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I would like to speculate about the Air India flight that crash during takeoff.

I have a technical theory that the B-787 crashed because it had not been refueled from the previous flight it had made and they attempted takeoff with low fuel.
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Turtlepower · 36-40, M
I doubt it as both pilots would have to ignore the fuel gauge. I would also doubt the gauge was broken. I'm not saying it was impossible but the one surviving passenger said there was a banging or loud boom shortly before the crash.
Turtlepower · 36-40, M
@SandWitch yeah but that still doesn't explain the sound before the crash that's not consistent with an engine stall but anything is possible. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough
SandWitch · 26-30, F
@Turtlepower
Of course a bang-sound is consistent with the sound of an engine stall! What do you think an jet engine stall sounds like?
Turtlepower · 36-40, M
@SandWitch Sorry, you're right. I've been half asleep, I meant that the fuel hypothesis may not cause an engine stall event type sound but it can. The video did look like it was simply gliding
That giant fireball did not come from a low fuel situation — quite the opposite, it was an intense fireball because it was fully fueled and barely used up any of that fuel just going down the runway

I've seen two different videos with interesting (and obviously very speculative, at this stage) points .... one is from a from an airline pilot and former USAF Thunderbirds pilot, noting the gear should not have still been down when it crashed, and also stating it looked like the flaps were up, more or less because he could see the engines, and he didn't think he would see the engines if the flaps were still down like they should be ... so he wondered if the pilot told the copilot to put the gear up, but the copilot accidentally put the flaps up instead, never realizing this error ... which would just make the jet stall and lose lift ... now you can watch other 787 takeoff videos that go off without a hitch and you still see the engines clearly from behind, flaps are not obstructing the view

A different video plays the view of the jet from its right side after takeoff, using the original video with the original sound (not the copy of this which the news networks raced to get out first, without the original sound) ... and the person posting this video makes a good point, when the jet passes by it does very much sound like the jet's emergency ram air turbine (RAT) has automatically been deployed ... I hear a 787 RAT at least once a week if not multiple times a week because I live in the city where final assembly of the 787 takes place, and Boeing rouinely does test flights of each new jet around the city ... the RAT has a very distinctive propeller plane like sound, and I usually hear it when the jet its flying by at about 3,000 feet altitude ... I hear no jet engines at all, only the RAT ... the first time it ever happened I thought I was hearing a more exotic prop plane like a Piaggio Avanti, then looking at Flighradar24 I saw only a 787 was in the area ... well in the India video where you can hear the RAT I also don't necessarily hear jet engines, and at that low altitude, you should still be able to here the jet engines ... it does make it seem like maybe both engines failed right after the plane got airborne, maybe another rare double bird strike, but you don't see any flames from the engines if a different video showing the entire takeoff and crash from the left side of the runway, so perhaps any loss of engine thrust was caused by something other than bird strikes ... and the videos do seem too grainy to really say if the flaps are up or down, but why would the RAT be deployed unless there is an engine thrust problem (or perhaps also an electrical system failure) ...

This is what the RAT sounds like during a normal test flight here at the factory in my town (it's that loud propeller sound, separate from the jet engine sound):
[media=https://youtu.be/mmlWshJFM1I?t=66]

This is what the aircraft in India sounded like just before the crash:
[media=https://youtu.be/SbDJjgN7Xbo?t=153]


This is the airliner / fighter pilot speculating that the copilot may have accidentally put the flaps up instead of the gear:
[media=https://youtu.be/hVX_F39SKpY?t=982]
SandWitch · 26-30, F
@BlueGreenGrey
The guy in the bottom video has no clue what he's talking about. That's why he had to ask his Dad what goes on inside a passenger jet and even then, he got the pilot's duties screwed up in his video presentation.

To your point about the Air India 787 being seen with its flaps up and not down as you say, the flaps are not normally in the 'down' position anyway during takeoff! The flaps are only in the 'down' position during landing! They were not landing! They were taking off!

To that point, if you look at the grainy video being shot by an amateur photographer during the 787's takeoff sequence, you'll notice that the wing flaps are actually in what's called the 'takeoff' setting, which is about 5 degrees of down-flap.

During the landing sequence, the flaps are normally in about the 40 degree down-flap setting. Therefore, during the takeoff, those flaps were in their correct takeoff position.

As the aircraft suddenly started to descend after takeoff, neither engine was developing thrust which means they were not running. The RAT had automatically deployed which can be heard in the video you provided, but the RAT only deploys automatically during a total hydraulic failure or during a total engine failure involving both engines.

The only way that both engines could quit simultaneously would be from the pilot intentionally shutting them off, or fuel starvation to both engines, or simultaneous bird strikes involving both engines. In the latter case involving birds, the engines wouldn't just flame-out... they would actually catch fire as they both incurred catastrophic internal damage from those birds and there'd be a lot of smoke and definitely a long stream of fire trailing from both engines. There was NONE of that which means they didn't have a bird strike.

That leaves only voluntary engine shutdown... or fuel starvation to cause both engines to quit simultaneously, thereby causing the auto-deployment of the RAT.

The fact that a huge fireball can be seen would be consistent with a minimum fuel load onboard that was left over from the previous flight.

The fireball that eventually erupted wasn't consistent in size and magnitude for a 787 fully loaded with fuel however!

In fact, there was very little fire and very little fire damage on the ground to surrounding property which got extinguished with water, not foam! ... which further tells us that there wasn't a lot of fuel onboard.
I know nothing about a 787 But, I would be surprised if there weren't a low fuel warning .
SandWitch · 26-30, F
@Hinckley
There wouldn't be a low fuel warning if they took off with the remaining fuel in tanks from the previous landing the aircraft had made. This is because the previous flight would not have landed in a low fuel condition. They would typically land in a 'minimum fuel' condition, but not a low fuel condition.

If they took off without refueling however, the minimum fuel in tanks would all rush to the back of the tanks as the nose was lifted into the air on takeoff which would cause fuel starvation to occur if the fuel pickup points within the tanks suddenly became uncovered as the fuel rushed to the back of the tanks, thereby causing instant and simultaneous engine flameouts to occur.

In this accident, BOTH engines failed simultaneously which is always a fuel starvation issue, considering there was no smoke coming from the engines in the video as it glided to touchdown.
NeoNeo · 46-50, M
There was about 120k litre fuel in the aircraft
Punches · 46-50, F
The L.A. rioters looted the fuel out of it.

 
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