Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Five for Five: Air India crash points to systemic problems at Boeing that CEO Ortberg must fix June 15, 2025
- Airbus sees Boeing as medium-term competitor, with Comac next June 14, 2025
- Boeing bullish on 20-year forecast, despite short-term headwinds June 14, 2025
- Embraer’s 20-year market forecast under 150 seats: fewer turboprops, jets about the same June 14, 2025
- Airbus Canada CEO: Airbus is here to stay in Canada June 14, 2025
Five for Five: Air India crash points to systemic problems at Boeing that CEO Ortberg must fix
By Scott Hamilton
June 15, 2025, © Leeham News, Le Bourget, France: The Paris Air Shown was supposed to be another step, however small, in Boeing’s way back from six years from crisis after crisis, safety and quality concerns, criminal investigations, Congressional hearings and existential threats following two fatal crashes of the 737 MAX and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Boeing wasn’t bringing any MAXes, 777X or 787s to the air show. There would be no awe-inspiring flight displays. The cost wasn’t worth it given Boeing’s billions of dollars in losses in recent years.
Nevertheless, Boeing planned low-key executive appearances and media events.
Air India flight 171 on its descent to a crash on July 12. Credit: Amateur video.
And then, four days before the show was to officially begin tomorrow, Air India flight 171 crashed, killing 241 of 242 people on board and at least three dozen on the ground where the 14-year-old 787-8 pancaked in to a densely packed residential and educational area only two kilometers from the airport.
Videos of the event showed the 787 using up almost all of the 11,500 ft runway to take off in a cloud of dust (presumably the overrun area), barely climbing a few hundred feet, dipping and climbing slightly again before smoothly descending into an explosive ball of smoke and flame on impact out of view of the cameras.
The pilot radioed a Mayday with the terse message reporting power problems with the GEnx engines on the plane.
Very quickly pundits, pilots, armchair experts and even former crash investigators began hypothesizing on what went wrong. Theories ranged from pilot error, misconfigured flaps, dual engine failure, electrical failures and more. The only thing missing was an alien ray from outer space.
GE, Boeing cancel events
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg. Credit: Getty Images.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg quickly canceled plans to attend the air show. GE canceled a briefing about its RISE Open Fan engine scheduled for the Saturday after the crash and a Future Airplanes forum set for opening day that included speakers from GE and Boeing. Boeing downplayed a Saturday media reception and canceled another one planned for Tuesday at which executives were to be in attendance.
Five for Five
Some quickly began raising questions about the 787’s safety, raising old issues and hinting that regulators should ground the airplane. For Boeing, this topic is especially sensitive, given the safety and quality issues raised in recent years and which continue to dog the company.
Boeing’s last four pure commercial airliner programs plus the commercially based 767/KC-46A USAF refueling tanker each have had development, design, quality and in some cases safety problems. Boeing Commercial Airplanes is five for five for problems, delays and billions of dollars in losses.
The 787
The 787’s history was the beginning of a long series of safety, quality, design and production issues that began to emerge in 2007, the year before the model was supposed to enter service. It wasn’t until October 2011 that the first 787-8 entered service, with Japan’s ANA.
In January 2013, two 787s—one from Japan Air Lines (JAL) and one from ANA—suffered battery fires one week apart, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the US-registered fleet pending the investigation. Foreign regulators followed suit; globally, 50 787s sat for three months before returning to service.
A short time later, another 787, this one owned by Ethiopian Airlines, had a fire that was traced to pinched wiring that arced, creating a blaze. The global fleet continued in operation.
In the intervening years, various problems emerged requiring Airworthiness Directives, Service Bulletins and inspections, but this is fairly normal. But in 2020, nine years after EIS and 16 years after production began, paper-thin gaps between fuselage joins were discovered. Deliveries were halted for 20 months while fixes were designed. One hundred ten 787s had been built with all requiring inspection and most require rework to fix it, taking 3-4 months per plane. The last of these was complete early this year.
The 747-8
Development of the 747-8 had its trouble. It was more than a year late, about $2bn in charges were written off and the initial design proved to have flutter issues. Engineering work outsourced to India came back flawed and had to be reworked by Boeing employees, taking time and adding to costs. Lufthansa Airlines refused to accept the first of 20 on order and never replaced the aircraft.
The 737 MAX
The history of the 737 MAX is etched in everybody’s mind who is connected to the aviation industry and who are aviation enthusiasts. After two crashes of five-month-old 737-8s in October 2018 and March 2019, the airplane was grounded for 21 months by the FAA. Redesign of the now-famous MCAS system that was flawed and at the root of the accidents took exponentially more time than anticipated. The FAA rejected early proposals.
