or not.

At this point, I feel we can only rely on information being official if it's published through an official website, or if there's independent reporting or a video clip from an official press briefing.

I do believe the accident was not caused by an animal strike, for many reasons.
But I wouldn't believe it based on unsourced reporting alone.

It's hard to know what conclusion to draw from this. You might read the summary and think the planes where grounded because Air India found some sort of maintenance related smoking gun, but the article also states that all of the 787-8 Dreamliners the DGCA inspected so far (24 of 33?) were found to be safe, and suggests the planes were grounded due to poor, but not immediately threatening, maintenance. It's also interesting that it is only 787-8 Dreamliners that are being grounded.

The only reasonable takeaway is that this is further evidence that the crash was not caused by the pilots.

Air India are doing inspections because the DGCA mandated them ASAP. If they didn't announce completing the inspections and finding no issues then people would read things into that. They pretty much have to declare them safe if they find nothing of interest.

https://avherald.com/h?article=528f27ec&opt=0

An interesting statement.

Does the statement imply that something noted on the crashed aircraft was not present on the remaining aircraft.

If the investigative team are aware of what happened, are they also aware of why it happened. As noted elsewhere - surely far too soon to be certain. If they are not aware of the why or how, how can they be certain there are no safety deficiencies.

Similarily, aircraft and maintainence comply with existing standards. It may well have been the case that existing standards were applied to the crashed aircraft. Does the statement imply that there was nothing wrong with either the Boeing aircraft or the Air India standards. What about the GE engines, are they considered part of the description of both aircraft and standards.

Or was the entire exercise merely a PR wash which achieved nothing other than optics that 787s and Air India are safe because standards are being maintained and aeroplanes have no issues.

I'm tempted to read nothing into the statement because it came from the DGCA rather than the AAIB of India.