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Tu.114
2025-06-13T10:11:00 permalink Post: 11900287 |
So what is known at the moment?
- The flight crew consisted of an experienced Captain and a First Officer with a little more than 1000 hours. Whether or not this flight was a training event appears not yet determined. - The aircraft departed from Ahmedabad, using full length of the runway, lifting off at an appropriate distance from the departure end and reaching an altitude of less than 1000ft before descending again to an impact. It therefore got out of ground effect. Also, the power selected for takeoff was sufficient to get the aircraft airborne within the constraints of the field. - The landing gear was left down much longer than usual and remained so for the whole duration of the flight. - Flaps appear to have been extended normally to a setting not triggering any pre-takeoff configuration warning. On the 787, extended TE flaps are not as obviously visible as on other types, especially with low quality pictures, but a gap between the flaps and the wing proper was visible, showing a glimpse of the engine nacelle through it. - Whether or not the RAT was out appears not entirely clear, although there are strong indicators of it being deployed. If this is confirmed, this seems to point to a major engine or electric issue. - Engine noise is surprisingly low on the available videos, either drowned out by environnmental noise (the 787 is not a noisy bird) or due to lack of power produced. - Descent was at a very high AOA and appears not intentional. The crew did not decide to push the nose down. - The aircraft appears to have been structurally intact with nothing issuing from it. No debris, smoke, fumes or liquids were in trail, no parts were observed to have been lost or dropped. - There seems to have been a mayday call from the aircraft, possibly indicating power issues. The crew seems to have found no reason to abort the takeoff before V1. Whatever befell them must have struck past that speed and given them cause not to retract the landing gear. Whether the lever was not moved or the systems did not react to it is not determined yet. The aircraft had enough energy to climb to about 600, in any case less than 1000ft altitude. Ahmedabad seems not to call for a specific NADP, but whether it was NADP1, 2, A or B that was flown, it is fairly safe to assume that its normal regime would have been takeoff power and takeoff flap settings at that time. Multiple other aircraft departed from or arrived at Ahmedabad before the accident, of which at least one must in all probability have taken onboard the fuel from the local bowsers in substantial amounts and used it without troubles, or else there would have been other flights in trouble due to this. I am awaiting the preliminary report from the authorities and the readout of the data recorders with much interest. Last edited by Tu.114; 13th Jun 2025 at 10:32 . 14 users liked this post. |
krismiler
2025-06-13T12:11:00 permalink Post: 11900426 |
Survivor and eye witness recollections can be very unreliable and need to be treated with caution. There is easy access to the flight data recorders so hopefully it won't be too long before a preliminary report is out. Boeing must be praying for the cause to be pilot error, after the way in which the company handled the crashes of the B737 MAX, the FAA won't be impressed with a video of the CEO flying onboard and telling everyone how safe the aircraft is. Anything aircraft related and you can guarantee a worldwide grounding of the type, they won't be flying while Boeing works on a software fix.
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AndyJS
2025-06-13T23:38:00 permalink Post: 11901000 |
They normally publish a preliminary report a lot sooner than 3 years after the accident as far as I know.
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sTeamTraen
2025-06-14T13:00:00 permalink Post: 11901462 |
Do we have an idea of how long it will take for a preliminary report on the cause of the accident? Presumably Boeing and GE will want to know pretty quickly if there needs to be an urgent maintenance bulletin.
