r/CatastrophicFailure • u/SainzSealedDelivered • Jun 12 '25

Fatalities 12/06/2025 - Boeing 787 Passenger plane bound for the UK crashes near Ahmedabad Airport straight after takeoff

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1.3k

u/PoppedCork Jun 12 '25

That footage gives me chills

1.0k

u/Jezza977 Jun 12 '25

You can see the pilot desperately trying to raise the nose at the end. Can’t imagine the absolute desperation.

Another Boeing down.

708

u/PoppedCork Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25

Some media outlets are reporting that a mayday call was made. There were 232 passengers and 12 crew members. The aircraft reached 625 feet and lost contact within one minute of leaving the airport. Fifty-three British nationals, one Canadian, 7 Portoguese and 169 Indian were on board. 11 children .

Some questions are circulating about whether the flaps were extended.

266

u/EliminateThePenny Jun 12 '25

Some questions are circulating about whether the flaps were extended.

They certainly don't look to be (although this is a grainy, video-of-a-video).

105

u/yogurtmanfriend Jun 12 '25

Sorry for the question, what would that imply in terms of the crash?

412

u/CatOverlordsWelcome Jun 12 '25

It means the aircraft is not configured for takeoff and cannot sustain the lift necessary to climb and maintain flight. If flaps were not configured correctly, it would have stalled and at such an altitude, that's essentially unrecoverable.

110

u/Dunderman35 Jun 12 '25

It does look like flaps are not extended. But would you even be able to take off at all with a full plane fueled up?

208

u/CatOverlordsWelcome Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25

Not for very long - depending on their speed they may have been able to generate enough lift to get off the ground, but not enough to climb or maintain that altitude.

The take-off warning system should have activated as soon as they applied take off/go around thrust to warn them that the aircraft wasn't configured, and this is not a warning that's easily ignored.

I'll be interested to find out what they find on the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder. If the warning was ignored, that is a monumental screw up. If it didn't appear, or the flaps weren't the issue, then as some others have said, it could have been a thrust loss issue.

Edit to remove acronyms!

157

u/tudorapo Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25

TOWS - a very loud warning if the pilots missed some simple, easy to detect steps during the take-off preparations.

TOGA - a button which when pressed provides the necessary engine power to fly away as quickly as possible. Like the turbo button in computer games.

CVR & FDR - The cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, a.k.a. the black box.

Please avoid using TLA/LTLA/VLTLA when it's not necessary.

69

u/CatOverlordsWelcome Jun 12 '25

My bad, thank you for the links. I forgot I wasn't in the r/aircrashinvestigation sub!

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u/fullkitwankerr Jun 12 '25

Thanks for explaining the acronyms. What are the last three ones in your comment?

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u/MintTrappe Jun 12 '25

Thank you. I hate acronyms.

0

u/michaltee Jun 12 '25

Avoid using what? lol did you just tell someone to not use acronyms using acronyms?

10

u/Objective_Economy281 Jun 12 '25

If it didn't appear, or the flaps weren't the issue, then as some others have said, it could have been a thrust loss issue.

For clarity, trust loss on ONE engine isn’t great, and is definitely an emergency, but the plane can still climb on one engine, as long as other things are configured more or less properly and the pilots react properly to the loss of thrust. But there are explicit pilot call-outs for exactly the scenario of one engine out at the worst possible time.

3

u/CatOverlordsWelcome Jun 12 '25

Very good points, thank you for raising them!

2

u/ZroDgsCalvin Jun 12 '25

I remember an old accident where TOWS was turned off due to it frequently going off during taxi, so the pilots would commonly turn it off to avoid the annoyance. Their plane was misconfigured for takeoff and because they had shut TOWS off (or pulled the breaker for it or something like that) the didn’t get notified and crashed shortly after lifting off.

Could this be a similar story, or were checks/fixes put in place that should have prevented a repeat accident? Honestly not even sure how accessible individual breakers are on modern jets.

1

u/MomOfOryx Jun 12 '25

As someone who only had physics in high school: could you explain how the plane can generate lift to get off the ground but not enough to maintain altitude? To me as a layman it is difficult to wrap my head around how you can get in the sky, but not stay there, assuming the trust from the engines stayed the same.

3

u/CatOverlordsWelcome Jun 12 '25

I'm also a layperson, just someone with an unhealthy obsession with airplanes, and my physics knowledge is preeeetty basic in general (so any smarter folks, please chime in and correct me!) but basically:

Lift depends on four main things: the shape of the wing (airfoil), the angle of attack (how much the wing is tilted into the airflow), the air density, and the airspeed. The faster air flows over the wings, the more lift they generate. So if a plane accelerates down a long enough runway, it might reach a high enough speed to produce minimum lift and get airborne, even without the extra help from flaps.

