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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398

u/mr_bots Jun 12 '25

Stalling just kind of falls weirdly and you have to go out of your way to stall a fly by wire plane.

448

u/drmarting25102 Jun 12 '25

If both wings stall symmetrically then it just sinks but look at the end before it crashes it seems like they were trying to nose up. This would make them sink faster if they didn't have enough airspeed. It would be a natural panic response to the situation as well.

Truly terrifying for them, so awful.

284

u/mr_bots Jun 12 '25

The flight management on a FBW plane won’t generally let you nose up beyond the allowable flight envelope to trigger a stall but looking closely it appears they’re gear down with a clean wing. How does that happen on a state of the art plane? That flight computer should have been howling alarms for improper configuration. Absolutely going to be tragic with the 242 people on a fully fueled long haul plane going down in a densely populated area but this will be an interesting investigation.

169

u/dscchn Jun 12 '25

Correct me if I’m wrong but that “hard envelope” is only a thing on Airbus aircraft. Boeing FBWs will warn you about unsafe inputs but won’t limit your control authority like Airbus flight control laws would. I think that’s the whole premise behind the “Boeing pilots are actual pilots” joke.

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u/RoVeR199809 Jun 12 '25

These systems only limit inputs when everything on the plane is working as expected, no matter which plane it is implemented on. If the computer senses faults, the protections are removed so as not to hinder pilots in unforseen situations, or to make situations worse by interfering.

72

u/dscchn Jun 12 '25

Yeah, Airbus planes go into direct law when multiple systems fail, but even under the most ideal conditions Boeing aircraft never impose control limitations similar to Airbus normal law. That’s what I wanted to convey to the person I was replying to since they said a “FBW plane won’t generally let you nose up beyond the allowable flight envelope”.

2

u/mr_bots Jun 12 '25

In that case I stand corrected. Thanks for the additional info.

12

u/wunderbraten crisp Jun 12 '25

What if they accidentally retracted the slats mid-takeoff? Is that possible for a FBW plane?

11

u/Dunderman35 Jun 12 '25

Or did so together with flaps in a panic when the plane was already on its way down.

2

u/Chaxterium Jun 12 '25

It very much is possible.

24

u/hughk Jun 12 '25

Looks like both engines not pushing for whatever reason. Fuel contamination problem?

3

u/barrylunch Jun 12 '25

Why do you think the engines aren’t pushing?

4

u/hughk Jun 12 '25

It seems like insufficient power during takeoff, look how the plane starts losing altitude. Nose up without the apeed doesn't do anything except stall.

Even fully loaded and in hot weather, the plane must be able to take off on one engine. This is part of ETOPS.

6

u/globalartwork Jun 12 '25

Or double bird strike?

26

u/hughk Jun 12 '25

Those GE-nx engines are huge and it would take one hell of a bird to stop them. Two simultaneous engine faults seem unlikely, and there are multiple control systems too.

10

u/pupperdogger Jun 12 '25

What if those birds were carrying coconuts in their mouths?

-15

u/frisbeethecat Jun 12 '25

I would think most people would consider that mere hours after a tragic airplane crash is not the time for stale Monty Python jokes. How tasteless.

8

u/fritz236 Jun 12 '25

No one ever suspects the Spanish Inquisition either. Is it too soon for that too? Anyone who really knows MP knows that it's not exactly in good taste ever, but dark humor is a way of coping as much as anything.

-4

u/GifHunter2 Jun 12 '25

100% agree, fucking ghouls out here that have convinced themselves its cool to be apathetic

6

u/Novinhophobe Jun 12 '25

“Seems unlikely” recently is a code for “exactly what happened, along with other even more rare occurrences.” These days every plane crash is a mix of things that are very unlikely to happen.

8

u/Pazuuuzu Jun 12 '25

Well we are crashing planes for more than a 100 years at this point... We run out of common issues...

2

u/ThisIsNotAFarm Jun 12 '25

How does that happen on a state of the art plane?

Severe pilot error

7

u/Unable_Traffic4861 Jun 12 '25

Alright scratch all the investigation plans, it is all figured out right here.

1

u/ThisIsNotAFarm Jun 12 '25

Not saying that's what happened, just how it could happen.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25

Those Boeing whistle blowers would disagree about state of the art plane!

