Thanks to our resident pilots for the insight.
Someone on local media speculated that a possible cause in the drop in thrust was the 40°C+ heat affecting engine performance.
The airframe doesnt appear to stall in the videos. Its a gradual decent with the nose up and wings level . Almost as if the engines lacked sufficient power to maintain a speed high enough to even fly level with or without the assistance of flaps . The plane doesn't appear to push through to level flight though . I know altitude is imperative when it comes to emergency situations , giving time and options but without airspeed or height your choices dramatically reduce.
Could the plane T/O weight have been miscalculated ? Doubtful but possible, but by enough to enable the plane to accelerate and take off then crash almost immediatly ? Weight distribution? I know tons of fuel are loaded into multiple locations , could the wrong amount of fuel be in the wrong tanks to unbalance the aircraft. Acceleration would feel the same, rotation and leaving the ground similar , but then trying to fly would be alot harder ,but impossible? I dont know .
Wrong fuel. Possible but acceleration and reaching the go / no go point would surely take longer .
Contaminated fuel . That could cause dramatic loss of power , but I would have thought the spool up jets do before releasing the brakes would indicate and issue. Slow or fluctuating rpms in one or both engines.
Mechanical issue. Pump failures that feed the engines at a critical time possibly. But surely 2 x pumps and redundancy in control systems , but maybe not enough time to correctly identify teh problem.
Electrical issues. Solenoids or electronic control system having a moment causing engines or critical control systems to drop out just when you need them .
Sabotage . You would need to be an aero engineer to be able to nobble an aeroplane so its not obvious to ground crew and aircrew to cause a failure at an exact time. Its possible , but unlikely, imo.
I hope they do find a reason. Be better for everyone affected and for everyones safety moving forward.
I hope they do find a reason. Be better for everyone affected and for everyones safety moving forward.
Oh they'll undoubtedly solve it.
The problem is that the findings don't happen in the timeframe that rolling 24hr news coverage (or grieving relatives) would like. The world wants instant answers; the aviation industry and the professionals that deal with accident investigations want the correct answers and a set of defined solutions - which can take years rather than a few hours.
It took over 2 years to identify that issue on the 777
Even then its only the best guess since as you say there was no evidence and so they had to look at the evidence they had and try and figure out the gaps.
The AAIB looked at those gaps and figured out what might be the issue and then set up some experiments to test their theory out. They could still be wrong and have found some other weird edge case though.
Admiral cloudberg has a good article on it.
A quick Google finds this from the BBC. I'm no expert, just adding something I heard on the radio that hasn't been mentioned so far:
In Ahmedabad, where temperatures neared 40°C (104F) on Thursday, the thinner air would have demanded higher flap settings and greater engine thrust, one pilot told the BBC. In such conditions, even a small configuration error can have catastrophic consequences.
It took off. I'm not a pilot but I can't think what settings you could set that would allow take off then bring you down 30 seconds later. Plus, RAT apparently deployed.
Shirley Full Throttle is Full Throttle . There is no magic setting where you can turn it up to 11 if its hot outside. Or Afterburners on military setting for take off .
Potentially water injection could be used to cool the intake charge to make it denser , or methanol but thats bad for oxidising corrosion on certain metals . Dunno if its made it to jet tech but it was on the saab 99 turbo in 1979.
Shirley Full Throttle is Full Throttle . There is no magic setting where you can turn it up to 11 if its hot outside. Or Afterburners on military setting for take off .
Potentially water injection could be used to cool the intake charge to make it denser , or methanol but thats bad for oxidising corrosion on certain metals . Dunno if its made it to jet tech but it was on the saab 99 turbo in 1979.
They very rarely use full power for takeoff. It would be ruinously expensive and lead to premature wear on the engines & airframe. Instead they use the performance calculations to work out the optimal power setting for each takeoff given the environmental and load info. On an Airbus I think this is called flex power, Boeing have a similar thing.
I was wondering if they somehow put the wrong data in too.
It always seems to be boeings though.
I think it should be more transparent when booking flights whether it's a Boeing or an Airbus.
I'd rather not fly at all if its a Boeing.
They do use full power on take off, it's called toga, take off/go around.The rat is deployed by the aircraft automatically not by the pilots and only when there is either loss of hydraulic pressure,loss of electrical power or both engines fail.
Posted pic twice, but engine failure.
Oh Hell Oldschool, that’s terrible. $hit. Where’s that from?
Looks like one of the WhatsApp news forwarding groups that are Notorious for spreading misinformation in India... "Forwarded as received"
pre flight gpu disconnection?
is that some sort of maintenance or is it just saying the processor? disconnected dur to water ingress?
- Source? That’s the second “initial report” I’ve seen this evening.
I pilot friend shared it so I didn’t think it would be fake. But apologies if it is.
oh i see gpu is ground power unit
was it raining when the plane took off? weather looked hood on that video
No mention of it on pprune so maybe fake.
Does seem dubious the UK authority would be releasing a report vs the Indian authorities.
Does seem dubious the UK authority would be releasing a report vs the Indian authorities.