As time dragged on, more issues were found, and these had to have fixes designed and approved. Still more design issues were discovered and after some in-service bugs emerged, still more design and fixes were needed.
Certification of the 737-7 and 737-10 MAXes still hasn’t occurred, years after these two family members were supposed to enter service. In January 2024, a door plug blew off a new 737-9 operated by Alaska Airlines minutes after take off from Portland (OR). An emergency landing followed safely. The low altitude and by sheer chance that the two seats next to the door plug were empty prevented anyone from being sucked out of the airplane.
Minor injuries occurred and the plane was damaged sufficiently that Alaska refused to keep it; Boeing took the airplane back in exchange for an order for a MAX 10 and compensation to the airline. The FAA grounded 171 MAXes operating in the US for three weeks before approving Boeing’s inspection plan and subsequent fix. The problem was traced to sloppy assembly at the 737 Renton (WA) production plant.
The 777X
Certification of this stretched, re-engined, re-winged version of the 777 Classic—one of legacy Boeing’s best airliners—was marching ahead smoothly when the MAX crisis erupted. The FAA quickly began reexamining all the certification work completed to then on the 777X, which was supposed to enter service in January 2020. This took time, created delays and cost money.
Flight tests revealed that the plane had a tendency for uncommanded nose-down pitches. Bugs in the flight control software were discovered. A redesign was required. The horizontal tailplane was thought by some to be too small for the larger plane (than the Classic), much as the tailplane of the McDonnell Douglas proved too small for the MD-11 compared with the DC-10 from which it was derived.
More recently, a thrust link alongside the massive engines was found to be flawed, halting test flights and requiring a redesign.
Billions of dollars have been written off. Certification is hoped for by the end of this year, with EIS planned for next year—six years late and 13 years after the program launch.
The KC-46A
Boeing’s performance on the KC-46A tanker, a military program, has been abysmal. This airplane is based on the commercial 767-200ER and as such is built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA). Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS) militarizes the airplane.
Several systems have what’s called Level 1 problems. The remote-vision tail refueling book still doesn’t work, years after the years-delayed entry into service with the USAF. The refueling boom is developed by a sub-contractor. That’s bad enough, along with the other systems issues, but BCA’s role is building a quality airplane in the first place—and herein lies the problem.
Sloppy production allowed a variety of foreign objects to find their way into the finished airplanes. Quality control was so bad that the air force refused delivery a few times for weeks at a time. Boeing has already written off $6bn for the program, and there is no telling if more charges are to come.
Systemic problems
This history makes it clear that BCA (and BDS, which has more issues than recounted here) has systemic problems that Ortberg must fix. Progress has been made, but the Air India crash and talk of grounding the 787 (however premature this, given the investigation is in its infancy) has resurfaced memories of these previous issues.
Boeing’s way back to health may suffer a setback if any fault with the airplane contributed to the accident.
Typo note: “door plus” should read “door plug”.
Is it somewhat soon to point to an inherent fault of something in the 787 that is like the other issues that Boeing has had in the past? This one seems to feel different than the others. But I suspect that a lot will become clear to the insiders that are doing the investigation very soon.
Sort of agree but this is a 15? year old aircraft.
It did not fall apart which is what one so called Whistle Blower claims prior and is now saying I told you so.
I think we can put thrust issue at the top. 11,500 feet of runway used.
Not a clue as to why no abort, Pilots have to make decisions and the right decision can and often is only obvious post crash.
I suspect they have some solid ideas by now. Flap position should be obvious even in the wreck to rule in part of the issue or not.
When an aircart only get 174 knots in 11,500 feet or runway, there is something horribly going wrong.
Obviously thrust is involved, but its either fuel, settings or a massive electrical failure.
https://skybrary.aero/articles/full-authority-digital-engine-control-fadec
Or perhaps a lift issue.
You can’t separate out lift from thrust.
Flap settings are deliberately as low as the runway permits for reasons of economy.
The picture resolution is not good enough to tell if they had Flaps 5.
Clearly its not flaps 20.
Its astonishing someone has not plugged in the 171 flight data into a 787 or simulator and got a readout what the computer would have selected.
Kind of reminds you of the Air Florida crash in DC where the iced over tubes caused the engines to give less than optimal thrust. Will be interesting if that the same issue.a clogged tube
The flight data recorder haven’t even been released yet so your premature reaction that this could not resulted from maintenance or human factors is really Quite surprising.
It’s an opportunity to blast Boeing, something that…is rarely passed up here.
