[News] Air India flight AI171 Ahmedabad -> London Gatwick crashed

[METALMICKY]

The professional pilots on PPRUNE say puffs of dust are entirely normal on that runway as the side of the runway is dusty and the wings of big planes overhang it. This video shows it as normal at that rotation point.



There are also ex Air India employees coming out of the woodwork to denounce their safety.

View attachment 204259
Yeah, it’s the Mail. Terrorism would be in their agenda’s interest, whereas damage to a company like Tata wouldn’t.

The PPRUNE guys are split between a twin engine failure caused by a full electrical failure (which is supported by the fact the in flight entertainment, air con and steward call failed on the previous flight) and pilot error.

Those guys views on the recent New York helicopter incident was also pretty interesting. Not forgetting I'm always interested in this chaps opinion

 

[Triggaaar]

The professional pilots on PPRUNE say puffs of dust are entirely normal on that runway as the side of the runway is dusty and the wings of big planes overhang it. This video shows it as normal at that rotation point.



There are also ex Air India employees coming out of the woodwork to denounce their safety.

View attachment 204259
Yeah, it’s the Mail. Terrorism would be in their agenda’s interest, whereas damage to a company like Tata wouldn’t.

The PPRUNE guys are split between a twin engine failure caused by a full electrical failure (which is supported by the fact the in flight entertainment, air con and steward call failed on the previous flight) and pilot error.

If it really was a faulty aircraft that the crew warned about, I would expect air-crash investigators to find out, and that should be the end of Air India. I'm not saying it will be, but it should be.

 

[indy3050]

Woke up this morning having hoped that the fam hadn’t realised it was Friday 13th to see this had happened. Thankfully they all avoided the news and landed in London and I don’t think they know even now!

Some comfort I took before getting on my flight was that it probably wasn’t a better time to fly!

My thoughts and condolences with the families of all affected.

 

[Nottseagull]

In times of issue pilots follow in order:
1. Aviate - try to fly
2. Navigate - try to fly to where you need to get to (emergency landing maybe)
3. Communicate - mayday call if appropriate

I think you've got two and three the wrong way around. You need to seek permission for an emergency landing at your preferred airport.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Those guys views on the recent New York helicopter incident was also pretty interesting. Not forgetting I'm always interested in this chaps opinion

View attachment 204287

Politics aside!

 

[Guinness Boy]

I think you've got two and three the wrong way around. You need to seek permission for an emergency landing at your preferred airport.

No he hasn’t. You’re not going anywhere if you can’t fly.

It’s a well known “learning” saying that’s all over PPRUNE.

 

[METALMICKY]

Politics aside!

Yes and the mid gig rants!

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Yes and the mid gig rants!

Whilst I was a huge fan as a kid, I don’t follow them these days bar odd gig for nostalgia. Does Steve Harris do much media? The press and social media seems to be more Bruce and Nicko but I’d be quite interested to hear more from Harris.

 

[METALMICKY]

Whilst I was a huge fan as a kid, I don’t follow them these days bar odd gig for nostalgia. Does Steve Harris do much media? The press and social media seems to be more Bruce and Nicko but I’d be quite interested to hear more from Harris.

No, Steve is an incredibly reserved character. Of late Bruce and Adrian have been doing the most press what with their respective side projects. Nicko has now retired from touring after his stroke and will be interesting to see how his replacement Simon Dawson fairs in 2 weeks time at the London Stadium gig.

 

[peterward]

I think you've got two and three the wrong way around. You need to seek permission for an emergency landing at your preferred airport.

No, 2 and 3 are the right way around.

In a Mayday situation, Air traffic control will bend over backwards to give an aircraft whatever it wants or asks for.... "communicate" isn't just air traffic control, but also the cabin crew with whom they'll be an emergency briefing and the passengers.

Priority is to fly/control aircraft (aviate), then to be situationally aware of direction/terrain/weather/fuel which = time remaining (navigate), then to talk (communicate).

You dont want to be talking to air traffic or cabin crew and flying 50 miles away from airport, into a Thunderstorm or towards terrain!

 

[Chicken Run]

New clearer photo evidence coming out that the RAT had deployed (Ram Air Turbine Small twin blade prop) suggesting that their may have been a twin engine failure

 

[herecomesaregular]

They've had the black box for, what, 48 hours? And none of this plane type have been grounded....Can't, therefore, see it being a software or mechanical issue with the plane. That leaves pilot error or deliberate actions by someone?

 

[peterward]

They've had the black box for, what, 48 hours? And none of this plane type have been grounded....Can't, therefore, see it being a software or mechanical issue with the plane. That leaves pilot error or deliberate actions by someone?

There's 2 blackboxes, cockpit voice recorder which won't be as much use and the flight data recorder which is the important one, and hopefully they have.

If it is double engine failure? They'll want to know the cause first, was it external environmetal, like birds or sabotage?

was it pilot error in calculations or inputs?

Or was it internal mechanical? and if so, is it a problem with General electric engines as this aircraft had, or is it an aircraft/fuel metering issue that could affect those 787s with Rolls Royce engines too.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

No, 2 and 3 are the right way around.

In a Mayday situation, Air traffic control will bend over backwards to give an aircraft whatever it wants or asks for.... "communicate" isn't just air traffic control, but also the cabin crew with whom they'll be an emergency briefing and the passengers.

Priority is to fly/control aircraft (aviate), then to be situationally aware of direction/terrain/weather/fuel which = time remaining (navigate), then to talk (communicate).

