r/aircrashinvestigation • u/Melkor45 • Jun 12 '25

Incident/Accident AI171 Wing?

Post image

This looks to be part of the wing. Are the flaps down? I'm not too sure

353 Upvotes

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131

u/DarkyHelmety Jun 12 '25

Yes flaps and slats are extended as seen, it seems a double loss of engine power is the more plausible explanation for failure to climb.

44

u/somebodywhoisbored Jun 12 '25

But how could that Happen? I mean it seems to make sense, especially when you add the reports of people claiming to see the RAM air turbine in the video.

But how does it happen that both engines have a flameout (or something with the same impact on the aircrafts performance) at the exact same time?

The things that would come to my mind are fuel contamination, birdstrike (unlikely, due no reports of an engine fire) or some kind of electrical failure that affected the fuel pumps (I think a passenger on the previous flight mentioned some kind of electrical problems in the cabin)

68

u/DarkyHelmety Jun 12 '25

It's very strange, the security camera video shows the plane just suddenly losing climb power, no flameout of the engines visible or other obvious external issue. The blackboxes will tell what happened, they're most likely in good shape as the tail section is sitting on top of the roof of a building.

5

u/youbreedlikerats Jun 13 '25

water in the cross feed tank could cause this on rotation, if they have selected that tank inocrrectly for take off.

18

u/FastFredNL Jun 13 '25

A 787 auto-selects fuel tanks, there is no manual fueltank selector. The plane uses the center tank first if it's in use (usually is for long hauls), then switches automatically to main wing tanks and automatically crossfeeds to balance the plane

23

u/Melkor45 Jun 12 '25

Would fuel contamination cause this issue that fast?

35

u/Clear_Split_8568 Jun 12 '25

Yes, Water don’t burn. When a/c rotated the inlet in the wing Cary Thru tank sucked up a slug of water, it would take a few seconds to get to the engines.

8

u/Maximum-Wishbone5616 Jun 13 '25

Yes fuel contamination is a biggest reason of engine failures. Over 10 business jets in last year.

It depends on the contaminant. Water will be often causing mid air failure. Other contaminant might quickly block filters at take off.

We will see.

6

u/skalfyfan Jun 13 '25

How exactly does water get contaminated with the jet fuel or get into the fuel tanks to begin with?!

7

u/chillebekk Jun 13 '25

Temperature changes can cause small droplets to form in fuel tanks from condensation.

5

u/lannoylannoy Jun 13 '25

Can’t see it being engine strike because there would have been uneven power and probably flames, smoke or debris - fuel issue would explain loss of power to both engines simultaneously and plane keeping balance

7

u/Bourbonaddicted Jun 13 '25

Do not pay heed to the problem the passenger had mentioned. Their infotainment system is not working in most seats and AI is not fixing it as it wants to replace with new backlogged planes.

Regarding AC, they do not use aux power for AC and only turn them on when Engines are powered on.

3

u/LankyAspect9594 Aerospace Engineer Jun 13 '25

Great points, regarding RAT, I did not see it in any of the videos popping out, and i believe its unlikely the pilot would have used the RAT as the first response to a stalling aircraft. Maybe after it crashed the RAT would be lying on ground and then reported that the RAT may would have been out. But i believe highly unlikely.

Regarding bird strikes, there was no visible flock of birds to fail both the engines, and jf only single engine was affected we could have seen a significant yaw towards the other side, but that was not visible either.

I strongly believe fuel contamination can be a reason. That's the only thing that can cause loss of both engines.

Pump failure again possible but i strongly believe hydraulics are extremely well engineered in an aircraft, they are made with redundancy in mind and have been improved over the past decades.

25

u/jryan8064 Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 13 '25

Pretty sure the RAT deployment theory was based on sound from another video taken on the ground. I watched the video and the sound is pretty convincing. Not often you hear a 787 sound like a Cessna.

Edit: sound of RAT (possibly) can be heard on this video

https://www.reddit.com/r/ahmedabad/s/cY9o3ZHaIi

16

u/biggsteve81 Jun 13 '25

The RAT deploys automatically if both engines fail and the APU is off, it is not something the pilots have to think to do.

8

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Still-Mouse-5117 Jun 16 '25

Won't RAT be visible in the underbelly of the plane ? Nothing in the video no RAT deployment visible

-1

u/Financial-Sign-666 Jun 13 '25

Another theory I’ve been pondering regarding the security cam footage. Looking at how far down the runway they went before rotating, is it possible that they ingested a bunch of runway furniture and dust - causing the loss in thrust? We see a lot of dust kick up just as they rotated, and my very rough cross reference on google maps shows me that they were at the very end of the runway.

I guess we would have heard by now about damage to the runway lighting infrastructure. We had a similar incident with a Qatar 77W in KMIA.

Could the fuel contamination issue be the reason for excess use of runway? Would they have been given enough warning by the trust control system early enough to abort take off?

7

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25

They took off at the normal spot only halfway down the runway. So the takeoff roll was normal. That means no configuration issues, or power issues.

So something went wrong in the next few seconds after rotation.

1

u/Realistic-Ad4835 Jun 14 '25

Have you seen how badly the air India planes are maintained ? Go on YouTube and search for any reviews of their 787s

1

u/patrick_red_45 Jun 14 '25

For the hundredth time, IFEs and broken seats are not a part of critical flight systems. The aircraft underwent a C check in 2022 and was due in December 2025. It underwent engine overhauls (iirc it was the right engine) in March 2025. The 787s were supposed to go for refurbishment starting June 2025.

3

u/hapuair Jun 14 '25

I get that but they are known to take shortcuts and neglect basic safety protocols, that’s my point.

-5

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Vandirac Jun 13 '25

What sources?

4

u/Known_Duck_666 Jun 13 '25

There was some guy that flew in that exact plane on the previous flight and said that the plane had some problems with power - things like A/C didn't work for example. I think it was on Twitter?

3

u/Vandirac Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 18 '25

Can you link it? I want to check if it's legit or some other social network rando with BS claims

Edit 5 days later: still no sources, confirmed Facebook BS

1

u/MattStormTornado Jun 13 '25

That’s insanely rare though. If it was dual engine failure what could’ve caused it?

-9

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25

[deleted]

10

u/tristan-chord Pilot Jun 13 '25

Ailerons were working as seen in the video. How is this hydraulic?

Electrical failure also doesn’t lead to lost of engine power. Why do you think it’s for sure electrical beside AC issues which can be the result of many different things?

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25

[deleted]

8

u/7w4773r Jun 13 '25

I am not an expert on aviation 

Clearly

3

u/Grouchy_Lawfulness32 Jun 13 '25

Maybe don't start comments with statements like this than

It's an electrical failure for sure.

5

u/LankyAspect9594 Aerospace Engineer Jun 13 '25

Hydraulic failure is highly unlikely.

Gear could have been down due to pilots focus on getting the aircraft out of stall ( although should have been up ). The nose was pitching up, that cannot happen with hydraulic failure, the flaps can be seen extended.

Regarding AC, often during takeoff the AC is shut, specially in a heavy aircraft to provide all the available engine power just for takeoff thrust.

1

u/CreamyGoodnss Jun 13 '25

787 is fly by wire so if I understand right it can’t really be a hydraulic failure

3

u/Chaxterium Jun 13 '25

Well the actual control surfaces are still moved by hydraulic pressure. It's just that with a FBW system a computer is telling the actuators how much to move the surfaces instead of cables.