I pilot friend shared it so I didn’t think it would be fake. But apologies if it is.
if that were true it is the fastest and most detailed AAIB (interim) report produced by any country for any crash.
oh i see gpu is ground power unit
Mentioned on a recent episode of Air Crash Investigation, when a pilot in a remote Canadian location didn't take on sufficient fuel because he didn't want to shut down his engine, as some problem or other was threatening to prevent him starting it again, and there was no GPU available to do so. Didn't end well. Obvs.
No mention of it on pprune so maybe fake.
.... no mention because they are quickly spotting fake/AI "reports" and, quite rightly, deleting all trace of them from the forum.
The fuel switches had almost simultaneously flipped from run to cutoff just after takeoff. The preliminary report did not say how the switches could have flipped to the cutoff position during the flight. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/india-finds-engine-switch-movement-fatal-air-india-crash-no-immediate-action-2025-07-11/
Sounds like the voice recorder data is going to be key. All very sad.
Flightradar reports one pilot saying why did you do that, the other saying he didn't - restart successfully initiated on both engines but they just ran out of time.
**** me. Read the report this morning over breakfast and it's pretty devastating material.
On one hand action slips are frustratingly commonplace; on the other hand confusing the fuel cut-off switches for the gear is almost inconceivable to me. Limit of my speculation there. Personal suspicion is that we'll never know.
Those switches are solid and robust, and you can feel the locking mechanism as you move them. They don't get knocked by accident, not do they wobble out of position. I know there's an airworthiness bulletin relating to them but it's a red herring in my opinion. They don't just fall to the cutoff position as the main gear comes off the ground.
Excuse my ignorance but how many landing gear switches are there, and are they near the fuel cutoffs? I just assumed there was one?
I presume/hope the investigation will show whether they were manually switched off or there was a fault.
I'm assuming they're also investigating the (mental) health of the pilots. Speculation of course, but it could have been intentional.
It's either the brainfart of the millenium, or another murder/suicide.
I'm assuming they're also investigating the (mental) health of the pilots.
The time it took the pilot AND co-pilot to realise they'd cut the fuel to both engines, and the amount of time (some ten seconds apparently) to think "maybe we should turn the fuel back on", somethings not adding up here...
Flightradar reports one pilot saying why did you do that, the other saying he didn't
Read that and that is an odd one. So does pilot1 mean he saw the other chap flip the switch ?
Ten seconds to identify and remedy the cause of a deeply implausible double engine failure they've probably never drilled doesn't seem that suspicious to me?
Flightradar reports one pilot saying why did you do that, the other saying he didn't
Both switches, which, if I understand it correctly, have to be moved separately
Read that and that is an odd one. So does pilot1 mean he saw the other chap flip the switch ?
both switches.....
Ten seconds to identify and remedy the cause of a deeply implausible double engine failure they've probably never drilled doesn't seem that suspicious to me?
I'm not a pilot but they interviewed one on radio2 I think it was yesterday... they were saying it's basically inconceivable - there's no checklist to work through and it should basically almost be muscle memory.. "oh look, the fuel switch for both engines is off, gee, what should we do about that?"
And why would they switch off not just one, but both fuel switches, and during take off, in the first place...? I mean, it's kind of obvious what the result of that would be...
Why would the planes systems allow both fuel flows be turn off at a few 100m and climbing? I'm sure there is a set of circumstances where this is required but what are they?
fire.
Why would the planes systems allow both fuel flows be turn off at a few 100m and climbing? I'm sure there is a set of circumstances where this is required but what are they?
Anecdotally, I was waching a 'boeing vs airbus' documentarty the other day.. they were saying some pilots prefer boeing as it's more manual, and 'real flying' and airbus is very automated and just doesn't let you do dumb shit like that.
Very interesting actually..
'fire'
Yw
Yes but the system is monitoring the sensors that detect an engine fire, so could allow them to be shut off if there is a fire.
Anyway, turning the engine off at that height isn't going to end well.
I'm not a pilot but they interviewed one on radio2 I think it was yesterday... they were saying it's basically inconceivable - there's no checklist to work through and it should basically almost be muscle memory.. "oh look, the fuel switch for both engines is off, gee, what should we do about that?"
Fair enoughski, me either, but that does make sense - I guess I look at it from a non-pilot problem-solving POV, from which checking that neither of us have turned the fuel taps off right after rotation would be some way down the list!
And why would they switch off not just one, but both fuel switches, and during take off, in the first place...? I mean, it's kind of obvious what the result of that would be...
I do wonder whether they were manually turned off or whether there was a mechanical/electrical fault, no matter who unlikely that is.
I'm not a pilot but they interviewed one on radio2 I think it was yesterday... they were saying it's basically inconceivable - there's no checklist to work through and it should basically almost be muscle memory.. "oh look, the fuel switch for both engines is off, gee, what should we do about that?"
Fair enoughski, me either, but that does make sense - I guess I look at it from a non-pilot problem-solving POV, from which checking that neither of us have turned the fuel taps off right after rotation would be some way down the list!
And why would they switch off not just one, but both fuel switches, and during take off, in the first place...? I mean, it's kind of obvious what the result of that would be...
I do wonder whether they were manually turned off or whether there was a mechanical/electrical fault, no matter who unlikely that is.
I guess... But then the same mechanical fault on both engines /fuel systems at the same time?
I do wonder whether they were manually turned off
Yes they were, the swtiches are fully manual, theres no other way for them to have been moved
