The videos that could show why Air India plane crashed, according to experts

The Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad may have been caused by a mechanical failure, an aviation expert has told The i Paper.

Authorities have not yet confirmed the cause of the crash, which is being investigated by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.

Flight AI171, carrying 242 people, including 53 British nationals and 169 Indian nationals, was bound for Gatwick airport.

But the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner lost height shortly after take-off and crashed into a residential area of the city in western India.

The Hindustan Times said 40-year-old British man Vishwash Kumar Ramesh survived the crash. He told the newspaper: “Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly.”

Bernard Lavelle, principal consultant at BL Aviation Consulting, told The i Paper it was not yet possible to determine the definite cause of the crash.

However, the expert shared some insight into what videos circulating online could suggest may have happened.

Landing gear was still deployed

Footage of the moment Flight AI171 went down in the residential area shows the plane had its take-off and landing gear deployed.

Mr Lavelle said it was likely that the pilot did not have time to retract the gear before the crash.

“If there had been a problem, a warning light to come on in the cockpit about an engine issue or something, they were really probably trying to work out what that was, rather than trying to get the the landing gear up,” he said.

“Normally that landing gear would come up within the first 30 to 60 seconds after leaving the runway, but they may just not have had enough time to actually deal with that.”

Mayday call may indicate engine failure

Mr Lavelle said that given reports the pilot issued a Mayday call shortly after take-off – which his sources said had indicated there was “no thrust” – it was unlikely that the crash was the result of pilot error.

“I would at this stage, speculating again, rule out human error because they made an SOS message,” he said.

“And I haven’t had this confirmed, but one of my sources told me that the message was saying ‘no thrust’. That would indicate the pilots knew there was an issue with the engine.”

Without power to push the aircraft up there is no real outcome other than the plane coming down, Mr Lavelle added.

“It must have been pure panic mode in that airplane and that cockpit,” he said.

According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad airport, a Mayday call was sent from the plane, signalling an emergency, but thereafter there was no response from the aircraft.

Flightradar24 said it received the last signal from the aircraft seconds after the plane took off.

Flight tracking data showed the plane reached a maximum altitude of 625ft, which is about 425ft above the airport, before it began to descend at a rate of 475ft per minute.

“It appears the aircraft was struggling to gain height after it took off and then seemed to have lost power or thrust in the engines. And it then came down fairly quickly,” Mr Lavelle said.

There are a several reasons a plane’s engines could fail, including a bird strike, which can cause loss of power.

Were there fuel issues?

Mr Lavelle said another reason a plane engine can be compromised is fuel complications.

“If the fuel is not getting through to your engine, if for some reason there’s some kind of blockage and fuel is getting through, you’re not going to get the acceleration from the engines and the thrust you need for to continue the gaining altitude,” he said.

Professor John McDermid, of the University of York, said it was too early to know “in any detail” what may have caused the crash.

He said it was “very unlikely” the aircraft was overweight or carrying too much fuel as “there are careful checks on this”.

Video footage from the scene shows a huge fireball erupted on impact.

Mr Lavelle also said it was not likely that “fuel exhaustion” was to blame: “There’s no way that aircraft would have taken off without being fuelled because it’s a long journey from Ahmedabad to Gatwick.”

Speed of incident left pilots with ‘no chance’

Mr Lavelle said he did not think the pilots would have “had any chance” to deal with the issue to try to avoid further casualties as “it was just too short a period”.

Professor McDermid said it was surprising that the accident occurred before the aircraft had even reached 200 metres altitude.

“Pilots can abort take-off until quite late in the take-off roll, so it seems like the problem occurred very suddenly in the final part of the take-off roll, or shortly after take-off, and was sufficiently serious to be unmanageable,” he said.

Graham Braithwaite, director of aerospace and aviation at Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, said take-off was a “critical stage of flight” as the plane is accelerating and “any problem-solving requires a rapid response”.