Breaking News - Air India 171 to London Gatwick crashes in Ahmedabad - 240+ Souls

[quintessentone]

The incident rate would be higher, if not the accident rate. There would be other clues, because aircraft have been flying long enough to have gone through heavy maintenance, and issues developed. This aircraft had flown around 40,000 hours, and was the 26th 787 built. If there were serious issues with the airframe, even if it was something that would develop over time, they should be seeing them on some airframes. I'm sure there are issues that will still crop up, and there have definitely been production issues, but we should be seeing major issues by now if they were out there.

Maybe the issues are just showing up now?

[Zaphod58]

Maybe the issues are just showing up now?

That would be pretty impressive that they went 40,000 hours of all the stress that the planes go through on a daily basis, and only just now had any issue show up, and the first sign was a crash.

[quintessentone]

That would be pretty impressive that they went 40,000 hours of all the stress that the planes go through on a daily basis, and only just now had any issue show up, and the first sign was a crash.

That's one hellava tragic and horrific resulting crash for an issue to show up, if that is what it is.

[Zaphod58]

Something was definitely not right with this flight. They taxied back to the end of the runway, which was 12,000 feet long. The take off video shows them lifting off near the end of the runway, and kicking up dust and dirt at the far end of the runway as they rotated and got airborne.

[Quantum12]

There was a crash here in Michigan in 1987, Northwest Airlines Flight 255,  just after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airpory like this India flight.

A 4 year old girl was the only survivor out of 154 passengers and crew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_...Flight_255

Miracles do happen.

I remember the day it happened very well, it was a scorcher here in the Detroit area, 95 degrees or so.
Bill Bonds, the main TV news anchor here on channel 7, was crying on Live TV when they found out the little girl survived.

My neighbor Joanne Michelle Surowitz was on flight 255. No flaps! Yep one girl survived.

[RazorV66]

My neighbor Joanne Michelle Surowitz was on flight 255. No flaps! Yep one girl survived.

Wow!!

Sorry to hear that.

[Sky727]

https://nypost.com/2025/06/12/world-news...t-crashed/World News Shocking video reportedly shows power failures inside Air India plane hours before it crashed: ‘Nothing is working’A passenger who reportedly flew on the doomed Air India jet just two hours before it crashed, killing more than 200 people, posted shocking video in which he says “nothing” was working in the cabin — including lights, air conditioning and the seat-back display screens.
The eerie footage was purportedly taken inside the Boeing 787 Dreamliner on its second-to-last flight as it flew from Delhi to Ahmedabad, hours before it crashed shortly after takeoff en route to London’s Gatwick airport.

One passenger in seat 11A survived the crash and was found WALKING away from the crash ! https://nypost.com/2025/06/12/world-news...around-me/

[KKLoco]

I'm curious what's going on in that video of the survivor walking out. It seems that the crowd is jeering him of sorts. He keeps waving them off. I'm curious what they are saying to him. What a lucky MOFO. I'd get 11a for the rest of my life if it wasn't a window seat. I need the aisle due to broad shoulders.

[rickymouse]

I guess the guy who survived said there was a big bang then the jet went down.  Kind of wonder if there was a bomb on it.  If one engine blew, the jet could still possibly stay up, but would have to circle around and land.  I wonder what they are going to find out in their investigation.  Someone here posted there were quite a few possible casualties in the city, but in the news articles I read on it, they failed to mention that.  They seemed to just mention the people on the jet as casualties.

[EXETER]

Something was definitely not right with this flight. They taxied back to the end of the runway, which was 12,000 feet long. The take off video shows them lifting off near the end of the runway, and kicking up dust and dirt at the far end of the runway as they rotated and got airborne.

I think they would almost certainly have calculated the rotation speed for takeoff based on the assumption that the correct amounts of flaps and slats were deployed for takeoff.  If no flaps were actually deployed then the aircraft could not possibly have lifted off and started flying at the designated rotation speed.  But if the pilot pulled back on the yoke at the rotation speed anyway, what that would have done is to increase the drag while the aircraft is still rolling along the ground, thereby prolonging the takeoff roll even more. In a severe case this can increase the drag enough that the aircraft never reaches a speed at which it can fly without the flaps being deployed, before it reaches the end of the runway.

There was a famous incident in 1972 where a privately owned F-86 Sabre jet did exactly that at the Sacramento Executive airport.  It over-rotated early in the takeoff roll and reached the end of the runway without enough speed to fly and too much speed to stop. It hit a berm at the end of the runway, plowed through a chain link fence which tore off the belly tanks creating a fireball, crossed the freeway and plowed into an ice cream parlor on the other side.  F-86s were notoriously unforgiving in this regard because they used first generation straight turbojet engines which couldn't develop much thrust until they got moving fast. If the pilot got behind the power curve of an F-86 on takeoff, there was no way to save the flight.  

Modern high-bypass turbofan engines like on the 787 have better power delivery characteristics than the old turbojets, so the Air India aircraft was probably still building thrust and therefore speed all along the takeoff run.  It looks like it had just enough speed to liftoff at the end of the runway without flaps deployed, but when the pilot pulled back on the yoke again to try to climb the drag increased again and the speed decayed.  I would have to think that the stall warnings would have gone off about that time, prompting the pilot to push the yoke forward.  He was probably trying to find a pitch attitude that would not result in a stall while allowing the aircraft to gain enough speed to fly out of the situation.  The problem is that even if you manage to put the nose down to a neutral pitch attitude, you will still have lost energy in that maneuver, so you will inevitably also lose altitude before regaining enough speed to climb.  Losing altitude is what he was doing when he hit the apartment building.

Considering that the aircraft used up the entire length of the runway, I would suspect that the "loud noise" that the surviving passenger heard was the aircraft hitting something at the departure end of the runway.  Lamp post, or something like that.