Posts by user "SRMman" [Posts: 8 Total up-votes: 0 Pages: 1]

I rather thought the \x93green white\x94 flickering lights were the overhead ceiling lights, which I believe change colour on the 787, perhaps indicating a power supply interruption.

I wonder if the delay in announcing any preliminary findings is because of the enormity of the consequences.

Let us say the investigation team have discovered a unique technical fault that caused the accident, but don\x92t yet know why it happened, how would the team proceed? On the one hand they\x92ve uncovered a fault which could reoccur and cause another accident (but a fault that has only happened once in 14 years). On the other hand a grounding would have enormous commercial consequences worldwide, with the possibility that an inspection and/or rectification are not yet available.

What would they do?

My point was IF the investigations team have already discovered that a technical issue caused the accident, and it could happen again, how would they balance the need to inform everyone quickly, against the commercial consequences of a grounding, especially if the reason for the fault wasn\x92t yet understood.

To continue with some more speculation (hopefully not idle!) one of the areas I haven\x92t seen much discussion on is maintenance errors. Clearly all aircraft are under a continuous regime of maintenance, whether scheduled or unplanned. In my time long ago we had many specialist technicians on hand to deal with most eventualities, time was always of the essence, but there was a strict process of checking and sign-offs for every bit of technical work carried out. OK, it was the military, but I can\x92t imagine it\x92s much different today in the civil world.

But of course mistakes happen occasionally, leading generally to nothing worse than a cancelled sortie, or less commonly for the aircraft\x92s built-in redundant systems to \x91kick in\x92 or be switched in. On the ground the fault might be on the MEL, in the air a diversion might be necessary. And this was decades ago. What I\x92m leading to is this; on an ultra modern commercial airliner such as the 787, what possible maintenance error could cause such a catastrophic event as happened to AI 171?

We understand the right engine was replaced 3 months ago, and doubtless there have been other regular, routine activities necessitating disturbance of engine, avionic and other systems. One could imagine perhaps an electronic piece of equipment (we called them LRUs) not being fully located in its housing, ditto for plugs and connectors, and such equipment apparently working correctly at the time but failing at a later time. There are anecdotal stories of AirIndia 171 on earlier flights having air conditioning and in-flight entertainment issues. And we don\x92t know what, if any, maintenance/repairs were done immediately before the last flight.

But isn\x92t all this irrelevant, given that, we are told, the 2 engines and controls are uniquely independent of each other and will continue to work in the presence of aircraft major electrical and hydraulic system failures?

In summary, and assuming accidental rather than deliberate, there seems to be no way that double engine failure could result from maintenance error?

I think there is mileage in Richard Godfrey's reasoning, and worth listening to. Here is the latest "Airline News by Geoffrey Thomas" from 6 hours ago.


Admin note: Mr Thomas is a thoroughly debunked Australian whose aviation experience was decades ago as a baggage handler. His narrative should be taken with a mug full of salt.

We are leaving this here as a caution, the YouTube clip was previously deleted.

Senior Pilot

I still think that one of the most puzzling things from the Preliminary Report is the 4 second gap between Engine 1 fuel cutoff switch being returned to RUN, and that of Engine 2. It seems generally agreed one second is a reasonable time to operate both switches, so why did it take so long to move the 2nd switch?

And of course it was the Captain\x92s decision to give that particular take off to the FO.

Actually, we don't know who made the Mayday call.