The cause of the deadly Air India crash may take months to confirm, but one aviation expert believes there is already a strong clue pointing to what went wrong. Flight AI171 burst into flames shortly after take-off, killing everyone except for one British man on board. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner had barely left the ground when it crashed near Ahmedabad airport in India.
Now, Dr Jason Knight, a senior lecturer in fluid mechanics at the University of Portsmouth, has suggested the most likely reason the plane came down so quickly. He told The Telegraph: “The aircraft is designed to be able to fly on one engine, so the most likely cause of the crash is a double engine failure. Because the altitude was so low, the pilot would have had very little time to do an emergency landing. The most likely cause of a double engine failure is a bird strike which would take out the engine.”
The theory is supported by the fact that Ahmedabad airport is known for bird strike problems.
In 2023 alone, it had 81 reported bird strikes, the second highest in India, despite running far fewer flights than Delhi, which had 169, The Telegraph reported.
Salil Colge, a lecturer in aviation management at University College Birmingham, said: “Historically there have been reports of several bird strikes in this area in the past and that could be one of the possibilities.”
There were other concerns, too. Some video footage appears to show the wing flaps were fully retracted during take-off, which could have reduced lift.
The landing gear also seemed to remain down throughout the short flight.
One possible scenario is that the pilots adjusted the flaps mid-air to reduce drag if they thought the landing gear was stuck, but overcorrected and lost lift.
Another is that the flap system itself failed, something that has affected other 787s in the past.
Professor John McDermid from the University of York said: “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 added: “On initial sight this seems a very surprising accident.”
Experts have also looked at the runway length used. Radar data suggests the pilots may have joined the runway part-way, rather than using the full length – less than 2,000 metres instead of the advised 2,500m for hot, heavy take-offs.
The plane took off in 40C heat and was due to fly nearly nine hours, meaning it would have been fully loaded with fuel and passengers.