Posts by user "Doors to Automatic" [Posts: 5 Total up-votes: 11 Page: 1 of 1]¶

Watching the airport video, the takeoff appears normal until the aircraft stops climbing. The camera looks to be located close to the ILS antenna at the start of the runway, so when we first see the film the aircraft is not far into its roll, although difficult to tell exactly how far given the zoom. From the moment we see the aircraft to the point of rotation is 16 seconds, so I don't get the impression that the aircraft was close to the end of the runway. The speed of the plane when we first see it versus its position relative to the ILS antenna also strongly suggests that they used full length.

There was nothing wrong with the takeoff or the initial climb out from what I could see. A config or thrust derate mistake would have resulted in a different initial profile. The aircraft would have struggled to leave the ground and barely climbed. The aircraft would have either climbed out successfully or hit something on the way, either on the ground having failed to take off, or in the air having failed to climb sufficiently . Once airborne and clear of obstacles it would have most likely climbed very slowly until clear of danger. Both config and thrust issues could also have been corrected.

That is not what we saw here - a normal looking takeoff followed by a normal initial climb out, fhen a brief level off and a shallow descent, steepening slightly prior to impact.

This points towards a sudden loss of thrust as the most likely cause.

This could be due to birds, a fuel or technical issue or possibly a deliberate shut down. My guess would be some sort of technical issue.

Having read all the posts, watched the videos and with a 30 year background interest in air safety, I have a nagging feeling that the engine fuel cut off switches were pulled just after take-off. I am not saying this with the intention of idle speculation, it is just that to me nothing else seems to make sense. To anyone disagreeing with this, I really hope you are right and I am wrong.

My understanding is that 787s often take off with a substantial de-rate which is why the take-off runs are quite long. If the flaps had been retracted, would an increase to TOGA have been enough to stop the plane sinking?

At the time I hoped I was wrong. I wasn’t .Now I am going to say that whilst not impossible, I think it unlikely that this was a technical issue. Again, I hope I am wrong.