Security camera footage accessed and verified by the Associated Press showed Air India flight 171 bound for London taking off and crashing into a medical college in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, killing more than 180 people in one of India's worst airline disasters in decades.
It seems to climb OK for a little while then suddenly start sinking. There’s no sign of an obvious engine problem. Not sure whether we’d be able to see any sign of a bird strike from this far away.
Agree with your comment regarding the pilots but the plane has with Air India for 13 years. If there was a mechanical problem it’s likely to be maintenance at fault. And I say that as someone who goes out of their way to not fly Boeing.
not necessarily. John Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower which died after 2 days into his three day deposition, said that that the assembly line sloppiness would take about ten to twelve years to culminate in a crash.
Let’s see what the black boxes give us. We should have the first information soon. I’m not going to categorically defend Boeing (again, I am not flying on their planes myself) but right now we just have no information on what caused the likely dual engine rollback.
This has to be pilot error. Even at stall, it looks like pilot didn’t even try to level out
They were like less than 200m from the ground. There was literally no space to recover from the stall. You need some altitude to pitch the nose down and recover from a stall.
It’s always hard to judge AoA unless you’re looking side-on with a horizon for reference, but excessive nose-up attitude caused by cargo incorrectly loaded or not secured properly so it shifted aft during rotation could have caused an aerodynamic stall.
Yeah, it’s rather strange. There is another one from a perspective where the aircraft almost “overflew” the cameraman (basically at a 5’o clock angle)- it shows them having aileron and elevator control right until they crash. And while the quality is poor, I am somewhat convinced that the RAT has not deployed (yet?)
A bird strike would likely have caused something visible
So it doesn’t sound like hydraulics or fuel(water in the fueltanks?) or something electronic wise with the engine control.
Strange and sad.
I just saw that video and it is really strange. Not so much that rat hasn’t been deployed, I don’t think they lost hydraulics or electronics and I’m not sure they even reached the minimum speed where the rat would really help.
The strange thing is that it didn’t really look like there was very much yaw or rolling which you would expect to see with a fuel system failure. They seemed to be flying straight as an arrow and gliding it down?
Maybe something wrong with thrust control? Kinda crazy.
I don’t know for sure, but I imagine all airports have a bunch of cameras. To me it looks like it was a wider shot and someone went and focused on it through the NVR.
Yeah,I am not sure if there is a safety interlock with Boeing RATs(and the video is really bad)…so it might be intentional.
It’s strange.
Personally I currently go with water in the fuel system as the “most likely guess by a armchair pilot”(me),but wouldn’t also be surprised being it an electronic error. When that would be the case Boeing would be fucked beyond repair,imho.
Something wrong with the fuel system was my initial armchair guess, but I’m not so sure based off the second vid. One would expect to see some yaw or rolling in an underpowered or lost of power take off with a jet.
Guess we’ll have to wait until someone more qualified explains it.
No.
Faults often don’t get detected early,need certain circumstances (swiss cheese model) or quite simply, are caused by replacement parts.
There is a long chain of things that could fall into Boeing responsibility - and even if it doesn’t the market does not always react reasonably.
Why are you idiots even putting me in the position of defending Boeing lmao. Yes I’m aware of all the problems the Dreamliner had, alleged and in practical use. But none of them can explain what happened to the Air India flight.
The problems Barnett brought to attention don’t give you a double engine rollback immediately after rotation.
For multi engine planes it’s pretty rare, most likely a fuel system failure, or less likely pilot throttling error. My money would be on something with the fuel system.
What’s way weirder is that he’s got zero flaps and gear is still down, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do when climbing out. Maybe pilot error (control inversion)?
Slats are 100% deployed, you can see that in the videos, indicating the plane was in Takeoff Config. Now, the flaps themselves are hard to make out in the grainy videos and they don’t extend much on takeoff. Edit: https://imgur.com/a/JzS3ro9
Much more important is the lack of engine noise. We can also see the rat turbine was automatically deployed, indicating a complete loss of power only seconds after they rotated. Which is also why the landing gear did not retract.
I don’t know what could’ve caused a dual engine failure, simultaneously, immediately after takeoff but that seems to be where everything is pointing to. Possibly problems with the fuel?
Looks like it stalled due to lack of thrust. What could have killed both engines right after takeoff?
It seems to climb OK for a little while then suddenly start sinking. There’s no sign of an obvious engine problem. Not sure whether we’d be able to see any sign of a bird strike from this far away.
bird strike taking out both engines? nah.
This has to be pilot error. Even at stall, it looks like pilot didn’t even try to level out.
It is a Boeing plane. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions on the pilots being at fault.
