60-year-old Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and his co-pilot Clive Kundar were in the cockpit. The former was reportedly extremely experienced, having clocked up over 8,000 flying hours during his 22-year tenure as a pilot.
It’s understood that a mayday call was made by Captain Sabharwal from the Air India cockpit almost immediately after takeoff.
“Mayday […] no thrust, losing power, unable to lift,” authorities claim the emergency message said.
After reaching a height of around 625 feet, the Air India flight descended from the sky and hit the ground in a massive explosion.
In harrowing video footage, a plume of smoke from the plane’s impact could be seen rising into the sky.
India’s Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah said the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was carrying 100 tonnes of fuel – almost a full load – and that 242 passengers and crew members were on board.
These comprised: 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, one Canadian national, and seven Portuguese nationals.
40-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British man, has been named as the sole survivor of the Air India crash.
A senior health official has since stated that eight local people on the ground, including four medical students, were also killed in the tragedy.
An investigation has been launched into what caused the tragedy, but one aviation expert has detailed what he thinks happened.
Captain Steve, a commercial airline pilot and YouTuber, claimed that a simple error in the plane’s cockpit could have caused the aircraft to crash.
“Here’s what I think happened, again folks this is just my opinion…I think the pilot flying said to the co-pilot said ‘gear up’ at the appropriate time,” he began.
“I think the co-pilot grabbed the flap handle and raised the flaps, instead of the gear. If that happened – and this is a big if – this explains a lot of why this airplane stopped flying.”
According to the content creator, if the plane’s flaps were raised, this would have caused the flight to lose airspeed and altitude rapidly.
However, Steve added that at this stage, it was ‘impossible’ to know whether or not the flaps were up or out.
Therefore, due to how quickly the plane would have plummeted, it could have been extremely difficult for pilots on board to deal with and ‘recover from’, Steve explained.
Usually, the 787’s composite wings would bend during takeoff as lift forces took it into the air, he said.
However, as the Air India plane apparently showed no sign of bending, this has prompted speculation that the flaps had accidentally been retracted, causing the plane to stop flying, Steve claims.
Meanwhile, former British Airways pilot Alastair Rosenschein has said a series of ‘clear issues’ could have contributed to the plane failing to take off properly from the Indian runway.
“It’s clearly got its [landing] gear down and that is not correct… it should have been up. And from the video… It’s not immensely clear… but it does look like the aircraft didn’t have its take-off flap setting,” he told Sky News after analyzing video footage.
Like Captain Steve, Rosenschein remarked that the plane flap setting didn’t ‘look right’ and that it looked as if an ‘aerodynamic issue’ was the cause of the devastation.
Ramesh, who was sitting in seat 11a on the plane, has recently recalled how the plane went down, detailing how he managed to get out of the wreckage.
Speaking from his hospital bed in Asarwa, Ahmedabad, the crash survivor said: “Thirty seconds after takeoff there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly.
“When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me. Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.”
Ramesh also told Indian state media DD News that he managed to unbuckle himself from his seat after the plane went down, using his leg to push through the debris and eventually crawl out.
Following the near-fatal flight, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has released a statement claiming the country is ‘devastated by the air tragedy’.
“The loss of so many lives in such a sudden and heartbreaking manner is beyond words,” he added.
“Condolences to all the bereaved families. We understand their pain and also know that the void left behind will be felt for years to come. Om Shanti.”
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