There is that from the usual suspects but others of us are just looking for the explanation
@ Jno
Can you please point out to us where you believe the author to be manifesting “your premature reaction that this could not resulted from maintenance or human factors”.
I don’t see that anywhere in the article above.
I see an article discussing a background of dysfunction against which the current crash will be viewed as being most inopportune…but I see no conclusions as to the crash’s cause.
Re AI171 – the much reported mayday message from the crew has been debunked/rescinded by the journalist that first reported it. There’s also no official confirmation of how long the take off run was – dust being thrown up in India is a very common sight.
I have seen the long takeoff run and late rotation.
I can estimate that it was at least 2/3 down the runway.
Other tracking sources say they used the whole runway.
If so then the dust is from the over run area.
I don’t know about the supposed Mayday, you don’t list any links.
There also is a whole slew of possible including human factors and systems failing and out of the book stuff a pilot would have to try to assess and a decision on what to do.
If you’ve seen it, at what exact point did they rotate? There’s been nothing official from the DGCA about the take-off run. What “tracking sources” are you referring to – you didn’t provide any links.
As for the mayday call – as reported by an Indian aviation blogger “The source of the “Mayday … no thrust, losing power, unable to lift,” message was a journalist called Barkha Dutt – she herself clarified that she has confirmed it was not true. But the damage has been done – that statement of hers was picked up and amplified by some Western media sources. And that original fake news tweet stays.”
We’re in the early stages of The Information Wars, I think.
Has anyone actually *seen* the takeoff roll of AI171
(in this instance) from beginning to end; and if so,
do you have a link?
#skeptical in Los Osos
The government has said the plane took almost the entire runway.
Scott, the Times of India reported that a “government official” said the take-off run was long. That report was widely re-reported by other media. There is nothing about this on the DGCA’s website and everyone is jumping on this ‘news’ as gospel, yet nobody can say who this mysterious government official is.
This is very typical in India. As are dusty take-offs.
That is confirmed by the side video. Its not definitive for cross ref, but I did ID the shack in the frame and that was 1/3 of the way down the runway.
Its was at least 2/3 and looked longer.
There is the cloud of dust blown up
Flight tracking confirms it and per Scott, government confirms it.
The 174 knots also confirmed by Flight Tracking. It may change 5 knots one way or the other but its going to be very close.
It should be well over 200 knots at that point though with the right flaps and speed you do not need that high a speed.
Same response as to Scott – the Times of India claimed a “government official” said the take off run was long. This was widely re-reported by other media. I have seen nothing official that confirms this statement. There’s nothing on the DGCA’s website. Nobody knows who this “government official” is.
Widebody departures kicking up lots of dust are very common in India and not an indication of how long the take-off run is.
“well over 200 knots”: hunh?
I doubt climbout speed after takeoff on a 787 is even close to that .
Takeoff speed can be as high as 180 knots. That number varies due to flaps setting (more flaps lower) but also more drag taking more power using more fuel so they set as low as is safe for a runway, temp and humidity levels.
That should be no latter than 2/3 Runway.
So yea, over 200 knots is easily achieved in 11,500 feet if the engines are putting out anywhere near full thrust.
With regard to the “whole runway”, has it been verified that the 787 backtracked to the starting end of the runway, or did a U-turn at the intermediary turnaround site? I have seen references to both so am reluctant to have an opinion about how much of the runway was used.
+1
These days my motto is “show me, don’t tell me”, and in an age of “AI”, even that might not be enough..
The reports I saw addressed that and its reported it did use full runway taxiing to the far end.
I don’t have the reference.
FlightRadar24 confirmed that detailed analysis of their data showed that the plane entered the runway at the intersection and back-tracked to the 23 threshold before departure.
OK, so they used the whole runway, end to end, but barely staggered off at the very end! This is even more confusing as it would seem like the crew would have had some sort of indication by V1 that the commanded thrust was not there. So it would seem that the obvious onset of thrust reduction must have happened after V1 and must have come on rather rapidly.
What could reduce the thrust in such a ramping down way? Something caused or commanded both engine controllers to separately and not abruptly roll back possibly below flight idle in such a way that the crew still had the belief that they could attain stable flight and then land.
The engines seemed to not exhibit any external distress other than the possible bang that was heard (which may have been the RAT deployment).
It is this progressive thrust ramp down that was so insidious for the crew to deal with.
For this to be a software bug that first surfaces after this many years is mind boggling.
