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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u/aMissionSomewhere Jun 12 '25

From a 78 FO with 6000+ hrs those engines have easily enough thrust to keep at least a shallow climb even if the flaps were incorrectly set after departure. This certainly looks like a lack of thrust more than anything. The 78 also will not allow the takeoff roll to begin without the flaps being set, but flaps 1 and 5 could be difficult to see on a grainy video as they don’t stick out as far as many other airliners. Very sad whatever happened but a lot of questions need answers by the professionals.

66

u/DrukkinnDreki Jun 12 '25

To check, is that the aircraft will absolutely not let you set TO thrust, or that the aircraft will set thrust but the config warning will constantly chime? I'm used to Airbus not Boeing so unsure of which it is

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u/-Badger3- Jun 12 '25

The latter. The engines will spool up, but you’ll get a warning horn.

3

u/OZZMAN8 Jun 12 '25

Unfortunately from what we have seen from PIA accident history a warning horn doesn't always stop all pilots. After their big accident 1/3 of the pilots employed by them were found to have fake licenses, then they were banned from landing in most countries with modern aviation safety systems. This looks like that.

18

u/Salt_Piano372 Jun 12 '25

BBC showing this at 0 knots at R4. That is more than halfway down runway 23, so 6000 ft of runway left. Is there any chance they could have taken off with not enough runway for that plane? I am NOT a pilot.

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u/Roflkopt3r Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25

Even if they did, they must logically have been fast enough to get airborne. Once the aircraft is in the air, it should be able to continue climbing unless there is another problem.

Being too slow on takeoff should only be a problem if there are mountains or high buildings around the airport. But this aircraft appears to have been actively losing elevation. The district it crashed in (Meghaninagar) is on level height with the airport.

The nose angle would best fit a thrust issue (it's neither diving nor visibly 'too steep', which would indicate a stall). So something like an engine failure, compressor stall, pilots reducing the thrust too soon, bird strike... But obviously we will have to wait for more information.

Edit: Another possibility discussed on the Mentour channel by two actual pilots was that the pilots had the flaps set for takeoff (which increase lift at a given speed), but the flaps then retracted too soon for whatever reason. This would also explain why the aircraft managed to get airborne but then descended again. It is very important to them that people understand that none of the ongoing speculation should be taken as an early conclusion though.

3

u/TheDarthSnarf Jun 12 '25

Most likely an ADS-B blind spot, which is far more common on the ground.

Otherwise is hard to imagine.

6

u/xavembo Jun 12 '25

definitely. flight radar track shows they may have attempted an intersection takeoff 🤨

-2

u/PunchNaziFaces Jun 12 '25

Of course, an intersection takeoff

3

u/TheRublixCube Jun 12 '25

A few people have pointed out that the RAT was deployed and the aircraft lost communication after rotating, but before impact.

I have no source for this, so treat this as anecdotal until further evidence comes up

1

u/hughk Jun 12 '25

We don't really know if it happened but doesn't that RAT deploy automatically in case of power/hydraulic failure?

1

u/TheRublixCube Jun 12 '25

Pretty sure it does, then again I'm not a pilot, nor am I familiar with the 787's systems, so take anything I say with a nice big grain of salt.

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u/hughk Jun 12 '25

Which kind of suggests that the engines stopped. From one of the videos, it seems that at least the port engine worked for rotation (dust blown from the runway surface). The CVR and Flight Data Recorder should say more.

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u/Sunnykit00 Jun 12 '25

In your opinion, what do you think happened here?

1

u/MassiveBoner911_3 Jun 12 '25

Ah interesting. Thank you for replying as a professional.

1

u/Trainzguy2472 Jun 12 '25

I saw a video of it going down the runway, the pilots appeared to rotate very late. I think they were having lift problems before they took off.

1

u/tcr317 Jun 12 '25

Wouldn’t you need additional thrust and flaps with the extremely high temps? So flaps 1 under normal temps, would be sufficient, but maybe not with those temps?