Air India is the latest in a slew of Boeing crashes, and finally, answers are trickling in about what caused the latest tragedy.
The aeroplane was taking off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad at 8 a.m. for a scheduled flight to London, but moments later, the aeroplane crash-landed into a nearby hostel. Almost immediately, the talk around the crash started revolving around all the recent crashes that have been tied to Boeing, but still, experts held on to their opinions before any conclusive reports on what happened to cause the crash became public record, as there was still a possibility that it could have been caused by human error.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner had 230 passengers and 12 crew members. The crash nearly caused a 100% fatality rate, but miraculously, one passenger actually survived. People reported that he was more surprised about his luck than any observer could be. The passenger, now identified as Vishwashkumar Ramesh, told the reporters who interviewed him, “I don’t know how I survived. I saw people dying in front of my eyes — the air hostesses and two people, I walked out of the rubble.”
Ramesh didn’t understand what was going on, but he described the experience of surviving the crash as unbelievable. Apparently, only 5 to 10 seconds after taking off, the plane was stuck in the air — a phenomenon known as “stalling” in aviation, whereby the plane cannot climb up in altitude. Ramesh said that green and white lights immediately started flashing, and before he knew it, the plane crashed into an establishment.
The cause behind the deadly crash
Now, the Indian Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has finally released a preliminary report on what happened just before the Air India flight crash-landed. Reportedly, immediately after taking off, the fuel to the aircraft engines was cut off. Unlike cars, in a plane, you can actually control how much fuel goes to a particular engine at any point in time — it works as a form of accelerator and is helpful to pilots when they need all the power in maneuvers such as taking off or when they need no power in situations like landing.
Here, it seems that the aeroplane automatically cut off fuel when the pilots were taking off. The black box reveals that the chief pilot asked his deputy why he cut off the fuel — to which his deputy responded that he did not cut off the fuel. One minute later, the aircraft crash-landed, killing all but one occupant in the aircraft.
The report, however, added: “Investigation is continuing, and the investigation team will review and examine additional evidence, records and information that is being sought from the stakeholders.” So, it should be expected that the next step of the investigations will be to determine what exactly caused the fuel cut-off — whether it was human error or another case of faulty Boeing machinery.
Boeing released a statement in response to the crash, assuring that the company’s thoughts remain with all the people affected by the crash and that they intend to do everything they can to help Air India’s investigation on this matter.