A fuel pump failure could not do it as there are two separate pumps. Also the engines can directly and independently suck fuel from the wing tanks without any use of the electric pumps (I do not know if switching over to suction mode happens automatically). This also suggests that the pressure in the fuel lines did not decrease significantly to trigger an auto switch (if that is a thing). Probably the crew did not have time to think of switching from the fuel pumps in the center tank to the wing tanks. To actually start drawing fuel from the wing tanks requires that the fuel pumps in the center tank to be counterintuitively TURNED OFF so that the higher pressure fuel from these pumps do not override the lower pressure wing fuel pumps that are also on (this is by design, as this automatically draws fuel from the center tank. But if one of these pumps in the center tank fails the pumps in wings then start pumping fuel, [I believe that they have been on and at pressure all the time])!
So what does that leave as to a cause?
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth ‽
Yes it is.
All you can do is list the possibles.
We don’t even know if they were initially seeing normal thrust and then it did not keep ramping up, or if it suddenly slacked off part way down the runway but past V1.
Interesting. I have this feeling that there will be many, many more twists and turns in this situation.
No question.
Its going to be a chain of events, what those are have been listed as possible and likely a bizarre one or two in there.
“Re AI171 – the much reported mayday message from the crew has been debunked/rescinded by the journalist that first reported it”
Got a link to back that up?
The ‘journalist’ that reported it was Barkha Dutt. She herself subsequently admitted that it wasn’t true, but by then it had been widely re-reported by other media and, as is the way these days, becomes “the truth” when in fact it’s the exact opposite.
It seems she has a history of false aviation reporting. I can’t prove it, so folks can believe it or not. But I would caution against believing anything that’s attributed to anonymous “officials” in India. If it isn’t on the DCGA’s website or said by one of their staff at a press conference, it is very likely not correct.
That’s nice — but you still haven’t posted a link to this alleged retraction.
I said I can’t prove it – I don’t have a link. I’m just providing information and context.
You’re entirely free to ignore it, but it will be shown to be the case that the call from the captain was literally “Mayday. Mayday.” The rest was fabricated by Barkha Dutt.
It’s a classic example of misinformation that gets propagated in a fast-moving situation, especially early on when real information is hard to come by.
@ Stealth 66
So, you’re essentially doing the same thing of which you’re accusing that journalist, i.e. making an assertion that you can’t substantiate.
How about this, in various mainstream media sources today?
“Indian aviation officials have confirmed the pilot issued distress calls before the Gatwick-bound flight crashed in Gujarat state on 12 June, killing 241 people on board and at least 29 on the ground.
“Thrust not achieved… falling… Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” the pilot said moments before the aircraft began losing height and erupted in a fireball.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/air-india-flight-crash-boeing-pilot-last-words-b2770412.html
Should we assume that The Independent — together with various other sources today — is misleading us?
No, I’m not spreading misinformation and I’m sure nobody will be re-reporting my words!
The claim by Barkha Dutt, which was widely re-reported (including this very site!) said the words “no power” were included in the Mayday. They weren’t.
Last I checked, the report by TOI hasn’t taken down.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/air-india-plane-crash-thrust-not-achieved-falling-mayday-ai-pilots-last-words/articleshow/121855487.cms
on another note
“Russian strike hit Boeing office in Kyiv in deliberate attack on US business, FT reports”
“Overnight on June 9-10, Russian forces launched hundreds of drones and seven missiles in one of the biggest attacks on Ukraine, damaging buildings across the capital. One of the targets included Boeing’s office, according to two Boeing employees, three Ukrainian officials, and the head of the American Chamber of Commerce (ACC) in Ukraine, whom the FT spoke with.”
Could you give it a rest? Or created your own forum to be a town crier on?
Could you leave the moderation to Mr. Hamilton?
I wasn’t aware that he had appointed you as his deputy.
Expressing my opinion
It is an oxymoron to assert that an “opinion” can be expressed in an interrogative and/or imperative form…
“Air India crash points to systemic problems at Boeing”
With respect, this is sloppy journalism.
While Boeing as a company definitely has systemic issues, at this point there is absolutely nothing we know about Air India 171 to indicate an underlying problem with the 787 family, much less a problem attributable to the company’s other issues.
You might as well look at January’s fire on Air Busan 391 (an A321) caused by a passenger’s malfunctioning battery pack and write “Air Busan fire points to larger issues at Airbus”. No. No, it does not.
I suspect that the author intended “points to” to be interpreted as “redirects attention to”.
***
Definition of “points to” from Oxford Languages:
“give force or emphasis to (words or actions).”
You miss the context. Some people (like ambulance chasing lawyers) are already calling for the 787 to be grounded. There was a press release from one law firm I received directly tying this to the MAX crashes. Others in and out of the media questioned the 787’s safety (which I did my best to debunk in my own media appearances). It’s all part of the larger picture of Boeing’s 6 years for one crisis after another.