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DaveReidUK
2025-06-14T13:53:00 permalink Post: 11901507 |
But I would fully expect some findings from the FDR and CVR analyses within the next few days, given the high profile of the accident and the fact that operators of 1000-odd 787s are waiting anxiously in case there turns out to be some previously undiscovered failure mode that could affect their fleets (though that's highly unlikely IMHO); 2 users liked this post. |
Travis Anderson
2025-06-15T09:59:00 permalink Post: 11902310 |
In less than a month we'll have a preliminary report. Last edited by T28B; 15th Jun 2025 at 13:00 . Reason: brackets completed |
LTC8K6
2025-06-15T18:41:00 permalink Post: 11902705 |
The biggest news site in Greece claims to have the results of a kind of preliminary report from India AAIB which say that as the plane rotated, the pilot's seat malfunctioned (broken pin) and went suddenly far back forcing the captain to accidentally lower the thrust lever as he already had his hand on it and despite the co-pilots effort to help increase the thrust it was already to late to avoid the stall. I dont believe they would have posted something as serious as this without any credible source cause they are supposed to be a serious news outlet but you never know when stupidity takes over validity. Source is the protothema dot gr site
I'd be surprised if they are mechanically adjusted and held in place by a pin. |
Tu.114
2025-06-15T18:48:00 permalink Post: 11902708 |
The biggest news site in Greece claims to have the results of a kind of preliminary report from India AAIB which say that as the plane rotated, the pilot's seat malfunctioned (broken pin) and went suddenly far back forcing the captain to accidentally lower the thrust lever as he already had his hand on it
Even if the levers may have been inadvertently pulled to idle, it would have taken one single energic adjustment to slam them to maximum thrust position (whatever it is called on the 787), for which there was some time during the brief flight. And two idling engines should not result in anything triggering the RAT release or APU auto start. Of course, stranger things have happened, but I\xb4d consider this scenario not plausible. 15 users liked this post. |
FL370 Officeboy
2025-06-15T18:53:00 permalink Post: 11902716 |
The biggest news site in Greece claims to have the results of a kind of preliminary report from India AAIB which say that as the plane rotated, the pilot's seat malfunctioned (broken pin) and went suddenly far back forcing the captain to accidentally lower the thrust lever as he already had his hand on it and despite the co-pilots effort to help increase the thrust it was already to late to avoid the stall. I dont believe they would have posted something as serious as this without any credible source cause they are supposed to be a serious news outlet but you never know when stupidity takes over validity. Source is the protothema dot gr site
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LTC8K6
2025-06-15T18:57:00 permalink Post: 11902719 |
The biggest news site in Greece claims to have the results of a kind of preliminary report from India AAIB which say that as the plane rotated, the pilot's seat malfunctioned (broken pin) and went suddenly far back forcing the captain to accidentally lower the thrust lever as he already had his hand on it and despite the co-pilots effort to help increase the thrust it was already to late to avoid the stall. I dont believe they would have posted something as serious as this without any credible source cause they are supposed to be a serious news outlet but you never know when stupidity takes over validity. Source is the protothema dot gr site
2 users liked this post. |
fdr
2025-06-15T18:58:00 permalink Post: 11902721 |
The biggest news site in Greece claims to have the results of a kind of preliminary report from India AAIB which say that as the plane rotated, the pilot's seat malfunctioned (broken pin) and went suddenly far back forcing the captain to accidentally lower the thrust lever as he already had his hand on it and despite the co-pilots effort to help increase the thrust it was already to late to avoid the stall. I dont believe they would have posted something as serious as this without any credible source cause they are supposed to be a serious news outlet but you never know when stupidity takes over validity. Source is the protothema dot gr site
The proposition that is floated is that the pilot does not pull back on the control column, which he is holding onto with both hands as his seat slides backwards like a caricature of a bad Cessna 180 seat rail, that is plainly obvious from the pitch attitude of the aircraft, yet grabs lustily a double handful of thrust levers and holds onto those until meeting Ganesh in the next life? Greek papers appear to be as rigorous and incisive in their cognition as the Daily Telegraph. Golly. Seats: electric. RAT deployment... presumably the hapless pilot doesn't grab the control column, or the thrust levers, just grabs both fuel control switches instead???? Do any reporters bother to read what they write? 9 users liked this post. |
fgrieu
2025-06-15T19:14:00 permalink Post: 11902739 |
Greek journal's report based on a forgery
This page
https://i1.prth.gr/images/w880/jpg/f...air-india.webp
(update: also
https://www.protothema.gr/images/w13.../air-india.jpg
) is an alleged summary of the preliminary report, posted by the Greek journal. One suspicious thing is it lists the URL of the report, but that's 404.
I'm posting this so that others can scrutinize the thing. [update] The more I look at it, the less I believe it. The "Immediate ActionsTaken" and "Next Step" sections could not be in a preliminary report at this stage. Some details are wrong (like the state of the surviving passenger) or made up (the FAA emergency AD 2025-16-51 listed as source is not there: https://drs.faa.gov/browse/ADFREAD/doctypeDetails ). Last edited by fgrieu; 16th Jun 2025 at 03:08 . Reason: update |
Undertow
2025-06-15T19:22:00 permalink Post: 11902744 |
this page (https) i1.prth.gr/images/w880/jpg/files/2025-06-15/air-india.webp is an alleged summary of the preliminary report, posted by the Greek journal. One suspicious thing is it lists the URL of the report, but that's 404.