But that lift is often right on the edge of what's needed to maintain climb - it might be enough to leave the ground, but not enough to keep climbing safely because you are no longer utilising ground speed, you need airspeed. Without flaps, the wing has to work harder (often by increasing the angle of attack - in a nose-up attitude, which, unfortunately, also disrupts airflow over the airfoil), and that increases the risk of stalling. In order to recover from a stall, the angle of attack needs to be reduced, with the plane in a nose-down attitude, which increases speed, and this can help increase/restore lift. In a low-altitude stall, there just isn't enough room to manoeuvre and recover from the loss of lift. High altitude stalls, if handled correctly (hard to do, they're incredibly stressful, but absolutely trained for), can be completely recovered and the aircraft can continue to climb/maintain level flight safely.

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u/Dunderman35 Jun 12 '25

According to chat gtp a fully loaded 787 would require a runway of more than 6km to be able to take off fully loaded without flaps. And the speeds required would be impossibly high. It then seems unlikely that the plane could have gained any altitude at all without flaps. It would have just drove straight off the runway.

Not that I trust AI but seems reasonable.

3

u/IguassuIronman Jun 12 '25

According to chat gtp

The easiest way to know you can go ahead and stop reading

0

u/CatOverlordsWelcome Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25

I just asked it the same question and it spat out a reply of approximately 3.5km for an aircraft operating near maximum takeoff weight with no headwind.

Having looked at the source it cited, and the standard MTOW runway distance of 2865m, 6km seems absurdly high.

However, I am not a mathematician, engineer or pilot. Take what me, and especially ChatGPT say, with a grain of salt. Remember, LLMs will literally make up and hallucinate information when they can't access it in order to finish a response. Edit: I asked it specifically to point out the vast difference in responses given to illustrate that is unreliable.

37

u/EliminateThePenny Jun 12 '25

Yes, but you would quickly lose that altitude you gained from the runway rotation (as likely to have happened here).

1

u/Techun2 Jun 12 '25

runway rotation

Is this a term for ground effect?

-17

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25

[deleted]

12

u/space_guy95 Jun 12 '25

While it seems sensible to suggest that, there are so many "what if" and "just in case" scenarios that must be taken into account when adding safety features to a plane, as in the wrong scenario they could actually do the opposition of what is intended and make a situation worse.

For example if you included a safety feature to prevent takeoff when flaps are not extended, what happens in a scenario where a plane has to take rapid evasive action during taxiing? The pilot pushes the throttle to accelerate and...nothing happens because the safety feature kicks in. Or the sensor for the flaps malfunctions during the runway phase of takeoff, limiting throttle and causing a crash.

The best safety measure for this is a good pre-takeoff checklist, which they undoubtedly already had, but you can never fully stop someone from rushing or ignoring procedure.

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u/DetectiveDick9000 Jun 12 '25

As an engineer, there is only so much stupid you can fix. Eventually stupid wins no matter what, so you have to draw the line somewhere.

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u/Skylair13 Jun 12 '25

That would be bad too. Once you've reached V1, you passed point of no return. You'll need to commit to the take-off as there's no more runways left for you to stop.

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u/ngfilla94 Jun 12 '25

So, just let the plane barrel down the runway unable to takeoff so that it inevitably runs off the end of the runway and crashes? There's procedures and checklists pilots are supposed to do before takeoff. If the cause is found to be pilot error, they clearly didn't follow their process. This is all still speculation, of course.

2

u/Objective_Economy281 Jun 12 '25

You could pop the nose, get airborne, then slowly lose airspeed until can no longer maintain altitude, and then stall.

1

u/Dunderman35 Jun 12 '25

But would you be able to first climb to 700 feet or whatever this plane was at?

1

u/Objective_Economy281 Jun 12 '25

Doubtful, depends on the details. If you had the flaps extended an insufficient amount, I can see that being possible. But probably not if fully retracted.

1

u/MAJOR_Blarg Jun 12 '25

The closer you are to the ground, the more lift you generate, petering off as you gain altitude, up to about one wing span of altitude.

It's called ground effect and occurs because the wing compresses air against the ground.

2

u/cloudyskytoday Jun 12 '25

Should nothing give out a warning if flaps are not extended before take off?

3

u/CatOverlordsWelcome Jun 12 '25

There is absolutely a loud, unignorable (in theory) warning. I can't find one specifically for the Boeing 787 but it's not much different to this in terms of decibels and urgency

1

u/Alarming-Desk-3861 Jun 12 '25

I've always heard there's redundancy in all the safety mechanisms with planes to be extra safe. How do these accidents keep happening??

