Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner just crushed in India right after take off. Again Boeing.

[Moses]

The Boeing 787-8 was heading to London with 242 people on board.

 

 

[Moses]

UPD: that Boeing crashed onto medical college. As per posts in twitters: "a lot of died students".

 

[PeterRS]

Deleted

[unicorn]

6 hours ago, Moses said:

UPD: that Boeing crashed onto medical college. As per posts in twitters: "a lot of died students".

[unicorn]

Not that I'm a fan of Boeing, but as far as I've heard, there's been no cause assigned to this accident as of this time. 

[Keithambrose]

19 minutes ago, unicorn said:

Not that I'm a fan of Boeing, but as far as I've heard, there's been no cause assigned to this accident as of this time. 

Suggestion currently that pilot retracted flaps too early. That was a cause of the  BA Trident crash at Staines in 1972. Amazingly, they have found a survivor,  it seems.

[unicorn]

23 minutes ago, Keithambrose said:

Suggestion currently that pilot retracted flaps too early. That was a cause of the  BA Trident crash at Staines in 1972. Amazingly, they have found a survivor,  it seems.

If that's the case, this suggestion would point more towards the hazards of flying with carriers of developing countries, rather than a Boeing problem itself, similar to crashes we hear of regarding Indonesian airlines, etc. Air India carries less than 10% of the number of travelers that American Airlines carries, yet has more than its fair share of incidents. I suspect that the rigor of vetting air pilots differs between the US and India, and that's probably largely responsible for the difference. 

[PeterRS]

At the moment everything is speculation and all we can do is grieve for the dead.

The Professional Pilots website pprune.org has a number of thoughts. One is that a full 787 with nearly 100 tons of fuel on board (the figure from Indian sources) took off without using the full length of the runway. The website Flight Radar shows it started its take off roll half way down the runway - far too short for such a heavy aircraft. Apparently this is qute comon at this airport, but only for quite lightly loaded aircraft. Normally heavy aircraft would back track to the end of the runway to give it sufficient time to gain the speed essential for take off. 

Another pilot suggests that the landing gear should not have been in the down position by that time since take off. He goes on to suggest that someone in the cockpit may have tretracted the flaps rather than the landing gear. But all we know is that the aircraft was not sufficiently high to continue flying. We therefore must await the outcome of the black box analysis.

[unicorn]

In either case, there doesn't seem to be any suspicion this had anything to do with the aircraft itself, and they said on the news that the 787 has never previously been involved with any crash. 

[a-447]

The problem of the weight of the aircraft was exacerbated by the high temperature of 40 degrees.

[khaolakguy]

4 hours ago, unicorn said:

In either case, there doesn't seem to be any suspicion this had anything to do with the aircraft itself, and they said on the news that the 787 has never previously been involved with any crash. 

Early to be saying this. There is also speculation about a massive power failure on board. Time will tell.

[tm_nyc]

7 hours ago, unicorn said:

they said on the news that the 787 has never previously been involved with any crash. 

The 787 has been in service for 14 years with no previous serious accidents.

Someone pointed out that the landing gear on the plane had not been retracted as it normally would have been which is another indication of a major systems failure.

[khaolakguy]

The survivor has said that 30 seconds before the crash there was a loud bang on board.................

[unicorn]

7 hours ago, khaolakguy said:

The survivor has said that 30 seconds before the crash there was a loud bang on board.................

From the New York Times:

“I still can’t believe how I got out alive,” Mr. Ramesh said on Friday in an interview from his hospital bed with India’s state broadcaster, Doordarshan. “I thought I was also about to die.”

Mr. Ramesh, who was seated in an exit row, said the plane had felt “stuck five or 10 seconds after takeoff,” and it seemed to be trying to accelerate when it crashed.

The front of the plane, after hitting buildings, crashed into an open area, he said, while the tail was stuck in a building, which was later identified as the dining facility of a medical college.

Mr. Ramesh said he unbuckled his seatbelt after the crash when he saw a chance for escape. He did not make clear whether he had to open the emergency exit he was sitting next to, or if the impact had caused it to open.

“When my door broke, I saw there was some space — that I could try to get out,” he said in the interview. “The other side, people couldn’t get out, as it was crushed against a wall.”

[unicorn]

13 hours ago, a-447 said:

The problem of the weight of the aircraft was exacerbated by the high temperature of 40 degrees.

It'll be interesting to find out the actual cause, when that's been determined...