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[–] lividweasel@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (6 children)

It never got higher than a few hundred feet. It took off and then just slowly drifted down and hit the ground.

One expert suspected a possible takeoff config issue, like flaps and slats not being set correctly. It did appear sluggish to lift off, and seemed to have a lack of lift once in the air, so I’d be inclined to agree.

There should be warnings to prevent that, because it’s a known issue that has been the cause of high-profile crashes before, so it will be interesting to hear what the ultimate cause turns out to be.

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[–] torrentialgrain@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

There’s frames in the multiple videos where you can see the slats in Takeoff Config - flaps are hard to see on a 787 because they don’t deploy that much on takeoff.

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[–] r00ty@kbin.life 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah. The suggestion I saw was that instead of retracting the gear they mistakenly retracted the flaps.

Now in the video the wings do look quite flat. But yes, it would be hard to say for sure in a video of that quality at that distance.

The descent looks (to my untrained flight sim eyes) to be controlled albeit without power.

At 400ft agl they had very little options most likely. Not even much choice in what they hit.

Very sad all round.

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[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Got a dumb question.

Is Vr the same for regular and short take off landing procedures? I was under the impression that they were different, and therefore you wouldn’t actually get off the ground if you required short take off (IIRC most passenger planes are short take off to minimize runway distance).

The other thing is, checking flaps is part of the standard preflight checklist. I don’t know if you can see the flaps for the 787 from the cockpit or not. Take following with silo of salt because I do not hold an ATP, but if you can’t, out sounds like another Air India maintenance catatrophe

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[–] Moose@moose.best 5 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

So the VR speed for a 787 isn't going to be set like a Cessna 172, it's going to be a calculated value depending on weight, temperature, etc. The computers will calculate this speed for you before flight, assuming all info is input correctly.

The cockpit won't be able to see the flaps visually but will have a digital indicator that shows the position. During pre take-off checks one of the procedures would be to check this indicator for the correct setting.

With the very limited available info and the fact that video shows it slowly descending without obvious external mechanical issues, my initial guess is on pilot or computer error.

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[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

Some people were saying, based on a video of the crash that it might have been mechanical, as they heard the sound of the RAT that only deploys on double engine failure.

Also, wouldn't a bad config cause a full-on stall? It seemed more of a controlled glide to me.

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[–] acchariya@lemmy.world 1 point 1 year ago

It looked like they lost power in both engines, but hard to tell without audio. I was thinking bird strike, but couldn't see birds in the CCTV video. Looked to be a cloud of dust or something just on rotation.