| Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by grahame at 15:38, 12th June 2025 |     |
From The BBC
An Air India passenger plane bound for London Gatwick crashed shortly after taking off in Ahmedabad on Thursday, leaving at least 204 people dead.
The flight was carrying 242 passengers and crew when it was involved in what the airline has called a "tragic accident" in the city in western India.
Ahmedabad's police chief told the BBC that 204 bodies had been recovered, while 41 people were being treated for injuries.
He earlier told news agencies there appeared to be no survivors from the crash, and that some local people would also have died given where the plane came down.
The flight was carrying 242 passengers and crew when it was involved in what the airline has called a "tragic accident" in the city in western India.
Ahmedabad's police chief told the BBC that 204 bodies had been recovered, while 41 people were being treated for injuries.
He earlier told news agencies there appeared to be no survivors from the crash, and that some local people would also have died given where the plane came down.
We are primarily a UK rail forum - but just occasionally something as major as this takes place - classified so far as a tragic accident - which goes for comment beyond our narrower sphere of interest.
My thoughts for those who died on board (I understand - stop press - at least one survivor) , those who have died or been injured on the ground. And my thoughts with family, friends and colleagues of those who have perished. This was a flight into Gatwick - an airport that many of us use, and served by the trains we talk about. Perhaps "meet and greet" people will have been on their way down, and arrivals planned to carry on on "our" trains.
Over coming time, we will learn what caused the plane to fall out of the sky; out of respect for those who have perished or been bereaved, I am not speculating here.
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 17:19, 12th June 2025 | |
Thank you for your post, grahame.
I held back from posting, earlier today, as the news continued to develop: this is an awful transport incident, with effects felt locally to us, as you wrote.
My thoughts and sympathies, too, are with all the families, friends and colleagues of those deceased. A very sad day.
CfN.
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by JayMac at 21:54, 12th June 2025 | |
Some reports are suggesting dual engine failure after take-off (DEFATO) That would help explain why there was a mayday call. It's something that is very noticeable to the flight crew, very quickly. If the plane had been incorrectly configured for take-off (as some have speculated - noting that flaps may have been incorrectly positioned and gear was still down) it's less likely the pilots would've figured out what was wrong in time to diagnose the problem and then communicate. The rule of thumb is: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. There's also some suggestion that the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) was deployed, which would add weight to the DEFATO hypothesis.
A dual engine failure immediately after V2 would most likely occur due to birdstrikes. Other foreign object damage is possible, though less likely to affect both engines. It could also potentially be contaminated fuel, but there have been subsequent take-offs from that airport, so it's unlikely the source of fuel was the problem.
Dual engine failure at, or immediately after, V2. Startled pilots. No positive rate achieved so no "positive rate, gear up" call out and action. Begin the DEFATO checklist, which I suspect is mainly memory items due to the time critical nature of the fault. Continuing aviating. Issue mayday.
If it turns out to be this scenario then the sad reality is that the pilots simply did not have enough of three critical things. Time, altitude, speed. The nearest comparison would be US Airways Flight 1549. But Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles had nearly 4 minutes, 190kts and 3,000ft to play with.
My thoughts and sympathies go to all those affected.
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by TaplowGreen at 07:47, 13th June 2025 | |
From The BBC
Over coming time, we will learn what caused the plane to fall out of the sky; out of respect for those who have perished or been bereaved, I am not speculating here.
Over coming time, we will learn what caused the plane to fall out of the sky; out of respect for those who have perished or been bereaved, I am not speculating here.
Agreed. Speculation best avoided.
A colleague lost an Aunt and Uncle in yesterday's crash, who (heart breakingly) were en route to attend a funeral in London.
Edited to clarify quoting
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by froome at 16:41, 13th June 2025 | |
What seems extraordinary to me is that there was one survivor, whose injuries are not in any way life threatening.
Is this pure luck? Was his seating position, next to the emergency exit, likely to be the prime reason for his survival?
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by stuving at 19:14, 13th June 2025 | |
What seems extraordinary to me is that there was one survivor, whose injuries are not in any way life threatening.
Is this pure luck? Was his seating position, next to the emergency exit, likely to be the prime reason for his survival?