The whole thing about Boeing’s systemic safety and quality issues started with the 787 as this article recounts (though many say the safety began going downhill with the McDonnell Douglas merger in 1997).
@Scott:
I sort of get it but this has always been an issue with all mfgs.
Airbus included in its Control logic, it does great things and its caused great harm.
Boeing goes back to the age of the 707 and various mistakes made.
DC-8 had a flaw in the fuel system that caused a crash.
Its not a Boeing exclusive.
I would ground the 787 fleet until there was a direction that ruled out a systems problem.
Why? Not grounding until you prove something is reactive and I think pro active is the way to go with any of this type incident.
They have to have a lot of physical evidence at this point that gives them idea of where the problem was.
I keep reading as soon as they get the FRD its solved, what a week to two weeks before they get the readouts and the timelines translated out of computerize and if damaged it has to come to the US.
Well, if a grounding is in the cards, I hope it doesn’t happen until Sunday. I fly home Saturday on a 787.
Plenty of airlines fly 777s and A350s across the pond…relatively easy to re-book you 😉
You might even get lucky and fly all-business on LaCompagnie 😎
Return flights are pretty much full. I wanted to go home Thursday. Getting an alternate flight if 787s are grounded would be tough competition.
I had that decision with my wife.
The A320 she was flying on had a nasty issue in the software. They were fully aware of it and had a work around (MCAS 1.0 anyone?)
I reluctantly let her fly (she left that decision to me).
Ethiopian and pilots knew about the issue and the pilots still got trapped in MCAS 1.0.
So I understand, tough decision.
I sure would not be booking flights on wide body let alone a 787.
Safe travels
The FDR and CVR have to be analyzed, likely overseas.
Really? Who knew.
Where they get downloaded and linked up with timelines depends on condition and if India thinks it has the capability to do so.
they do have a new center for that but there are only two labs that do the most damaged units. US and France.
Korea sent the units to the US because they were not sure they got the data on the Jeju flight. In fact what they were seeing, aka complete loss of data was correct.
India may well elect to do both.
But it will be India and or the US.
Time to refresh your memory: Korea only attempted to retrieve data from the CVR, they sent both the CVR and the FDR overseas for analysis.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/01/south-korea-plane-crash-investigators-extract-data-from-jeju-air-black-box
It takes about two days to convert data from the CVR to audio files.
I was going to comment to that affect.
Problems at Boeing have nothing to do with this crash.
It may have design issues involved, but its nothing to do with Boeing issues.
The only bit of relevance is the San Antonius incident and that was understood and resolved to the FAA.
The San Antonio failure was a inability to see the exact set of circumstances that would cause that to happen. It was not a Boeing issue, Rockwell Collins I believe.
Its possible there is another failure path int he electrical system that manifested itself. If so, while its a dosing issue its not a failure to design to specs and test it.
I have seen more than one of those, no one can for see them and if you can foresee them you can’t design or test for them.
Same with Auto Throttle or the FASDEC. They can have a hidden flaw.
During the MAX assessment they found a one in a bazillion chance a stray particle could much up both computers (or some such). Its a known issue with all computers and the 737 design took that into account but they did fine a insanely tiny route it could happen. So they fixed it, keeping in mind that was at least a NG or Classic and its never happened.
Its strange that if the up move had never been assessed as an issue MCAS 1.0 as it came to be would not exist and two aircraft would be flying today.
Systems designed to keep you safe in one situation can take you out in another.
“It may have design issues involved, but its nothing to do with Boeing issues.”
Please explain: if there are potential design issues involved, how could that have “nothing to do with Boeing issues”…seeing as the plane was designed by Boeing?
First, design is simply that.
You can have something that looks to be flawlessly designed that has a fault path in it (like the 737 computers). It maybe incredibly obscure.
Those design issues include Airbus and its many revisions to its control laws and specific functions of it. You change one when you find the flaw and you can created another one.
Design is generic to all Aircraft mfg and all are subject to fault paths, nothing to do with Boeing, its a hard fact of building things.
They manged to drive an A320 flight computer insane with enough resets of a fault. Airbus to this day can’t tell you why because they can’t duplicate it.
They made some guesses and changed the program. The best protection was don’t keep resetting the danged computer.
You do realize that you completely failed to answer the question, don’t you?
You completely and I believe deliberately want to blame Boeing.
Boeing is responsible,
If you (RTX or RC) design a system and test it to all the standards you tell me what more you can do?
Even if the hull failed, they have tested it to extended failure.