Fair Point
Agree with your comment regarding the pilots but the plane has with Air India for 13 years. If there was a mechanical problem it’s likely to be maintenance at fault. And I say that as someone who goes out of their way to not fly Boeing.
not necessarily. John Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower which died after 2 days into his three day deposition, said that that the assembly line sloppiness would take about ten to twelve years to culminate in a crash.
https://prospect.org/economy/2025-06-12-dreamliner-gave-boeing-manager-nightmares-just-crashed-air-india/
Let’s see what the black boxes give us. We should have the first information soon. I’m not going to categorically defend Boeing (again, I am not flying on their planes myself) but right now we just have no information on what caused the likely dual engine rollback.
Why not? That’s the reason Sully had to land on the Hudson.
They were like less than 200m from the ground. There was literally no space to recover from the stall. You need some altitude to pitch the nose down and recover from a stall.
It’s always hard to judge AoA unless you’re looking side-on with a horizon for reference, but excessive nose-up attitude caused by cargo incorrectly loaded or not secured properly so it shifted aft during rotation could have caused an aerodynamic stall.
It’s a passenger plane. I don’t think 200 people slid to the back of the plane after rotation.
While I am a bit of a misanthrope, I do stop short of referring to people as cargo.
I was just thinking about this, perhaps when the aircraft rotated, water or other contaminants got drawn into the fuel system?
Or shifting cargo damaged the fuel lines?
Yeah, it’s rather strange. There is another one from a perspective where the aircraft almost “overflew” the cameraman (basically at a 5’o clock angle)- it shows them having aileron and elevator control right until they crash. And while the quality is poor, I am somewhat convinced that the RAT has not deployed (yet?)
A bird strike would likely have caused something visible So it doesn’t sound like hydraulics or fuel(water in the fueltanks?) or something electronic wise with the engine control. Strange and sad.
I just saw that video and it is really strange. Not so much that rat hasn’t been deployed, I don’t think they lost hydraulics or electronics and I’m not sure they even reached the minimum speed where the rat would really help.
The strange thing is that it didn’t really look like there was very much yaw or rolling which you would expect to see with a fuel system failure. They seemed to be flying straight as an arrow and gliding it down?
Maybe something wrong with thrust control? Kinda crazy.
Is it common for CCTV to track and follow all planes as they take off like the camera in this video seems to be?
I think that’s editing, rather than something the camera did.
You can see a mouse cursor in the video. Someone is manually zooming in and following the plane, likely while reviewing the footage.
Ah, OK yeah that makes sense.
I don’t know for sure, but I imagine all airports have a bunch of cameras. To me it looks like it was a wider shot and someone went and focused on it through the NVR.
Yeah,I am not sure if there is a safety interlock with Boeing RATs(and the video is really bad)…so it might be intentional.
It’s strange. Personally I currently go with water in the fuel system as the “most likely guess by a armchair pilot”(me),but wouldn’t also be surprised being it an electronic error. When that would be the case Boeing would be fucked beyond repair,imho.
Something wrong with the fuel system was my initial armchair guess, but I’m not so sure based off the second vid. One would expect to see some yaw or rolling in an underpowered or lost of power take off with a jet.
Guess we’ll have to wait until someone more qualified explains it.
Dude the plane is 13 years old. If there was a mechanical problem with the plane its on Air India, and I say that as a certified Airbus fanboy.
No. Faults often don’t get detected early,need certain circumstances (swiss cheese model) or quite simply, are caused by replacement parts. There is a long chain of things that could fall into Boeing responsibility - and even if it doesn’t the market does not always react reasonably.
John Barnett said that the corner cutting during construction would culminate in a crash after 10 to 12 years.
https://prospect.org/economy/2025-06-12-dreamliner-gave-boeing-manager-nightmares-just-crashed-air-india/
Why are you idiots even putting me in the position of defending Boeing lmao. Yes I’m aware of all the problems the Dreamliner had, alleged and in practical use. But none of them can explain what happened to the Air India flight.
The problems Barnett brought to attention don’t give you a double engine rollback immediately after rotation.
is it going fast enough for the RAT to deploy?
Maybe the high-lift devices malfunctioned?
For multi engine planes it’s pretty rare, most likely a fuel system failure, or less likely pilot throttling error. My money would be on something with the fuel system.
Maybe, maybe not.
What’s way weirder is that he’s got zero flaps and gear is still down, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do when climbing out. Maybe pilot error (control inversion)?
Slats are 100% deployed, you can see that in the videos, indicating the plane was in Takeoff Config. Now, the flaps themselves are hard to make out in the grainy videos and they don’t extend much on takeoff. Edit: https://imgur.com/a/JzS3ro9
Much more important is the lack of engine noise. We can also see the rat turbine was automatically deployed, indicating a complete loss of power only seconds after they rotated. Which is also why the landing gear did not retract.
I don’t know what could’ve caused a dual engine failure, simultaneously, immediately after takeoff but that seems to be where everything is pointing to. Possibly problems with the fuel?