The interview he has given was understandably rather incoherent, but did make clear that he had a hole in the fuselage to get out through and was then near ground level and not blocked in. I think that his lack of serious injuries is more of a pure luck thing, to do with the deceleration experienced by that bit of structure, which happened to be unusually benign. I fear that others on the plane may have also been less seriously injured, but were unable to get out before the fire took hold. Is this pure luck? Was his seating position, next to the emergency exit, likely to be the prime reason for his survival?
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by broadgage at 16:03, 15th June 2025 | |
The fact that the landing gear was not retracted suggests two possibilities to me.
Firstly a major loss of auxiliary power, including that required to retract the gear. Possible but unlikely.
Secondly, that the crew realised that there was a problem, and left the gear down in the hope of returning to the airport for an emergency landing. or perhaps making an emergency landing elsewhere.
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by IndustryInsider at 11:37, 16th June 2025 | |
The fact that the landing gear was not retracted suggests two possibilities to me.
Firstly a major loss of auxiliary power, including that required to retract the gear. Possible but unlikely.
Secondly, that the crew realised that there was a problem, and left the gear down in the hope of returning to the airport for an emergency landing. or perhaps making an emergency landing elsewhere.
Firstly a major loss of auxiliary power, including that required to retract the gear. Possible but unlikely.
Secondly, that the crew realised that there was a problem, and left the gear down in the hope of returning to the airport for an emergency landing. or perhaps making an emergency landing elsewhere.
I thought we'd agreed it was best not to speculate?
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by JayMac at 14:41, 16th June 2025 | |
I thought we'd agreed it was best not to speculate?
Nothing here beyond what has been postulated in the spcialist aviation media, aviation forums and general news media.
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 15:37, 16th June 2025 | |
From the BBC:
Investigators find cockpit voice recorder from crashed Air India flight
Investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from the crashed Air India flight, a key step in uncovering what caused last week's deadly accident.
The London-bound Air India aircraft, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, crashed soon after taking off on Thursday from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. At least 270 people have been killed, most of them passengers.
The CVR captures audio from the cockpit, including pilot conversations, alarms and ambient sounds. The flight data recorder (FDR), which logs crucial flight parameters like altitude, speed and engine performance, had been recovered from the debris on Friday.
Both the CVR and FDR collectively form what is commonly known as the "black box" of a plane. It is a vital tool in air crash investigations, helping experts reconstruct the flight's final moments and determine the cause of the incident. The black box, unlike the name suggests, is actually two bright orange devices - one for the CVR and the other for the FDR - painted with reflective strips for easier recovery after a crash. Both these devices are designed to survive a crash.
India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is leading the inquiry into the cause of the crash, helped by teams from the US and the UK.
On Sunday, officials from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) surveyed the site of the plane crash.
"The AAIB has launched a detailed investigation, and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting a parallel probe under international protocols, since the aircraft is American-made," a statement released on Sunday said.
Indian media outlets have reported, citing sources, that officials from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) - the US aviation safety agency - also visited the site.
Separately, a high-level committee set up by the Indian government to examine the reasons behind the crash is expected to hold its first meeting on Monday. The committee will submit a preliminary report within three months, the All India Radio said, and will propose new standard operating procedures (SOPs) to help prevent similar incidents in future.
As the investigation continues, families on the ground are still grappling with disbelief and trauma. Less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, the AI171 flight crashed into a doctors' accommodation building at the BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital.
All but one of the 242 passengers and crew members were killed. Officials have also been trying to establish how many people were killed on the ground and continuing the slow process of matching DNA samples to confirm the victims' identities. Over the weekend, doctors said 270 bodies had been recovered from the site of the crash.
More than 90 victims have been identified, external through DNA matching, Dr Rajnish Patel of Ahmedabad's Civil Hospital said on Monday. He added that 47 of the identified bodies have been sent to their families.
Among the identified victims is Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of Gujarat, whose funeral will be held on Monday. Rupani, whose political career spanned more than 50 years, will be laid to rest with full state honours in Rajkot city.
For many other families, the agonising wait continues. Officials told the BBC that the identification process has been slow and painstaking, as many of the bodies were badly burned in the crash and are being processed in small batches.
Mistry Jignesh, waiting outside the hospital for updates on his niece, told the BBC on Saturday that officials told him that it might take longer for them to hand over his niece's remains as the search for bodies is still ongoing. He had earlier been told that the body would be handed over by Sunday, after the 72 hours it normally takes to complete DNA matching. "When people are still missing, how can they complete the DNA process by tomorrow? What if my niece's remains haven't even been found? The wait is killing us," he said.
Investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from the crashed Air India flight, a key step in uncovering what caused last week's deadly accident.
The London-bound Air India aircraft, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, crashed soon after taking off on Thursday from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. At least 270 people have been killed, most of them passengers.
The CVR captures audio from the cockpit, including pilot conversations, alarms and ambient sounds. The flight data recorder (FDR), which logs crucial flight parameters like altitude, speed and engine performance, had been recovered from the debris on Friday.
Both the CVR and FDR collectively form what is commonly known as the "black box" of a plane. It is a vital tool in air crash investigations, helping experts reconstruct the flight's final moments and determine the cause of the incident. The black box, unlike the name suggests, is actually two bright orange devices - one for the CVR and the other for the FDR - painted with reflective strips for easier recovery after a crash. Both these devices are designed to survive a crash.
India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is leading the inquiry into the cause of the crash, helped by teams from the US and the UK.
On Sunday, officials from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) surveyed the site of the plane crash.
"The AAIB has launched a detailed investigation, and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting a parallel probe under international protocols, since the aircraft is American-made," a statement released on Sunday said.
Indian media outlets have reported, citing sources, that officials from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) - the US aviation safety agency - also visited the site.
Separately, a high-level committee set up by the Indian government to examine the reasons behind the crash is expected to hold its first meeting on Monday. The committee will submit a preliminary report within three months, the All India Radio said, and will propose new standard operating procedures (SOPs) to help prevent similar incidents in future.
As the investigation continues, families on the ground are still grappling with disbelief and trauma. Less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, the AI171 flight crashed into a doctors' accommodation building at the BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital.
All but one of the 242 passengers and crew members were killed. Officials have also been trying to establish how many people were killed on the ground and continuing the slow process of matching DNA samples to confirm the victims' identities. Over the weekend, doctors said 270 bodies had been recovered from the site of the crash.
More than 90 victims have been identified, external through DNA matching, Dr Rajnish Patel of Ahmedabad's Civil Hospital said on Monday. He added that 47 of the identified bodies have been sent to their families.
Among the identified victims is Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of Gujarat, whose funeral will be held on Monday. Rupani, whose political career spanned more than 50 years, will be laid to rest with full state honours in Rajkot city.
For many other families, the agonising wait continues. Officials told the BBC that the identification process has been slow and painstaking, as many of the bodies were badly burned in the crash and are being processed in small batches.
Mistry Jignesh, waiting outside the hospital for updates on his niece, told the BBC on Saturday that officials told him that it might take longer for them to hand over his niece's remains as the search for bodies is still ongoing. He had earlier been told that the body would be handed over by Sunday, after the 72 hours it normally takes to complete DNA matching. "When people are still missing, how can they complete the DNA process by tomorrow? What if my niece's remains haven't even been found? The wait is killing us," he said.
That's my highlighting - purely to emphasise their importance in facilitating an assessment of what actually happened in this very sad event.
CfN.
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by grahame at 15:53, 16th June 2025 | |
I thought we'd agreed it was best not to speculate?
Nothing here beyond what has been postulated in the spcialist aviation media, aviation forums and general news media.
Indeed ... this is balancing act for the moderator / admin team. At the very raw and early point I think it's right not to wildly speculate, but yet as evidence comes out and is discussed in the specialist press and by experts, we can and should move towards reflecting on that evidence.
I can give you no timescale for the redirection, but in the first hours it's disrespectful to those involved to get too involved with "how did that happen" and yet in the longer term it would be disrespectful to their memories to not do our very best to learn lessons so that it may never happen again.
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 17:28, 16th June 2025 | |
Indeed ... this is a balancing act for the moderator / admin team. At the very raw and early point I think it's right not to wildly speculate, but yet as evidence comes out and is discussed in the specialist press and by experts, we can and should move towards reflecting on that evidence.
Thanks, grahame.
In the meantime, I've added a couple more acronyms to our Abbreviations page, to hopefully help with such clarity in the future.
CfN.
| Re: Air India flight to London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025 Posted by MVR S&T at 17:55, 16th June 2025 | |
I used to build and test the CVR,FDR and the Quick Access Recorder (QAR) The QAR data was really useful for the BA Heathrow crash of a 777, as it goes into more detail than the other recorders, but is not crash protected as such.