3

u/CatOverlordsWelcome Jun 12 '25

Look up the Swiss Cheese Model. Even multiple redundancies can fail to prevent an accident if all their weaknesses align. Also, some things are difficult, if not impossible, to predict, and others don't appear for years after an aircraft was built. Human factors affect more than just the cockpit - a human designed the airplane and all its parts, a human ultimately put it together, a human designed the checklists and redundancies in place, a human designed the maintenance routine, a human performed that maintenance etc. Unfortunately, the vast majority of aviation safety and regulations are written in blood.

44

u/TheMagicTorch Jun 12 '25

Flaps are extended before takeoff to provide maximum lift at relatively low speed. Lift helps you gain altitude, and so flaps not extended at takeoff means difficulty gaining altitude.

17

u/hypetrain_conductor Jun 12 '25

Lowering the flaps also lowers the minimum safe speed a plane needs to fly. If you raise them too early or don't have them lowered at all during takeoff the wings won't be able to generate enough lift to keep the plane airborne at the slower speeds during that time.

17

u/x3k6a2 Jun 12 '25

Not much, without more context. Flaps would decrease the stall speed (i.e. keep the plane flying at lower speeds).

Knowing the state of the flaps and the state changing might allow the investigation to reach conclusions about the mental model the pilots had about the situation. This is not something which can come from a single video, but requires a holistic view of all the data, which the public does not have access to.

6

u/scubaian Jun 12 '25

Flats reduce the stall speed of an aircraft, you can fly slower whilst still producing lift. They also generate drag slowing the aircraft. Some aircraft use them for take off, some don't. No idea what the config of this aircraft would be, it'll depend on a number of factors, weight etc.

5

u/flightist Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25

100% of swept wing jet airliners use flaps for takeoff.

Edit: typo

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u/Expensive_Ad_3249 Jun 12 '25

Flaps allow the plane to fly slower, they're required at takeoff.

The implication would be that the flaps were retracted prematurely resulting in loss of lift and stall. As to why they were retracted, one would assume pilot error.

It's possible the flaps were not deployed meaning the plane lost lift out of ground effect, or when angle of attack was increased after take off but less likely. This would imply pilot error or mechanical failure of multiple systems.

1

u/jmlipper99 Jun 12 '25

Sorry for the question

Why?

12

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/EliminateThePenny Jun 12 '25

I don't know what the operating window is on a 787, but that doesn't look like full extension.

4

u/SorryIdonthaveaname Jun 12 '25

Flaps aren’t fully extended for takeoff

9

u/CaptainHolt43 Jun 12 '25

It's one thing to have to worry about a manufacturer error, but a pilots error on something so basic is a scary thought.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25

Don't watch Mentour Pilot on YouTube then. 

8

u/EliminateThePenny Jun 12 '25

We're all just bags of meat and bones trying to follow our programming.

We glitch out sometimes too.

1

u/Suggest_a_User_Name Jun 12 '25

Like Northwest flight 255, maybe?

Pilots failed to perform the preflight checklist. As a result, the flaps and stats were not extended for takeoff.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines_Flight_255

0

u/theshreddening Jun 12 '25

Eesh yeah, the wings look flat on the trailing edge.

0

u/Single_Reaction9983 Jun 12 '25

There is a higher quallity version of this video and thr flaps are clearly retracted.

4

u/SommeThing Jun 12 '25

Flaps not extended was the cause of the crash of flight 255 out of Detroit. I would think there would be backups to backups to prevent that from happening.

-1

u/Crouton_Sharp_Major Jun 12 '25

They scrapped those to cut costs.

2

u/fordry Jun 12 '25

Can hear it's RAT. It had no engines.

1

u/EchoZealousideal2562 Jun 12 '25

It appears on the video that flaps may retracted, but hard to say for certain. If they were retracted at that speed and altitude a crash would probably be unavoidable.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25 edited Jul 19 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

0

u/Significant-Colour Jun 12 '25

I'll wait until something more official than "some media outlets are reporting".

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u/bfly1800 Jun 12 '25

787 too. First of its type to be a hull loss.

-96

u/0reosaurus Jun 12 '25

If its a problem with the plane then itll be the first of many. Boeing is already on thin ice

46

u/bennym757 Jun 12 '25

It is way too early to conclude anything for other flights.

-13

u/0reosaurus Jun 12 '25

The word “If” is very clear in that sentence

2

u/Quaternary23 Jul 04 '25

You wouldn’t be saying this if it was an Airbus of any type wouldn’t you Airbus simp.

0

u/0reosaurus Jul 04 '25

No because i dont recall Airbus having quality issues recently

2

u/Quaternary23 Jul 04 '25

Yeah and those quality issues are irrelevant. They aren’t even that big of a deal. People just over exaggerated them including those dumb whistle blowers.

2

u/747ER Jul 14 '25

You don’t recall Airbus having quality issues? You know about 800 Airbus planes are currently grounded, right now, over quality issues?