You dont want to be talking to air traffic or cabin crew and flying 50 miles away from airport, into a Thunderstorm or towards terrain!

I did wonder the other day if they had a double flame out hence why I said you couldn't hear the engines in the clip. If that was the case water in the fuel tanks? However very unlikely as you know they are set to be fed independently during takeoff (cross feed valve set to off). It appears the RAT was deployed.

Years ago BA suffered a four engine flame out on B747-400 returning from HAECO, an aircraft maintenance company in Hong Kong who had completed a Service Check 2. At the time we had a shortage of hangar space. They were at cruising height and had no passengers onboard. They had time to check each fuel tank and found one had non-contaminated fuel and they used that to start 2 engines, dump fuel (water?) and emergency land. We were involved in the CAA reports once it returned to Gatwick and impounded at Hangar 6.

Their findings were that the maintenance team had drained the fuel and stored it then pumped it back in without checking it. This was against any procedures we worked under. Though reported in "Human Factors" by the CAA this never reached the papers as it was a positioning flight without passengers. Not to be confused with BA009 which suffered a 4 engine failure for hitting a volcanic ash cloud.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

There's 2 blackboxes, cockpit voice recorder which won't be as much use and the flight data recorder which is the important one, and hopefully they have.

If it is double engine failure? They'll want to know the cause first, was it external environmetal, like birds or sabotage?

was it pilot error in calculations or inputs?

Or was it internal mechanical? and if so, is it a problem with General electric engines as this aircraft had, or is it an aircraft/fuel metering issue that could affect those 787s with Rolls Royce engines too.

I know before I left the industry they were developing Telemetry Systems that could be used on the ground to monitor the companies aircraft. The B747-400 we were able to monitor engine performance etc during flight. I'm sure this has greatly increased in the last 20 years. If so they would already know what happened to the engines.

 

[herecomesaregular]

There's 2 blackboxes, cockpit voice recorder which won't be as much use and the flight data recorder which is the important one, and hopefully they have.

If it is double engine failure? They'll want to know the cause first, was it external environmetal, like birds or sabotage?

was it pilot error in calculations or inputs?

Or was it internal mechanical? and if so, is it a problem with General electric engines as this aircraft had, or is it an aircraft/fuel metering issue that could affect those 787s with Rolls Royce engines too.

I read that with this plane type both black boxes are identical, one at front of the plane and one in the tail, so they only need one of them to be intact they don't need both. Stand to be corrected though.

 

[peterward]

I did wonder the other day if they had a double flame out hence why I said you couldn't hear the engines in the clip. If that was the case water in the fuel tanks? However very unlikely as you know they are set to be fed independently during takeoff (cross feed valve set to off). It appears the RAT was deployed.

Years ago BA suffered a four engine flame out on B747-400 returning from HAECO, an aircraft maintenance company in Hong Kong who had completed a Service Check 2. At the time we had a shortage of hangar space. They were at cruising height and had no passengers onboard. They had time to check each fuel tank and found one had non-contaminated fuel and they used that to start 2 engines, dump fuel (water?) and emergency land. We were involved in the CAA reports once it returned to Gatwick and impounded at Hangar 6.

Their findings were that the maintenance team had drained the fuel and stored it then pumped it back in without checking it. This was against any procedures we worked under. Though reported in "Human Factors" by the CAA this never reached the papers as it was a positioning flight without passengers. Not to be confused with BA009 which suffered a 4 engine failure for hitting a volcanic ash cloud.

I've seen suggestion the RAT was out? Which would indicate electrical failure, but not alleged thrust loss imho though that's also very grainy footage and certainly not yet conclusive. Gear not being up is still the elephant in the room, as any normal take off or loss of thrust and gear up (to reduce drag) is first action on being airborne (unless it wouldn't go up?)

It's also not to long after being airborne it starts to sink, so if engines were working and producing thrust on runway, for them both to fail within seconds of being airborne, whilst not impossible, would be so extremely rare. If anything happened before V1 or thurst loss prior, they'd reject take off.

Sorry to others in getting technical with @PILTDOWN MAN !

I don't know the 787 intimately, I do know it's fly by wire, so you haven't got manual reversion hydraulic overide of controls without electrics working.
A double mechanical engine failure (birds) is super rare. Fuel contamination less so, but that should be checked on ground and it didnt seemingly flame out engines before getting airborne.

The "total electrical failure" theory, i struggle to believe could be a cause of total thrust loss even if RAT is out (which would indicate electrical power failure) as i can't imagine the 787, like other aircraft, wouldn't have sufficient critical systems redundancy for loss of engine driven AC electrical generators....

Electrical failure would make your day hard for sure, but it wouldn't normally stop the engines.
The engine fuel metering and FADEC are always normally connected to the hot battery bus on Boeing ot Airbus, the absolute essential systems which you can't switch off and which will give you at least 60 mins on battery power (DC-AC via invertor) with total AC generator power loss.

Still more questions than answers at this stage. Nothing yet seems overly clear or adds up.

 

[peterward]

I know before I left the industry they were developing Telemetry Systems that could be used on the ground to monitor the companies aircraft. The B747-400 we were able to monitor engine performance etc during flight. I'm sure this has greatly increased in the last 20 years. If so they would already know what happened to the engines.

Yes it has, they see everything. OFDM (operational flight data monotoring). Is always on, records everything, every selection and input you make and all aspects of the flight, you can't hide from any error or exceedence! its essentially same as black box data recorder and it gets auto sent to HQ after every sectors landing.

They do use it to spot general trends too and focus training as part of the safety management system.