New Delhi : Dual engine failure, technical malfunction, error in the movement of fuel control switches, or something else? A month on since Air India flight AI 171 crashed in Ahmedabad, a preliminary report on what led to one of India’s worst aviation disasters may be released either today or Saturday, sources said.
On June 12, the London-bound Air India flight, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, crashed into the BJ Medical College hostel building in Ahmedabad within seconds of take-off. The tragedy left 260 people, including 241 passengers and crew on board and 19 others on the ground, dead. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), which is probing the horrific crash along with experts from the US-based National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Boeing, briefed a parliamentary standing committee earlier this week.
The panel was told that an analysis of the black box, which is key in providing an in-depth insight into what led to the crash, was being carried out at the AAIB’s laboratory in Delhi. Since the crash, several theories have floated about what led to the crash, which has garnered global spotlight. An aviation expert, former US Navy pilot Captain Steve Scheibner, told India Today that dual engine failure might be behind the crash. He said the deployment of the ram air turbine (RAT) shortly after takeoff pointed to a dual engine failure.
Separately, a simulation of the doomed aircraft’s parameters in a flight simulator by Air India pilots identified technical malfunction as a possible cause, Bloomberg reported. Simulating the final moments of the crash, the pilots had kept the landing gear deployed and the wing flaps retracted. However, it was found that these configurations alone would not have caused the accident.
Another report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing early assessments by US officials, flagged that the switches controlling the fuel flow to the aircraft’s two engines were likely turned off. This, led to a noticeable loss of thrust shortly after takeoff. The US officials suggested that there were no issues with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
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