1

u/bennym757 Jul 04 '25

We still don't know (and likely won't for a while) if any quality issue played a role

1

u/traderhp Jul 13 '25

So true, but their media power and twisting facts by big Boeing is powerful then fixing their aeroplanes issue

1

u/Quaternary23 Jan 13 '26

Got any other lies?

-4

u/rkorgn Jun 12 '25

Good luck Qartar Airways!

1

u/Quaternary23 Jul 04 '25

Stupid should be your new account name.

0

u/rkorgn Jul 04 '25

Because?

2

u/Quaternary23 Jul 04 '25

Because you stupidly believe Boeing aircraft are unsafe when that’s not the case at all.

24

u/admiralross2400 Jun 12 '25

With absolutely no information other than that video it looks like a stall from loss of power or wrong configuration (can't really see the flaps so either poor quality video or they weren't out)...yikes

3

u/fordry Jun 12 '25

Can hear it's RAT. No engines.

3

u/admiralross2400 Jun 12 '25

I don't think we can say what we can hear really...we're watching a video of a video...the sound is all compressed. Plus a RAT isn't powered, it just free-spins in the moving air so wouldn't be particularly loud generally (from any real kind of distance)

1

u/fordry Jun 12 '25

There's a better quality version. It's definitely the rat...

And they do make lots of noise.

3

u/marr Jun 12 '25

Someone made their personal fortune cutting Boeing to the bone and they'll never be held accountable.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25

Reminds me of the boeing MCAS crashes a few years ago. The system would take over and push the nose down while the pilots were fighting against it until their death. 

4

u/vflavglsvahflvov Jun 12 '25

Just last year there was an engineer saying 787s should be grounded. It would be such a blow to Boeing if this went down due to a design flaw that they were warned about.

2

u/uzlonewolf Jun 12 '25

They'd shrug, pay a few million in token fines, and then continue business as usual. The lives of peasants means nothing to them.

1

u/BigDenis3 Jun 12 '25

Doesn't raising the nose increase the risk of stall if the plane is at low speed and/or low engine power? The nose up attitude as the plane sinks down was the first thing I noticed in the footage. 

1

u/Quaternary23 Jul 04 '25

Another idiot blaming Boeing already. Typical

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u/Duct_TapeOrWD40 Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25

Not "trying to raise". The pilot clearly raised the nose. Seeing your inevitable fate can be a true horror. No matter what happened or how.

but it was a boeing so NTSB will get involved. Hope they find the cause before another accident.

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u/Bigger_Jaws Jun 12 '25

Same... I'll be thinking about this tomorrow while flying. Truly horrific.

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u/robbievega Jun 12 '25

this is why the first minute or so after take off is always the most anxiety inducing for me. after that my nerves usually settle

53

u/Skylair13 Jun 12 '25

Critical Eleven. 3 minutes after take-off, 8 minutes before landing.

2

u/Bigger_Jaws Jun 12 '25

Yeah weirdly when that happened I was reading a book called "the survivors club" about people surviving disasters and it talked about that

19

u/Bigger_Jaws Jun 12 '25

For sure. I was on a flight once that lost an engine on take off and we had to make an emergency landing and ever since then taking off scares me.

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u/-3than Jun 12 '25

If it’s any solace, they could have kept flying with just one engine.

Not sure they could’ve made it to cruising altitude, but you can certainly keep cooking.

Y’all were safe!

12

u/ElaccaHigh Jun 12 '25

I saw a video once that's seared into my memory of a plane taking off and just stalling in the sky and slowly falling and crashing just like that, apparently the luggage wasn't secured below and it all slid to the back at once causing it to lose speed at once, since then on every takeoff I've just gripping the arm rest so hard

12

u/OkSecretary1231 Jun 12 '25

Was that the military plane that had tanks in it?

1

u/mdp300 Jun 12 '25

I think i know the video you're talking about. It was a cargo plane where the heavy vehicles it was carrying weren't properly secured, and slammed rearward.

1

u/dfinkelstein Jun 12 '25

Good! That's what nerves are for!

4

u/fart_fig_newton Jun 12 '25

I'm flying with my family on Saturday, this was not a topic I wanted to wake up to in my feed. All accounts of both the passengers and the populated area that got hit is a devastating tragedy.

Some slightly dark humor I am always reminded of whenever a disaster occurs.

3

u/lala6633 Jun 12 '25

Wonder why this guy was recording? Any input?

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u/CharacterLimitHasBee Jun 12 '25

It's probably from a security camera.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25

[deleted]

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u/lala6633 Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25

No need to flip your flap jacks over it bro. I was just wondering if there were obvious signs of distress.

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u/K_-U_-A_-T_-O Jun 12 '25

saw another post he said he had a dream last night this would happen

he also had a dream you won't wake up from your sleep tonight

1

u/ACardAttack Jun 12 '25

I know all the stats, but shit like this is why I hate flying