Experts explore possible reasons behind Dreamliner crash in India

As civil aviation safety experts prepare to begin the probe into the Air India Dreamliner plane crash near Ahmedabad airport yesterday, experts say engine failure or a bird hit soon after the aircraft's takeoff could have led to one of worst air crashes in India in recent times.

India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is probing into what caused the Boeing 787-8 aircraft, which was flying from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, to crash, minutes after takeoff.

Three senior wide-body pilots, who are also instructors, told Indian news agency PTI that the videos of the accident show the engines failed to get enough thrust during the takeoff, which resulted in the plane crashing onto buildings in a residential area near the airport.

An expert said that if only one engine failed during takeoff, the aircraft would have swung. However, it was steady and stable. He said this shows the possibility of both engines failing.

"So, there is the possibility of both the engines failing... There could have been a loss of thrust in both engines. But these are only possibilities," the pilot said.

He pointed out that the landing gear of the aircraft was down even at the time of takeoff.

The second pilot pointed out another possible reason for the accident. He said both engines could have had bird hits.

"This could happen if both engines had a flameout due to a bird hit," he added.

The pilots onboard the plane had a cumulative 9,300 hours of flying experience.

A third pilot said another possible reason for the aircraft losing thrust is that both engines might have lost power. One engine might have failed and possibly due to the landing gear being not retracted after take-off, the second engine might not have had adequate power.

He, however, ruled out the possibility of the aircraft being overburdened. He said the take-off wouldn't have been possible in this scenario.

Former pilot Ehsan Khalid told ANI, "There are just two reasons that I can look at... loss of power – if there is loss of power in an aircraft, then it will do exactly what this aircraft did. But loss of power in both engines is so rare. Could it happen because of bird hit? Yes, it has happened before in Airbus 320. Could it happen because of technical malfunction? Yes. These aircraft are electrical aircraft, they are run by software. Was there software glitch that caused the aircraft power to reduce altitude or go off? We don't know."

Khalid said the second thing is loss of lift. "Loss of lift is the flap position – the flap being selected up. When the flap is selected up, the aircraft would lose lift by almost by 30 per cent."

This was the first time that Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, the best-selling wide-body aircraft in the world, suffered a fatal accident in eleven years.

The Boeing 787-8 aircraft – VT-ANB – was 11.5 years old and had flown for more than 41,000 hours, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

The Boeing 787-8 that crashed yesterday was among the 27 such planes operated by Air India which is also set to start the retrofit of these aircraft in the coming months.