It never got higher than a few hundred feet. It took off and then just slowly drifted down and hit the ground.
One expert suspected a possible takeoff config issue, like flaps and slats not being set correctly. It did appear sluggish to lift off, and seemed to have a lack of lift once in the air, so I’d be inclined to agree.
There should be warnings to prevent that, because it’s a known issue that has been the cause of high-profile crashes before, so it will be interesting to hear what the ultimate cause turns out to be.
There’s frames in the multiple videos where you can see the slats in Takeoff Config - flaps are hard to see on a 787 because they don’t deploy that much on takeoff.
Is Vr the same for regular and short take off landing procedures? I was under the impression that they were different, and therefore you wouldn’t actually get off the ground if you required short take off (IIRC most passenger planes are short take off to minimize runway distance).
The other thing is, checking flaps is part of the standard preflight checklist. I don’t know if you can see the flaps for the 787 from the cockpit or not. Take following with silo of salt because I do not hold an ATP, but if you can’t, out sounds like another Air India maintenance catatrophe
It looked like they lost power in both engines, but hard to tell without audio. I was thinking bird strike, but couldn’t see birds in the CCTV video. Looked to be a cloud of dust or something just on rotation.
Video shows it gained what appears to be less than 200 feet after takeoff, and it looks like the pilot couldn’t get the nose up. It remained intact until it struck the medical building. The entire flight was just a few seconds.
Boeing, but a generally reliable model of Boeing this time.
I’d guess that it broke up in the air based on the description of the debris crashing… but that just raises more questions.
It never got higher than a few hundred feet. It took off and then just slowly drifted down and hit the ground.
One expert suspected a possible takeoff config issue, like flaps and slats not being set correctly. It did appear sluggish to lift off, and seemed to have a lack of lift once in the air, so I’d be inclined to agree.
There should be warnings to prevent that, because it’s a known issue that has been the cause of high-profile crashes before, so it will be interesting to hear what the ultimate cause turns out to be.
There’s frames in the multiple videos where you can see the slats in Takeoff Config - flaps are hard to see on a 787 because they don’t deploy that much on takeoff.
Got a dumb question.
Is Vr the same for regular and short take off landing procedures? I was under the impression that they were different, and therefore you wouldn’t actually get off the ground if you required short take off (IIRC most passenger planes are short take off to minimize runway distance).
The other thing is, checking flaps is part of the standard preflight checklist. I don’t know if you can see the flaps for the 787 from the cockpit or not. Take following with silo of salt because I do not hold an ATP, but if you can’t, out sounds like another Air India maintenance catatrophe
It looked like they lost power in both engines, but hard to tell without audio. I was thinking bird strike, but couldn’t see birds in the CCTV video. Looked to be a cloud of dust or something just on rotation.
There’s literally a video of the entire “flight”, no it did most certainly not break up mid-air.
Yes, video is a lot more reliable than the sparse bits of text I had read at that point.
Video shows it gained what appears to be less than 200 feet after takeoff, and it looks like the pilot couldn’t get the nose up. It remained intact until it struck the medical building. The entire flight was just a few seconds.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/12/catastrophic-air-india-plane-crash-near-ahmedabad-what-we-know