Aloha violated Boeing incursions on inspections, so that is Boeing fault?
“Aloha violated Boeing incursions on inspections”
Oh, have similar incidents happened to Airbus? Don’t be naive.
In case you’ve never heard of WN812 (or happened to forget as a matter of convenience), I remind you this:
“The depressurization was caused by the structural failure of the fuselage skin, which produced a hole approximately 60 inches (150 cm) long on the upper fuselage. The NTSB investigation revealed evidence of pre-existing metal fatigue, and determined the probable cause of the incident to be related to an error in the manufacturing process for joining fuselage crown skin panels.”
“Design is generic to all Aircraft mfg… ”
Sure Jane. You’d change your tune if this was said by COMAC.
You do not want to understand.
Aloha corrosion had been addressed by Boeing in delivering specific instructions on what to look for and where.
My issue with COMMAC is its a government controlled company being monitored by a government control so called safety agency.
Its bizarre you talk about Boeing capture of the FAA but ignore the total control of China AHJ.
Unlike what happened in the US, I see no evidence that same thing has happened to CAAC. Time to pull your head up and look for evidence, not makeup/imagination.
There is *absolutely no way* at this time to know “its (sic) nothing to do with Boeing issues.”
More heat than light..
15 year old aircraft and fleet in service and it never happened before?
I would still ground it, but if its not safe at that point nothing is.
@ Vincent
It would appear that many commenters don’t grasp even basic logic…🙈
@TW
I recall similar “logic” (the 737 NG had a good safety record) was used by Boeing to justify the MAX was safe after their first crash.
Neither on of you obviously realizes what ground it means.
This is not a hull breakup.
Something went horribly wrong and its not happened in 15 years of flight.
That is why is shocking and why the AHJs are not grounding it yet.
What “hull breakup” and grounding are you talking about?? Are you aware what you typed out?
Comprehension
The best comprehension can’t overcome gibberish.
With Boeing’s preset from recent times assuming another Boeing issue is the expected outcome.
But IMHO we should wait a couple of days ( or weeks ) for more tangible information.
( favorable notice: “Duh, Simple: Third World Pilot failure” attribution is rare and low voice this time.
A bit of an attention taker was the “Mr. WishWash … ” surviving passenger. But he seems to be real and not plain racist like “Mr. We Too Low” back a couple of years and on another continent.)
So we can’t look at the pilots and their actions because they are Indian National?
It does not matter, you always have to question the pilots and their decisions. ANY pilot regardless of race religion or otherwise.
Its not racist to look at a countries CRM as well as how usefully the First Officer is with 250 hours.
Time is a bad indicator of experience but 250 hours and you expect them to speak up to a captain with thousands of hours?
This captain and first officer will have their background looked at, how current, what was the most recent sim time, what were the reports of their flying ability?
It may not be relevant or it may be relevant to a decision the PF made.
What I do know is I would vastly prefer a First Officer that had enough time in type and total to be a full member of the CRM and tell the Pilot what he needs to know not what he needs to here.
Hours does not look to be an issue here. Recent experience and time in type maybe. That is not racist, its a fact of flying.
According to a report by the NYTimes, the FO was flying commercial in Florida before joining AI.
I’m 75. I remember the first generation of widebody airliners in the end of the 60s, the 70s and 80s. Lots of planes crashed for both aircraft related and pilot error reasons. By comparison the 787 fleet in, and occasionally out of, service for 14 years and now over 1000 strong just had it’s first fatal accident (they got lucky with the battery issue).
This is a level of safety that would have seemed implausible 50 years ago. It’s not perfect and the cause of this crash must/will be found and improvements will be made but I would not hesitate to fly on a 787 today. Correctly or not I would be more comfortable on a “first world” airline with a “first world” flight crew.
“Correctly or not I would be more comfortable on a “first world” airline with a “first world” flight crew.”
Wow — alive and kicking.
so you won’t fly US airlines either:
Third world with an oversized ego and military 🙂
There are three reasons why aircraft crash (when not human).
1) Design flaw: hard to believe on an “older” airframe
2) Quality flaw: only an issue if there was recent maintenance and the new parts were of poor manufacturing
3) Maintenance deficiency (most likely assuming not pilot error). They are going to probably find root cause here…bad fuel pump, bad actuators, something like that.
While I cringe at any order to “shut down” a type…I could get my head around it under certain parameters. Air India only? Or if they go with 3rd party maintenance…then any airline under that type certificate.
While I am not a crash expert…I have to believe there are people pouring over the last few months worth of maintenance records looking for anything wonky. They also have a flight data recorders. Statistically, an aircraft that has never had a crash in 15 years will not have another one within a week.
