Plane crash, India

[moffspeed]

Early reports of a passenger plane down in a residential area near Ahmedabad airport western India.

242 souls on board, apparently Gatwick-bound.

Doesn't sound good.

[MitchT]

Air India Dreamliner heading for London LGW by all accounts.

[milesgiles]

First ever hull loss of a 787?

Was looking at flights to India BA was the same price as Air India. Probably not now

[essayer]

video on X.. just seems to show it descending while still in takeoff config, followed by ground impact and a big explosion


e: the flaps aren't very visible, not sure if they would be at this stage?

Edited by essayer on Thursday 12th June 10:21

[Gazzas86]

Just seen the video of the crash, was controlled decent by the looks of it, followed by the crash/fireball etc, Amazed that there are survivors being rushed to hospital, but i would assume they are locals on the ground whom have been injured etc. RIP to those souls lost.

[type-r]

The footage on X of the plane going down, if genuine, is shocking. There will be no suvrviors from that!

[BrettMRC]

Looks to be almost under control, no power?

[carl_w]

Ahmedabad airport: the place where I was stuck in the check-in queue behind a family checking in 300kg of luggage.

[remedy]

Weird, conflicting reports from news sources.

One Indian news site says the issues happened on the tarmac and only several were injured.
Others say (with video) it came down during takeoff.

The rush to be first with news, I guess.
Terrible all round.

[KTF]

Will be interesting to see what the report says about this incident. Looks like it was just gliding?

Agree that no one is going to survive that though.

[NerveAgent]

Hard to tell from the videos, but potential for lots of casualties on the ground too. Looks quite built up.

[MitchT]

Flaps don't look to be in takeoff configuration in the video.

[AB]

Yikes, wonder what happened there, some explosion!

[ScotHill]

Some supposition online, based on the video, that the flaps may have been disengaged instead of the undercarriage being raised on take off. Depends on the context of when/where the video was taken though.

[MikeGTi]

Intersection/midpoint takeoff and doesn't look like the flaps were set

[KTF]

MitchT said:

Flaps don't look to be in takeoff configuration in the video.

Would it even get off the ground with the flaps set to 0 (I guess seemingly it did)?

Would have been a much longer take off roll which you would have thought should have alerted the crew that something was up.

[MitchT]

KTF said:

Would it even get off the ground with the flaps set to 0 (I guess seemingly it did)?

Perhaps took off in correct configuration but selected flaps up instead of gear up.

[Master Bean]

What engines do Air India use? Are they the Rolls Royce with the problem fan blades?

[Eric Mc]

The aircraft seemed to be in flying straight and level but descending so my hunch is that the engines lost power and were developing insufficient thrust to enable the aircraft to climb away.

The comment above about the lack of flaps could be of significance as that would cause an aircraft to lose lift IF the flaps and/or slats were retracted too early. This is what happened back in 1972 when a BEA Trident crashed just outside Staines.

However, it should not be possible for flaps and slats to be retracted too early. Even back in 1972 there were all sorts of warning and automatic recovery systems installed on that Trident. Unfortunately someone on the flight deck seems to have deliberately disabled these systems which doomed the aeroplane.

An aircraft as modern as the 787 should have even more sophisticated safety systems to prevent premature retarction of flaps and slats.

[valiant]

Jeez, that’s bad.

There’s probably family and friends on their way to Gatwick to meet who will not have heard the news or assume it’s another plane.

Heart goes out to them