Air India: Seven unanswered questions about the plane crash | World | News

As the world reels from the shocking tragedy of the Air India crash, which has left no survivors, questions are already being asked about what caused the disaster. Air India flight AI171 departed from Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, India, bound for London Gatwick with 242 people on board, including 53 British nationals.

Shocking footage filmed just moments after the aircraft departed shows the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft appearing to slowly lose altitude over the city. It left Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 1.39pm local time. Just seconds later, the airliner plummeted to Earth, crashing into a residential area. Local police reports indicate there are no survivors.

Air crash investigators will now begin the painstaking task of scouring the scene, probing flight recorders, and pilot communications for clues as to what caused this latest aviation tragedy.

Express.co.uk looks at some of the seven big unanswered questions so far, which investigators will want to find answers to.

1. Why was the plane’s landing gear down?

Footage of the plane as it plummeted towards the suburbs of Ahmedabad shows the landing gear of the Boeing aircraft descending as if for landing. Sky News reports flight data shows the plane reached a height of around 625 feet before disaster struck. According to Alastair Rosenschen, a former British Airways pilot and aviation analyst, the wheels should not have been down by the time the flight reached that altitude. Mr Rosenschen told Sky News: “The gear should not be down and effective as soon as you have got a positive rate of climb, after take-off.

“If the gear was still down, then that would suggest that something is untoward.”

2. Was there a bird strike?

Severe bird strikes can cause aircraft to crash, the most famous example being US Airways Flight 1549. That plane was involved in an incident which became known as the “Miracle on the Hudson” when it struck a flock of birds and the pilot was able to crash land safely into the Hudson River in New York in 2009.

In the case of today’s disaster, Captain Saurabh Bhatnagar, a former senior pilot, told Indian broadcaster NDTV: “It looks, prima facie, like a case of multiple bird hits wherein both the engines have lost power.

“Obviously, the investigation will reveal the exact reason. From the footage, it seems that the take-off was uneventful. The aircraft came down in a controlled fashion.

“The pilot had given the Mayday call, which means that it was a distress situation.”

3. Was it engine failure?

The Express understands that the last words heard over the radio during a Mayday call to Air Traffic Control (ATC) were “engine failure”. It’s not thought ATC had time to respond to the call.

Modern commercial aircraft should be able to operate with one working engine, but if the aircraft lost power to both engines, the jet would come down.

4. What do we know about who was on board the flight?

Air India said the flight departed from Ahmedabad Airport with 242 people on board the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. The airline said 169 passengers were Indian nationals, 53 British, one Canadian and seven Portuguese.

According to reports, the captain had 8,200 hours of flying experience and the co-pilot had 1,100 hours of flying experience.

5. How many people are thought to have been killed?

Sadly, local police have said all passengers and crew on board the aircraft lost their lives in the crash, but reports are so far unclear about any casualties on the ground where the plane went down. The aircraft crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar, Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the director general of the Directorate of Civil Aviation, said.

Photos from the scene show the engine and rear end of the plane clearly visible, stuck inside the wreckage of buildings. The CNN News-18 TV channel reports that the plane landed in the dining area of the B.J. Medical College, killing many of the students inside. Between 30 to 35 bodies have been recovered from the building. The final death toll on the ground is likely not to emerge for several hours, and some people remain trapped.

6. What do we know about the final moments of the crash?

The pilot of Air India flight 171 did make a Mayday call before the jet went down, which suggests to investigators that the crew on the flight deck was aware of a problem on board and had time to report it.

Sky News science Thomas Moore said the cockpit’s ability to alert ground control of an issue suggests some form of “catastrophic mechanical fault.” He added: “The plane is designed to be able to fly with one engine, even at take-off, so something else would have to go wrong, too.

“Both engines could have failed if they sucked in a flock of birds as the plane took off. It’s happened in other air crashes.”

7. What happens next?

In the immediate aftermath of the crash, air investigators will leave the police and local military to secure the crash site, hoping to preserve as many clues as possible, which could be left on the wreckage of the plane.

Crash sites can often be hard to reach when planes come down in remote areas or over the ocean, but in the case of this incident, which happened in a heavily populated area, the main worry for investigators will be keeping the scene as uncontaminated as possible.

Investigators will contact the airline and manufacturer, in this case Boeing, to request all maintenance documentation for the aircraft. They will also request the passenger list and log communications with air traffic control.

Under rules from the Convention on International Civil Aviation, the primary role in the probe goes to the state where the crash happened. However, the states where the aircraft was registered, where the airline is based, and where the plane was designed can all have a role.