Air India B787 crash Ahmedabad

[oz_mark]

If India follows the norm and publishes an initial report after 14 days then I fear that at the moment we are unlikely to learn much from the initial report other than things that they have ruled out.

I think 30 days is more normal.

 

[OATEK]

It's interesting, though his presentation has reached the breathless level.

My fear would actually be that they don't. Basically a tree of possibilities with a branch missing.


I'm finding it odd that they're going to the conclusion stage, though I have no objection to being given possible paths. Cap'n Steve has given us pilot error, then changed his mind, and is now in the fuel issue camp. Hoover is blaming the pilots, apparently going with the theory of an engine failure, followed by shutting the wrong one down - which doesn't explain the gear, and which they simply never would have gotten to, given that Boeing don't start cleaning up issues until you reach 1,000'. And now Gary seems to be in the electrical camp. It doesn't really matter if it's a million, or billion, to one chance. Remember that this is also an older aircraft in this fleet, which may throw up other issues.

Personally I've always wondered about the software, so I think we're wondering about the same thing.

GaryBpilot seems very interested in this line of enquiry about when/how engine fuel lines can be shut automatically:

 

[jb747]

This is a totally ignorant comment by me but I would have thought issuing a mayday was the furthest thing from the flight deck’s mind in a situation like that.

Possibly sounds strange, but the non flying pilot might have had a few seconds when he wasn’t doing anything…in large part because there’s nothing you can really do in this sort of situation. Again, the timing of the call, relative to the aircraft’s position will be relevant. And pilots, can multi task (my wife says I can’t, but ). You could be trying to pull the gear up, whilst you simultaneously make a call.

 

[jb747]

GaryBpilot seems very interested in this line of enquiry about when/how engine fuel lines can be shut automatically:

It’s interesting if true, but I’m not convinced that looking for the smoking gun is a great idea, with such limited information. Nevertheless, a default position of ”shut down” seems inappropriate for anything that flies. Whether that’s really correct, I don’t know.

 

[Rabs97]

Cap'n Steve has given us pilot error, then changed his mind, and is now in the fuel issue camp. Hoover is blaming the pilots, apparently going with the theory of an engine failure, followed by shutting the wrong one down - which doesn't explain the gear, and which they simply never would have gotten to, given that Boeing don't start cleaning up issues until you reach 1,000'. And now Gary seems to be in the electrical camp.

Do they get a trophy if their random guess turns out to be correct?

 

[RSD]

It’s interesting if true, but I’m not convinced that looking for the smoking gun is a great idea, with such limited information. Nevertheless, a default position of ”shut down” seems inappropriate for anything that flies. Whether that’s really correct, I don’t know.

Someone at Boeing might have needed to put some additional risk mitigation in for post accident fire so decided that if the valves have lost all electrical power then they should fail closed...

Sometimes logical thinking gets overridden by the desire (or pressure) to make a risk assessment pass...