Investigators have begun sorting the wreckage of a Thursday plane crash in India. This is the most deadly thing in 30 years. It may take months for a definitive explanation, but videos of accidents and other evidence have begun to provide clues that could have reduced Air India's flight and killed more than 260 people.
According to aviation safety experts, there are a few questions investigators hope to answer in a few days and weeks.
Were the wing flaps and slats properly expanded?
The crash on Thursday occurred the moment the plane left the airport in Ahmedabad, India. The short, blurry video showed what seemed like the beginning of a daily takeoff, aviation safety expert said. However, as soon as I left the ground, the plane, the dreamliner of the Boeing 787, began to fall off before crashing and exploded.
Most essentially, crashes reflect that they do not meet the basic requirements of flight. To fly, the plane must produce enough lift to overcome gravity and enough thrust to overcome air resistance known as drag. It appears that Thursday's flight failed on both accounts.
“It looked like there was a problem with the thrust and the lift,” said Aviation Safety Consultant Anthony Brickhouse. “And unfortunately, we saw what the outcome was.”
When the plane takes off, the flaps on the back of the wing and the slats on the front usually extend, providing more surface area as the plane increases speed and creating more lifts.
“Given the fact that this is a takeoff accident, I ask for questions regarding the setting of wing slats and flaps, essential for taking off in a large jet with fully loaded fuel,” said Jeff Gutsetti, a former accident investigator with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Traffic Safety Commission.
It was not clear whether these flaps and slats were properly expanded. Experts said, investigators wanted to know why. Did the pilot choose not to expand them or did they choose not to? Were there any kind of mechanical obstacles that prevented the pilot from expanding those parts? Even if the slats and flaps are expanded, it is difficult to know whether they were properly deployed, as different configurations can be made in a variety of situations. They could have been expanded, but were quickly withdrawn.
“The video is too grainy, but it's clearly recorded on the flight data recorder,” Gusetti said. “So I hope the recorder tells the story.”
Why did the landing gear go down?
The video shows that the landing gear remains extended throughout the plane's ascent and descent. The landing gear creates drags, so storing is usually one of the first actions an airplane pilot takes after the plane is off the ground.
However, experts said the pilot may not have withdrawn the gear for several reasons. For example, mechanical issues may prevent the pilot from lifting the landing gear. Or the pilot could be engrossed in another, more pressing issue.
“Airplanes will overwhelm your equipment,” said Sean Pruknikki, a former accident investigator with the Airline Pilot Association and an assistant professor of aviation safety at Ohio State University. If something else was wrong on the plane, the pilot might have focused on dealing with it first. He said:
Did you have an engine problem?
The engine provides thrust and the investigator will want to know if it failed for any reason. Engine failures can have a telltale sign of smoke, fire, or flashes, but experts say it's not obvious in the blurry video of the crash.
One video shows what appears to be a dust cloud right after the plane leaves the ground. It could have been caused by the engine or it could have been caused by a wingtip that disrupts the air, experts said.
Airplanes are designed to fly with only one engine. This is a situation where commercial airline pilots train “over” train, Pruchnicki said, and believes the 787 Dreamliner probably didn't experience a single engine failure, but it's possible that both engines are malfunctioning.
If so, it would have happened at “the absolute worst time,” Puruknikki said. A double engine failure that occurred shortly after takeoff would have left the pilot in no time to respond to the emergency when the plane was only a few hundred feet away from the ground.
“We can't manage double engine failures that are close to the ground,” he said. It reminded me of the “Miracle of Hudson” of 2009. “These people were in residential areas, business areas. They had no place to go either. There was no field to put it gently, so unfortunately, they ended up in the building.”
Both engine failures come with many causes, including bird and drone strikes, careless fuel cut-offs, and automatic thrust management issues. There is no evidence that these issues played a role in Thursday's crash.
“There are 100 simple explanations for the possibilities,” Pruchnicki said. He adds, “incredibly forensic” look at what happened by analyzing the flight data recorder and inspecting the engine itself.
What was going on on the flight deck?
Investigators will also be sharply focused on what they deployed in the flight deck or cockpit before the crash.
Air India Flight had two pilots. This is typical of commercial aviation, one person is responsible for flights, the other person provides support and monitors the various systems of the plane. Have those obligations been properly divided? What were the pilots saying to each other? And did they do their job properly?
The plane is also equipped with various warning systems to alert pilots of problems. Investigators will want to know if these warning systems worked as intended.
“Did they get a warning that they are supposed to receive or were they misunderstood? If they weren't warned, why did the crew do when they heard it?” Gusetti said.
What other evidence is there?
Investigators also hunt for more evidence.
Typically, they scrutinize and analyze the wreckage for clues and collect testimonies from witnesses such as airport staff who may have seen the crash. I'll also look for additional videos.
But their most important task is to recover the rich technical information and audio recordings contained in the plane's black box: flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
“We've seen a lot of effort and we've seen it,” said John Cox, a pilot and chief executive of the former airline for Safety Operating Systems, a consulting company. “Now, it's about gathering documents and evidence and having an open mind.”