All valid.
MAX in theory was the same.
When I don’t understand something the better safe than sorry kicks in.
There is going to be a train of events, not a single one.
Is it possible the same mechanic changed both fuel pumps (probably 4 to 6) and did all of them wrong?
I continue to believe something happened (X) and the pilot had to make a decision on abort or not. What X is? all the possibles are open.
The reporting I’ve seen has claimed that the accident aircraft had recent maintenance, possibly extensive. Is that true? I don’t know.
It is interesting that Juan Browne is not saying much
about this accident; not yet, anyway.
Juan usually has more to work with.
His links into track data rarely go to other countries (Vilanus crash aside).
He also clearly is in the wilds of Montana or Wyoming on some kind of vacation.
As for direct insight he is a 777 pilot not a 787 pilot and the 787 systems have their own setup and different than the rest of aircraft he has flown.
@ Casey
You forgot weather, and other extraneous events such as bird strikes, for example.
And the age of the design does not preclude a design flaw. There are many examples of a flaw being discovered only after many years. Concorde and TW800 come to mind, for example.
No blown birds found on runway. No indications of birds coming out the back of the engines nor the associated arcs and sparks.
Concord knew about the problem, they had not instituted a fix.
TWA 800 trigger cause was never determined other than the Center fuel tank blew up.
Call it a system flaw. It was designed to best practices of the day. What was added was another layer of safety in inert gasses.
Other aircraft have blown up on the ramp(s) including as I recall a 737 in Thailand.
Basic fuel says an empty tank is the most dangerous. Hence layers of safety like inert gas.
>Statistically, an aircraft that has never had a crash
>in 15 years will not have another one within a week
That is not how probability or statistics works.
+1
@Matthew
Hazard risk are evaluated per risks per million hours. The arithmetic will tell you how many hours the entire fleet will fly in a week. I think maybe we are talking past each other. The incidental risk will be the same going forward as just occurred as will be next month. The total accumulated risk of a week is statistically insignificant.
I’m not suggesting to blow this off. Far from it. But this is an opportunity to put maximum force on narrowing the range of risk parameters before reacting. 15 years without a crash is not an error. There is no reason to believe that something has turned. Unlike Max this is not EIS.
Statically your failure could happen in the first hour in the million or it could be the last. If there is a failure path, its not happened in a huge amount of flight hours.
The next one could happen tomorrow and then not for another million flgiht hours.
The OA won the first election with a 1 in 4 chance.
BUT there is a NUMBER FOUR!
4) None of the above and independent from the aircraft or pilots.
So hopefully the powers to be recognize that and give it a week or so to review the data recorder before officially grounding the type worldwide.
Take a look at the video referenced below by @Vincent…rather convincing argument for dual engine failure.
Sounds like a BA issue (fuel, FMC,…) rather than a GE issue.
Only convincing assessment is a dual engine lack of thrust.
As to cause, its wide open including bad data input.
Its certainly possible a massive electrical failure would be in Boeing’s area.
Its also possible the flight crew did not react correctly to a lack of thrust.
Thrust may have dropped off further after liftoff but it clearly there was a thrust issue early on.
Is it possible that they hit VR and then thrust was reduced? Yea.
There are really only two explanations for two engines not delivering thrust.
total electrical failure
Commanded reduction for X reasons (program input, computer failure)
Fuel is remotely possible but the above two would be much high possible.
@TW
I have an odd feeling that the fuel flow (or software logic) played a role. Barely making it off the ground indicates there there may have been a bad pump or insufficient flow going on (or FOD in system to clog the lines).
Casey:
I agree but have no proof.
Logic says if there is an issue at the start they would have aborted.
There are systems that tell the pilots that too much runway is being used for the setup.
That then spiral out to, was the data entered right and then did another aspect dealing with thrust manifest.
Someone with the right tools could tell us on the runway view what the acceleration is, no one has reported they did.
All we have solid on is they took the whole runway to get to 174 knots and that is wildly wrong.
Logic says the pilots alarms or not would have understood a failure to perform, but they could have been distracted with a Memory list item.
You sure do not have the time to get to a QRH of the Infamous EICAS
Or a clogged pitot tube
Nothing new here – just a summary of Boeings woes.
I truly hope this crash is not traced back to a systemic issue.
