Dreamliner Crash

[HeyEng]

An Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into a crowded construction site shortly after TO out of Ahmedabad, India.

This is the first major hull loss for the 787. 
 

 

[TreeA10]

Looks like it settles into the ground with the gear still down.

 

 

[StoleIt]

Leading edge devices were out, so that should be Flaps 1 in a 787. Not sure if that's a common takeoff config or not.

Video was suspiciously silent of jet engine noises except for the sound of the RAT, so maybe dual engine failure?

[Smokin]

I don't see the RAT deployed, did someone else see it in the video?  Tough to tell from a cell phone video like that.  If it were a dual engine failure or significant electrical issue, then it should deploy automatically.  Also deploying it is the second step on the dual engine fail memory item.

Flaps 5 is the norm.  Strange that the gear is still down, but if they had a dual engine loss shortly after liftoff then they probably aren't thinking much about the gear.

[mcbush]

New angle... the loss of thrust is pretty apparent, but I don't see any obvious reason for it like smoke/fire/etc.

 

[TreeA10]

RAT extends on the fuselage bottom right side just about even to slightly aft of the right wing trailing edge.  I don't see it but it ain't that big.  Flight aware data's shows they got to 400-ish feet AGL.  Normal flap for takeoff is 5 degrees so leading edge slats and a little trailing edge flaps, 15 flaps on shorter runways. Flap retraction instead of gear?

[Smokin]

Could be flaps instead of the gear.  India to London with a full pax load is going to be at or close to max weight, so the engines might not be able to overcome an early flap retraction, especially if the flying pilot didn't immediately go max thrust.  That or fuel contamination are probably the two most logical possibilities I've heard so far.

[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, Smokin said:

Could be flaps instead of the gear.  India to London with a full pax load is going to be at or close to max weight, so the engines might not be able to overcome an early flap retraction, especially if the flying pilot didn't immediately go max thrust.  That or fuel contamination are probably the two most logical possibilities I've heard so far.

The odds of both engines failing within a couple seconds of each other is astronomically small, especially with fuel contamination. 

 

I suspect either Software caused the loss of thrust, or the crew did. And as much as I hate saying it, outside of the West, crew failure is the most likely culprit. 

[TreeA10]

On another site I frequent, they did the flap vs gear retraction in the 787-9 sim at max weight and the jet flew fine IF you followed the HUD flight path cues.  

[Pitt4401]

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

 And as much as I hate saying it, outside of the West, crew failure is the most likely culprit. 

You sure you aren't a Boeing executive? Perhaps with a previous portfolio, say... 737 MAX?

[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, Pitt4401 said:

You sure you aren't a Boeing executive? Perhaps with a previous portfolio, say... 737 MAX?

I wish I was that rich 😂😅

[Smokin]

5 hours ago, Pitt4401 said:

You sure you aren't a Boeing executive? Perhaps with a previous portfolio, say... 737 MAX?

And where did both fatal 737 MAX accidents take place?  It was an absolutely stupid software update for the trim to do that and Boeing was dump and culpable, but I don't think its a coincidence that both accidents happened in non-Western airlines despite the fact that the west was likely flying far more Max flights.