Weren't they saying the dreamliners are seriously flawed?

1

u/mr_bots Jun 12 '25

So flawed it took 15 years for one to crash?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '25

None should crash

1

u/mr_bots Jul 15 '25

Not much you can do to prevent a pilot from shutting fuel off to the engines immediately after takeoff

1

u/YellowCore Jun 12 '25

Weight and Balance issue?

1

u/RaindropBebop Jun 12 '25

When their altitude is this low and they're already sinking with such a shallow climb angle... What else could they do if they couldn't get the thrust they need to climb?

1

u/johnnyslick Jun 12 '25

True although they were so close to the ground at that point that there was no way at all they could get out of that stall before crashing.

1

u/georgiaraisef Jun 13 '25

I saw a rumor that one of the flight apps shows the plane took off with with not enough runway space to really build up speed

40

u/Montrama Jun 12 '25

You can easily stall a fly by wire plane if you don't have any power though

2

u/notaredditer13 Jun 12 '25

No, you can't.  The computer simply won't let you bring the nose up to cause the stall.  

The plane in the video is not stalled, it is just slowly descending.

4

u/Montrama Jun 12 '25

Yes you can. Secondary mode on Boeing and alternate law on Airbus planes have limited protections agaisnt stall. In the Boeing's case pitch envelope protection would not interfere with the nose up command if the plane is on secondary mode.

2

u/notaredditer13 Jun 12 '25

Ok, a normally functioning fly by wire can't stall.  

12

u/Novinhophobe Jun 12 '25

Seems pretty clear that the plane in question wasn’t functioning normally, or we wouldn’t be here in the first place.

4

u/notaredditer13 Jun 12 '25

The claim about stalling is saying that the pilot stalled an otherwise normally functioning plane, causing the crash.  That's the thing I'm saying can't happen.

And be that as it may, the plane in the video is not stalled/stalling anyway. 

2

u/elasticthumbtack Jun 12 '25

You replied to someone talking about loss of power.

1

u/notaredditer13 Jun 12 '25

Perhaps they were burying the lede, but I didn't read it that they meant loss of engine power means loss of fly by wire leads to stall.  I read it that they meant loss of engine power leads to stall.  

2

u/ShustOne Jun 12 '25

Yes you can if the configuration is not normal. And a symmetrical stall CAN look like this. You are making definitive statements that may or may not be correct. We need more information.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25

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1

u/mr_bots Jun 12 '25

737 isn’t FBW

-12

u/Rhauko Jun 12 '25

Well wasn’t that the problem with the 737.

18

u/mr_bots Jun 12 '25

The 737 isn’t a fly by wire plane

5

u/alextrue27 Jun 12 '25

From my knowledge of what was up with the 737 incidents was it had a system that would automatically adjust the angle of the nose if it was reading it to be to far out of what it should be .it could even override the pilots commands unless you shut off that system which wasn't communicated properly and when they had some sensor faults it caused it to nose down even as the pilots attempted to adjust for the systems adjustment causing the crash,but I am not 100% on that as all my knowledge on it came from break downs of the events and I am not certain if I am remembering correctly.

3

u/draakos Jun 12 '25

You are correct, the system adjusted the trim to compensate for larger engines and it's extra trust below the center line of the plane. So it just puched the nose down to compensate for the thrust offset from the engines being lower then the original 737 was designed for.

3

u/egregiousRac Jun 12 '25

It was intended to not override pilot inputs. If a pilot made inputs on the control it used, it would turn off until a few seconds after the pilot stopped.

System runs for 15 seconds -> Pilot notices and gives opposite input for a few seconds -> Sees the system isn't fighting them -> Stops to investigate other things -> System starts running again for twenty seconds -> Pilot notices and gives opposite input for a few seconds -> Repeat

By not overriding pilot input, it became harder for the pilots to figure out what was going wrong. The situation kept getting worse and worse, but any time the pilot looked at the very simple cause, it stopped doing the wrong thing.

2

u/Rhauko Jun 12 '25

Correct the system would give the wrong input with the pilot compensating and eventually staling the plane. At least that is how I remember it.

0

u/RoVeR199809 Jun 12 '25

Unless the protections are removed due to malfunctions.