Oh dear — that BA 787 issue earlier today was “flaps failure” :
“British Airways Boeing 787-8 Deamliner to India Dumps Fuels And Makes Unscheduled Landing After Suffering ‘Flaps Failure’”
https://www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2025/06/15/british-airways-boeing-787-8-deamliner-to-india-dumps-fuels-and-makes-unscheduled-landing-after-suffering-flaps-failure/
Interesting, in view of that AA 787 that had four different instances of flaps failure in the past month:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/12/whistleblower-raised-safety-fears-boeing-dreamliner-factory/
For anyone interested: Captain Steeeve has a new video up on YT; its title is “Why the RAT Changes Everything”. 13 min.
Sorry I can’t provide a link on this diabolical new computer..
Voilà!
https://youtu.be/8XYO-mj1ugg?si=r0l2lr_GYLqB4P-Y
Sounds like a very evidence-based, logical analysis/conclusion 👍
Thank you for drawing this video to our attention!
Captain Steve has no more idea of what occurred than the rest of us. We only have some limited facts.
My only input is that its clearly engine related. But that in turn has a lot of other sub causes.
Total electrical loss is one. He dismisses that but it is a cause as the RAT is fail safe held up, loose power (break circuit) and it deploys).
The Pilot can also deploy it.
Engines are all electronic control/ commands, there is no physical link. So an ordered roll back can occur.
And the engines were not delivering correct power from the get go, otherwise they would not have used up the whole runway.
They could have dropped thrust further after rotation.
Ground affect is in play but unknown to what degree. That is why you need speed build up to flight speed, just because it will lift off does not mean it will stay lifted.
The facts known have been listed. None of them explain not enough thrust.
If it stood any chance the nose should have been lowered. Yea I know, but that is the only way to gain any airspeed at that point as bad an option as it is.
Stalling in probably meant fewer deaths on the ground with a protracted path of disruption might have had more passengers alive.
Even the gear down has an alternate explanation. To raise the gear takes a lot of power.
Power they did not have. Its possible the PIC left the gear down because of low power.
If the FDR gets downloaded and translated, we should have a good idea of the happenings though possibly not the explanation for them.
For example, first readout will show you power. But if short of power then you have to look at engine commands, fuel pressure, FASDAC situation.
“Captain Steve has no more idea of what occurred than the rest of us.”
Luckily, he is able to use astute observation, logic, and balanced deduction — unlike some.
Before it was flaps up. Now its not.
Dual engine failure. Ok.
What caused both engines to fail? Or was it lack of thrust but not failure?
You don’t get 174 knots with two engines failed. You can with reduced thrust.
When did the engines fail? Or not produce thrust?
Total elecrial loss would cause the engines to fail, the FASDAC won’t work.
There could well be a decision to leave gear down because they did not have the power to raise it.
Failure means they quit. Reduced thrust means they were having issues.
Same reason engine cams run at half engine speed. There is a reason (4 cycle engines)
The BA 777 failure was due to ice clogging the lines.
Not saying ice is the issue, but lack of fuel (by whatever mechanism will certainly degrade thrust but not cause a complete fail.
Very true and valid.
I just don’t know how you get that on both engines let alone when it occurred and why the actions of the crew.
BUT his first youtube video blamed the pilots and it quickly became clear that he was getting pushback when a number of other videos were critical of his “opinions”. Besides he has just been regurgitating other people’s work and speculations on this particular event. Sometimes he brings in interesting and knowledgeable people that add to the discussion.
Agreed.
No, he didn’t- since his first video expressly stated that his *provisional* conclusions were subject to change as more, solid information
became available.
So, the flaps were retracted and the gear were down. Major configuration error in that stage of the take off, whether pilot/co-pilot error or some system malfunction.
My first thoughts are pilot or co-pilot error.
We do not know the flaps were retracted.
Setting 1 would be zero indication from the rear. In fact the one picture of the slats was at least a Setting 1 deployment.
Setting 5 is so slight in the rear that with the resolution you can not see it.
We don’t know what the pilots were seeing or dealing with issue wise. So saying it was error is simply wrong. Equally the PIC could have made the wrong decision based on what he was seeing.
That is why he is the PIC.
Just an opinion, I think Flaps 10 or more you would have seen it.
Two people I know said Flaps 15 would be normal but what Air India has setup in their 787s no one has said nor what is normal for that Runway length and temp for AI
Flaps cause drag and that uses fuel to overcome and its a balance of economy vs performance.
Pretty good summation. Still put in in a category of lack of thrust not engine failure though lack of thrust could have then lead to loss of all thrust.
https://www.thetimes.com/world/asia/article/new-clues-point-to-engine-failure-for-cause-of-air-india-plane-crash-vhqw6b7v3
Total loss of electrical power not listed but there clearly was more going on that that even if it did occur.
Time to go back to fuel guzzling tri jets and four engine planes….and fewer computers….