I'm posting this so that others can scrutinize the thing. EDIT: It appears to be AI hallucinated nonsense. 3 users liked this post. |
limahotel
2025-06-15T19:24:00 permalink Post: 11902747 |
The biggest news site in Greece claims to have the results of a kind of preliminary report from India AAIB which say that as the plane rotated, the pilot's seat malfunctioned (broken pin) and went suddenly far back forcing the captain to accidentally lower the thrust lever as he already had his hand on it and despite the co-pilots effort to help increase the thrust it was already to late to avoid the stall. I dont believe they would have posted something as serious as this without any credible source cause they are supposed to be a serious news outlet but you never know when stupidity takes over validity. Source is the protothema dot gr site
1 user liked this post. |
EnerJi
2025-06-15T19:29:00 permalink Post: 11902750 |
The biggest news site in Greece claims to have the results of a kind of preliminary report from India AAIB which say that as the plane rotated, the pilot's seat malfunctioned (broken pin) and went suddenly far back forcing the captain to accidentally lower the thrust lever as he already had his hand on it and despite the co-pilots effort to help increase the thrust it was already to late to avoid the stall.
The Ipeco seats fitted on the 787 (and other airframes) have had numerous problems and numerous Airworthiness Directives to correct issues of uncommanded movement. They are not exclusively electric (i.e. can also be manually adjusted), and presumably there is some sort of pin or locking mechanism to hold them in place and this mechanism (at least in original form or if not corrected) has been known to fail. The most famous incidents involving the 787 resulted in uncommanded forward movement of the seat, resulting in inadvertent depressing of the yoke and an unexpected pitch down. Other Ipeco seats have been implicated in unexpected forward AND rearward movements. The FAA published an AD just a couple of days ago related to an Ipeco seat doing just that (different model seat not on Boeing planes, FWIW). You're probably right. Until we start getting reliable information from official sources it's wise to take the theories of a single news outlet with a huge chunk of salt. |
gearlever
2025-06-17T08:27:00 permalink Post: 11904073 |
"On Jun 17th 2025 an official, a former Air India Captain trained by the Captain of the accident flight, stated, that the CVR has been successfully read out, the voices on the CVR are very clear. It is becoming gradually clear from the newly emerging evidence that there was probably zero negligence in the cockpit, the crew did not give up until the very last moment. The probability of a technical cause is high. A preliminary report by India's AAIB can be expected in a few days."
AvH 10 users liked this post. |
geo10
2025-06-17T08:42:00 permalink Post: 11904093 |
"On Jun 17th 2025 an official, a former Air India Captain trained by the Captain of the accident flight, stated, that the CVR has been successfully read out, the voices on the CVR are very clear. It is becoming gradually clear from the newly emerging evidence that there was probably zero negligence in the cockpit, the crew did not give up until the very last moment. The probability of a technical cause is high. A preliminary report by India's AAIB can be expected in a few days."
AvH |
Gary Brown
2025-06-17T09:35:00 permalink Post: 11904142 |
"On Jun 17th 2025 an official, a former Air India Captain trained by the Captain of the accident flight, stated, that the CVR has been successfully read out, the voices on the CVR are very clear. It is becoming gradually clear from the newly emerging evidence that there was probably zero negligence in the cockpit, the crew did not give up until the very last moment. The probability of a technical cause is high. A preliminary report by India's AAIB can be expected in a few days."
AvH If this report is accurate, I'd hazard that a specific maintenance issue has been identified. If the "technical cause" was a system or parts failure or fault, then I'd expect a lot of similar 787s to have been grounded by now. Last edited by Gary Brown; 17th Jun 2025 at 10:04 . Reason: Clarity 3 users liked this post. |
Squawk7700
2025-06-17T10:32:00 permalink Post: 11904185 |
"On Jun 17th 2025 an official, a former Air India Captain trained by the Captain of the accident flight, stated, that the CVR has been successfully read out, the voices on the CVR are very clear. It is becoming gradually clear from the newly emerging evidence that there was probably zero negligence in the cockpit, the crew did not give up until the very last moment. The probability of a technical cause is high. A preliminary report by India's AAIB can be expected in a few days."
AvH This comment is from a low-budget news source. 1 user liked this post. |
galaxy flyer
2025-06-17T13:14:00 permalink Post: 11904294 |
"On Jun 17th 2025 an official, a former Air India Captain trained by the Captain of the accident flight, stated, that the CVR has been successfully read out, the voices on the CVR are very clear. It is becoming gradually clear from the newly emerging evidence that there was probably zero negligence in the cockpit, the crew did not give up until the very last moment. The probability of a technical cause is high. A preliminary report by India's AAIB can be expected in a few days."
AvH |